Should George Allen lose re-election for his "Macaca" gaffe?

Yeah, I did read it, and it's a pretty damning article of George Allen....

But I wanted to focus on the issue of politicians making these kinds of public gaffes. In this case, George Allen appears to have some race issues which you have brought to light. But in this instance I just want to focus on the Macaca comment and see if that alone is enough to ruin his political career, or at least have a black mark on it.

yes, your point of his history has been made and had I know that prior, It would change to whole context of why I posted this thread. It's not about George Allen, but it's something larger.

The question is, can we as people, who have racist attitudes (because we are human and it's our nature to stereotype), be able to make a gaffe in public and therefore be unfit for public office?

I think this has more to do with political correctness. In this case, George Allen may very well be unfit for office.

But it's not because of the macaca comment....that's where I want the debate to focus on - again, it's not about George Allen, but the more general case.

 

By the way, I should mention that I am a minority of Indian decent, so I found the macaca comment to be of particular offense. If anyone should be offended, it's me. But it was because i was really offended by this guy that I posted this poll, and tried to see what others thought.

But I really do try to keep an open mind and not judge...but rather be fair and see all perspectives. So I'm revealing my background to demonstrate that....

But I have to say, I'm really happy that others agree that this guy is a scum-bag and think he shouldn't be re-elected. That's my reaction as a south-asian. But I want to detach myself and be able to be compeltely rational...trust me, I do not desire to defend this guy.

 

I'm not interested in defending the individual but rather addressing a larger issue.

 

Didn't you read my post above? I'm sorry you feel that way.

 

That's your perception of the situation - not the reality. Sorry you interpreted it that way. But again, you refuse to read the truth I just posted above. I guess I too convincingly played the role that you can not accept the truth.

 

The larger issue is around political correctness and balancing that against sensitives of races and so on.

On one hand...if you've ever read Blink for instance, racial discrimination is something that's really built in to ourselves...not just towards other races, but to our own as well. (Like black students scoring x points lower on an SAT test when they have to indicate their race in the profiling questions).

So, when people make a racial gaffe in public which exposes their latent racism - what does that mean? Are some of us pure and clean and completely without stereotyping?

Is having inherent biases towards races wrong? George Allen is a bad example because of his history which I did not know about when I started this thread.

But if you take another politician that may have stated an ethnic slur...knowingly or not....but had a track record of diversity and promoting minorities - what do we do then?

What about Fuzzy Zeller? Who just made a joke about collard greens and fried chicken? Or Shaq?

My friends make light of my race, and I make light of theirs. If any of those comments got out into public, we'd look really bad. Yet at my poker table, there's a Jew, and African American, irish, scotish, a Korean guy, a half puerto-rican half german mutt, indians, and I can tell you, if you are sensitive about race you would freak out at what gets said there....but no one gets offended, they just respond back with another racial joke unto the person...and hey, we're all friends.

So my point is...where is the line? Should public speakers have to walk around glass when they speak always worried someone might mis-interpret what they say? Maybe this time George Allen truly made a gaffe. Because clearly, and let's face it clearly, if he could have known that someone could construe his comment as a racial slur - I give the guy the benefit of the doubt and say he wouldn't have siad that.

That doesn't mean he's not a racist....it seems like he is. But....where's the line? Is it in being a racist, in expressing it on camera, or enacting racist policies?

 

A mutt meaning mixed race. Mutt vs. Pedigree ya know. You never heard of someone with a lot of different blood in them refer to themselves as a mutt? Political correctness is litterally sapping the color out of language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(humans)