Somewhere way back in the dim recesses of history, but long before any living editor or cartoonist could possibly remember and draw lessons from, a Senator from Virginia referred to an antagonist as a Macaca. Naturally he was innocent of all intent:
During a speech, Allen paused, then began referring to Sidarth:
? This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and it's great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come. [...] Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.[20] ?
According to Sidarth, he was the only non-white person present among the crowd of 100 or so Republican supporters, some of whom applauded Allen's remarks.[20]
The Webb campaign accused Allen of using a racial insult; macaca has been identified as a Francophone epithet for North African indigenes, and commentators have suggested that he may have heard the slur from his mother, Henrietta "Etty" Allen, who is a pied-noir, or North African (in Allen's case, a Tunisian) of French descent.[21] During a televised debate on September 18, reporter Peggy Fox asked Allen if he had learned the slur from his mother; Etty Allen denied that she had ever used the word before.[22]
According to the Washington Post, Allen's campaign manager initially dismissed the incident with an expletive. Allen later said that he had heard his staff use the term macaca in reference to Sidarth, that he did not know what the word meant, and that he did not intend to insult Sidarth's ethnicity when he singled him out to the crowd. "I do apologize if he's offended by that," Allen said, adding that "I would never want to demean him as an individual."[20]
Shortly after, Allen's campaign held that he used the word in reference to Sidarth's hairstyle. Although Sidarth was wearing a baseball cap on the day of the incident,[23] he had been conversing casually with Allen's aides during campaign stops before the incident.[24] Allen's campaign staff claim to have referred to him privately as "Mohawk".[20] A now widely disseminated photo of Sidarth,[25] hosted by the Webb campaign, shows Sidarth's hair to be longer in the middle and shaved on the sides, typical of a mohawk.
On August 15, 2006, John Reid, Allen's communications director, told the New York Times that members of Allen's campaign had "good-naturedly" nicknamed Sidarth "Mohawk" when speaking among themselves, but could not explain how the word might have morphed into macaca.[26] Reid told the Times that Sidarth only received a nickname from Allen campaign staff because he would not give his real name. Interviewed that day on CNN, however, Sidarth recalled shaking Allen's hand earlier in the week and giving his name. "He's very good with names, legendarily. He tries very hard to remember peoples' names when meeting them," Sidarth said. As for the macaca remark, "I am disappointed that someone like a Senator of the United States could use something [so] completely offensive."[27]
On August 16, 2006, the National Journal reported that two Virginia Republicans who heard the word used by Allen's campaign staff said macaca was a neologism created from mohawk and caca, Spanish and French slang for excrement. The National Journal quoted a Republican close to the campaign saying, "In other words, [Sidarth] was a shit-head, an annoyance."[28]
By August 20, 2006, Allen began insisting that he had never before heard the word, and that he simply made it up, contrary to original explanations from Allen and his staff.[29][17][30]
After several public apologies, Allen called Sidarth twelve days after the incident, on August 23, to apologize directly for his remarks. Allen's campaign manager Dick Wadhams has continued to blame opponent Webb, the media, and Allen's "leftist" foes for a "feeding frenzy."[31] The incident reduced Allen's once-broad polling margin over Webb to single digits.[32
-----
But crap, that was 2006. It just sucks when you can't be a racist asshole and not get called on it.
During a speech, Allen paused, then began referring to Sidarth:
? This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and it's great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come. [...] Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.[20] ?
According to Sidarth, he was the only non-white person present among the crowd of 100 or so Republican supporters, some of whom applauded Allen's remarks.[20]
The Webb campaign accused Allen of using a racial insult; macaca has been identified as a Francophone epithet for North African indigenes, and commentators have suggested that he may have heard the slur from his mother, Henrietta "Etty" Allen, who is a pied-noir, or North African (in Allen's case, a Tunisian) of French descent.[21] During a televised debate on September 18, reporter Peggy Fox asked Allen if he had learned the slur from his mother; Etty Allen denied that she had ever used the word before.[22]
According to the Washington Post, Allen's campaign manager initially dismissed the incident with an expletive. Allen later said that he had heard his staff use the term macaca in reference to Sidarth, that he did not know what the word meant, and that he did not intend to insult Sidarth's ethnicity when he singled him out to the crowd. "I do apologize if he's offended by that," Allen said, adding that "I would never want to demean him as an individual."[20]
Shortly after, Allen's campaign held that he used the word in reference to Sidarth's hairstyle. Although Sidarth was wearing a baseball cap on the day of the incident,[23] he had been conversing casually with Allen's aides during campaign stops before the incident.[24] Allen's campaign staff claim to have referred to him privately as "Mohawk".[20] A now widely disseminated photo of Sidarth,[25] hosted by the Webb campaign, shows Sidarth's hair to be longer in the middle and shaved on the sides, typical of a mohawk.
On August 15, 2006, John Reid, Allen's communications director, told the New York Times that members of Allen's campaign had "good-naturedly" nicknamed Sidarth "Mohawk" when speaking among themselves, but could not explain how the word might have morphed into macaca.[26] Reid told the Times that Sidarth only received a nickname from Allen campaign staff because he would not give his real name. Interviewed that day on CNN, however, Sidarth recalled shaking Allen's hand earlier in the week and giving his name. "He's very good with names, legendarily. He tries very hard to remember peoples' names when meeting them," Sidarth said. As for the macaca remark, "I am disappointed that someone like a Senator of the United States could use something [so] completely offensive."[27]
On August 16, 2006, the National Journal reported that two Virginia Republicans who heard the word used by Allen's campaign staff said macaca was a neologism created from mohawk and caca, Spanish and French slang for excrement. The National Journal quoted a Republican close to the campaign saying, "In other words, [Sidarth] was a shit-head, an annoyance."[28]
By August 20, 2006, Allen began insisting that he had never before heard the word, and that he simply made it up, contrary to original explanations from Allen and his staff.[29][17][30]
After several public apologies, Allen called Sidarth twelve days after the incident, on August 23, to apologize directly for his remarks. Allen's campaign manager Dick Wadhams has continued to blame opponent Webb, the media, and Allen's "leftist" foes for a "feeding frenzy."[31] The incident reduced Allen's once-broad polling margin over Webb to single digits.[32
-----
But crap, that was 2006. It just sucks when you can't be a racist asshole and not get called on it.
That's because if you know what you feel you know what you really think. You, on the other hand, think anything. It's called rationalization because you have no idea what feelings are behind your thoughts. But there is no point in telling you. You have no idea. You'll just make up some new shit.
James Bond
Diamond Member
- Jan 21, 2005
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CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Or maybe...just maybe your FEELINGS are the reason you can't think. If you would actually rationally THINK about this situation - you'd see there was no "racism". But alas, you and the other race baiters FEEL there is racism so you think everyone who doesn't feel the same is racist.
Again, any rational person knows that CONGRESS wrote the damn thing - not BHO.
My initial reaction was that Congress was depicted as a bunch of monkeys (which they are).
Just sayin'.
I, also, am white.
Doc Savage Fan
Lifer
- Nov 30, 2006
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Two ways to perceive this...either I'm the idiot or you are. I choose the latter. But I'm prejudiced.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
You think, you idiot. No racism found because all you see is a nail.
Here's why that's wrong, assuming for the sake of argument this was race baiting:
As a society, we can choose to have values, and express those values economically.
For example, the KKK is unlikely to get a columnist spot in the NY Times, because people feel their speech falls outside the range of 'productive free speech', and they'd be offended by promoting it; we're unlikely to see a food product labelled 'For Whites Only! Ha ha, we can't guarantee the store won't sell to others, but we can say what we'd like!'
Many people subsribe to major publications; few people subscribe to publications that explicitly adopt racism, I'd say like the KKK newsletter, except from what I hear from the KKK even they adopt the position that they're not really 'down on blacks' so much as 'for the right to choose their own community'.
When a major publication violates the value of most of its customers and becomes the KKK newsletter, the customers can react - demanding it get rid of people who tried.
Some mistakes are seen as egregious enough to not be 'a different point of view worth considering', but things that are wrong enough to deny a place in 'respectable' discussion.
(I made a reference in a previous post to having said 'assuming for the sake of argument this was race baiting', but that was actually in this post, which was in edit for a day.)
Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Two ways to perceive this...either I'm the idiot or you are. I choose the latter. But I'm prejudiced.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
You think, you idiot. No racism found because all you see is a nail.
You're getting smarter. Now you see it's all in what you see and why. If you had a lifetime of being made fun of as an ape because you're black you'd know exactly what was being said. There are facts here you cannot escape. Ape is code for black. Obama is black. Obama is talking about a stimulus plan. Two policemen shot the President. Now you may say there was no intention to evoke that code, but because that code exists it is evoked automatically. It's like calling somebody a shit head and pretending you meant dear friend. You can't be alive and functioning as a newspaper person and not know the code.
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Two ways to perceive this...either I'm the idiot or you are. I choose the latter. But I'm prejudiced.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
You think, you idiot. No racism found because all you see is a nail.
You're getting smarter. Now you see it's all in what you see and why. If you had a lifetime of being made fun of as an ape because you're black you'd know exactly what was being said. There are facts here you cannot escape. Ape is code for black. Obama is black. Obama is talking about a stimulus plan. Two policemen shot the President. Now you may say there was no intention to evoke that code, but because that code exists it is evoked automatically. It's like calling somebody a shit head and pretending you meant dear friend. You can't be alive and functioning as a newspaper person and not know the code.
:laugh:
"The Code"
"Sneaky Racism"
Some people watch too much TV.
Any rational person knows that when you call for the assassination of the President you better have an alibi you can hide behind you can pretend was your real intent.
Andrew1990
Banned
- Mar 8, 2008
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Sorry for being late in reply.
So you are saying I should not be proud of my white heritage?
Also, racism will never die, so at least it should be able to be controlled.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
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Ape IS NOT code for black . I'm sorry if you had some terrible experience where someone compared a black person to an ape. I'm almost 40 years old, live in the south and have never heard anyone comparing black people to apes. Maybe it is a local thing .
Two policemen did not shoot the president. Watched the news lately ? Remember the chimp that was shot last week ? That is what the cartoonist was using. He uses elements in the current news to come up with ideas for his sketches. Look at all of his work. He has drawn Obama many many times, yet I don't see him being drawn holding a banana or swinging from trees.
What I do see is black people who cannot let the past go. Where every thing that is published or said has to be watched, because whitey is out to get them . That is a form of racism in itself and if you keep telling every child that is born that is the case, then you will never have equality.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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The most curious thing is that most blacks I've spoken with take this less seriously than those who feel such outrage in their behalf. We've got a long wayvto go it seems and I'm not talking about the cartoonist. People need to lighten up.
That's because the people who are "outraged" are simply milking the stupid public to try and justify their existence. People like Sharpton are not out to bring light to real racism, they are there to fill their own pockets by playing the race card as often as they possibly can.
Thank you fo rproviding the post which has triggered my refining my thinking on this.
I've long had a reaction that a 'Miss Black USA' contest was not too offensive, while a 'Miss White USA' contest is. That the United Negro College Fund is not so offensive, while a White College fund is. Even that I can see some sympathy for a 'Black Panthers', not so much for a White-only Militia.
Why is that, I've wondered? An obvious speculation could be bias, or perhaps a sort of knee-jerk 'the blacks are always the right side' reaction based on our cheering the end of slavery, the end of segregation, and so on. But that didn't seem at all like the right answer to why I reacted that way, and I've previously not been satisfied with the explanations I've arrived at.
Now, I think I can better articulate it.
The issue is that when a group is somehow discriminated against, treated unfairly, when it's a minority in a society and they band together, I think a sense of justness and fairness leads to feeling some sympathy for them to overcome the unfair obstacles, challenges, in their way.
But it depends on the context - the mirror which does not deserve sympathy is when those groups are pursuing not to overcome unfairness, but to gain unfair asvantage.
An example that comes to mind is how the early Nazi party in Germany was a minority in their own country; so why not feel 'sympathy' for their 'struggle'? Because their view was, as they said, that they were some 'super group' who had the great quality needed to pursue the domination of the world - they saw nearly all Germans as inferior, and said their might only be 5000 Germans in the entire country that were 'worthy', who would need to lead the rest to their proper role conquering the world.
Because they were out for superior advantage, to harm others, contemptuous of people, even though they were a minority they were not deserving of 'sympathy'.
If Christians in a Muslim country, or Muslims in a Christian country, bond together for community - more power to them. If their purpose is to try to conquer the country, no.
This is why a "Miss White America" contest in a majority white country doesn't get sympathy: because it's not about the white women overcoming the non-existent discrimination against them, it's about their expressing contempt if not hate for the other races who actually have good reason to bond, as minorities, about their expressing superiority, taking license to be exclusionary by hiding behind the excuse of 'they do it, so we can too'.
History in this country has no shortage of the covering of White history - it's black history that tends to get overshadowed, becuase of a racist past that did not include it.
That's why I object to your 'white history month'.
I see no good reason for you to 'take pride' in white history as a racial issue; take pride in it as a human issue, and include other races.
*If* you were a white and there was a history of white history being supressed and not credited, *then* you might talk about 'pride' in your race to counter the bigotry.
But without that, it's more about superiority and excluding others, than the sort of 'pride' that's trying to counter unfair bigotry.
Andrew1990
Banned
- Mar 8, 2008
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Well then, what about the Native Americans, Hispanics, and the Jewish people? They have all gone through a horrible past. The jews are a prime example. Not only were they "slaves" but they were also killed yet they dont have their own month nor as much attention as some of these black groups.
The NAACP is a joke in my eyes as what they are now. I do agree they did some wonderful things in the past on civil rights issues, but you have to admit this is a little ridiculous. All of this effort on a silly cartoon that may or may not be a hidden racist opinion.
The NAACP is a joke in my eyes as what they are now. I do agree they did some wonderful things in the past on civil rights issues, but you have to admit this is a little ridiculous. All of this effort on a silly cartoon that may or may not be a hidden racist opinion.
The US has a *very* special history with discrimination against blacks, far different from that with Hispanics or Jewish people.
The one other group we have such a history with are indeed Native Americans, and you won't hear any argument from me about recognizing that history more.
I think one difference in why that is, is that blacks are 'fully integrated' in our society (in theory anyway), while Native Americans have always been a sort of 'separate people' insofar as not living much with whites, having their socieites, all the while blacks lived 'with' whites (I use the term loosely) as slaves, and in how Native American reservationshave continued to exist separately while blacks have fought for equality in access to be part of our society - the right to the same work, to eat at the same places, use the same restrooms, ride in the same part of the bus, swim in the same pools, live in the same parts of the cities.
Atomic Playboy
Lifer
- Feb 6, 2007
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What makes you think the artist was drawing Obama at all? I certainly didn't read it that way. Obama didn't write the stimulus bill, so it's a fairly big leap to suggest that the chimp is supposed to represent him. Nor did I get the impression that the chimp represented congress. I think the chimp in the cartoon was just a chimp that happened to write a stimulus bill (either out of the goodness of his heart or because he was hired by Congress to do so), Congress ran with it, and now we've got crappy legislation that was written by a stupid chimp. At no point did I make any connection to Obama.
So what if the cartoonist didn't draw the cartoon with Obama in mind at all? Is it still racist just because it can be perceived as racist through Al Sharpton's distorted interpretation of the cartoon? Apes used to be derogatory slang for black people; should we avoid all jokes which remotely reference apes in connection with any Federal Government topic as long as a black man is in the white house? Is ape ALWAYS a racial slur? Were the cops who shot the chimp acting out of bigotry? Where do we draw the line?
And in line with Moonbeam's wonderful critique of our society's inability to perceive injustices and work to restore them, where was Sharpton when this cartoonist was drawing comic after comic that depicted all gays as prancing sheep fuckers? Where was his outrage over the obvious homophobic messages contained in these drawings? How come he only comes along to make this dubious-at-best claim about racism in the chimp comic and ignores comics that are far-and-away more obvious bigotry here or here or here? The bigotry in those is patently obvious, much moreso than any racist undertones in the current comic, but no outcry?
Sharpton is an opportunistic ass who gives less than a shit about promoting anything besides his own agenda, regardless of the validity of whatever he happens to be campaigning against. Clearly racism is a problem in this country, and it's something we need to discuss, but as long as Sharpton cries foul at things that aren't actually racist, all he's doing is making it harder to have a legitimate discussion about these very real and very important issues. He's the Bill O'Reilly of the black community, an incendiary figure who is good at getting people riled up, but almost always in the most unproductive way possible, and often in dubious circumstances. We need to stop letting people like him dominate the discussion on either side and start looking at things from a logical perspective rather than a purely emotional one.
Of course not whitey! You arent allowed to be proud of anything! Your Great great great grandfather may or may not have owned an African as a slave, so you are forever banished from racial humor, (this is to be left to Chris Rock, Dave Chappell, Carlos Mencia, etc) and your fellow super-PC "I shop at Anchor Blue" white bretheren will pretend to be offended at any mention of race by you or any other caucasian.
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