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

I don't suppose you will get it. That's why I don't bother reply to your post. Let's leave at that. But others do.

 

Explain the use in comparing Indian-Americans to monkeys. Explain how that is a guide if not an absolute.

George Allen didn't call the guy a 7-11 worker, he called him a monkey. Because his skin was brown. If you think that's no big deal, that's up to you. But don't lecture the rest of us to feel likewise.

 

NewYorker, you have also inexplicably (but repeatedly) tried to treat this as an isolated incident. A United States Senator who is considered a contender for President of the United States calling a man a monkey because his skin is brown -- and furthermore, "welcoming" a US citizen to America -- is a gigantic deal by itself, but that is not what happened here. This is a man that has proudly associated with a white supremacist group, who has shown a repeated affection for Confederate flags (and all they represent) and exhibited several other racist tendencies -- not just hate speech but wrt legislation. He's not being punished for calling an Indian-American a monkey -- he's being punished for being a serial racist and laughing about it.

I repeat: if you don't think racism matters (and, in fact, seem to think it is not only healthy somehow but actually funny), that's fine. But that's not how we operate in the United States anymore. We have too much of a history of hate and discrimination, based on race, to forgive racism in our national leaders. It is not okay and it is not funny. It is disgusting, it represents a gigantic blight on our nation's history that we are still trying to heal from and a huge part of that healing is calling people like George Allen what they are. That's not about being PC. It's about being American.

 

why are you trying so hard to make it seem okay?

 

He is a right-wing ideologue who has been a pathetic excuse for a US Senator.

How's that?

 

so it will be okay for you to see him as president having a press conference in the white house and say "i believe you're next, macaca" to a brown skinned american reporter?

 

The fact that you keep calling it a "gaffe" says it all. A "gaffe" is a boo boo -- this was hate speech. George Allen thinks that brown people are less American than white people. He is a throwback to the most shameful chapter in our nation's history. It's gross that you keep defending him. And it's gross that you keep defending racist speech and behavior.

 

Why not, in NewYorker's world? Then the reporter can just say, "LOL, Honky!" And we can all go lynch some black people. LMAO, for sure!

 

well it does.. his macaca "gaffe" as you would like to call it has exposed the truth about him and reinforced the fact that "he is a right-wing ideologue who has been a pathetic excuse for a US Senator"

 

All right fine. But should I vote for that kind of guy? Should I be ambivalent about it when he is my representative at one of the highest possible levels in the government?

I can understand the objectivist viewpoint of combatting racism solely though social constructs, but you act like all ostracism of such behavior is absurd.