Letters to the Editor
-
a real heartland of Virginia sentiment
Having grown up in the heartland of Allen country, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a geographical region that makes even Utah seem faintly bluish by comparison, I know that Allen's flask of racism was always one of his biggest political assets, so long as he only brought it out and passed it around with a certain crowd of people. Based on his behavior and the legendary macaca comment, this story doesn't surprise me at all. Actually this morning I found myself wondering when "old friends" of Allen would materialize to tell us what a racist jerk he used to be back in the day. That when is now!
-
Context
This report puts Sen. Allen's current behavior -- the macaca incident -- into context. Now we have established a long history of racist behavior. No one can argue that he's changed since his college days, not since the macaca mess. Similarly, one cannot say that the macaca incident was an isolated incident. The man is a bigot, and apparently one of very long standing.
-
Senator Allen's history of racism is important
In response to Techieguru's contention that Senator Allen's college-era history of racist behavior and remarks are irrelevant:
Sir, a public servant's public and private behavior clearly remains in play if his views are chartable in his public record. Senator Allen's recent "come to Jesus" moments ring hollow in his attempt to sandpaper an image tarnished again and again by his consistent references to the Confederacy. I applaud Mr. Shelton's effort to bring to light what is important for all of us to know about our elected officials.
-
Hey TechieGuru....
Lets replace that Confederate Flag lapel pin with a Swastika lapel pin, and lets also replace his "alleged" negative attitude towards blacks with an negative attitude toward Jews instead. Still feel that the past is irrelevant? In other words if he were being accused of being a former anti-semite how far do you think is political career would have come? Such hipocracy! Especially since slavery was much more detremental to blacks than anti-semetism is/was.
UKnoWhoIAm.
-
What constitutes fitness for office?
Most of us would agree that the ability to judge people, and issues fairly would be a requirement of any person elected to serve the public. We want to know if our elected official will be swayed in his judgement by prejudice, or will have a clearer, reasoned approach to making decisions that will affect our lives. Sen. Allen insists he is not biased- yet there are some examples of bigotry in his official actions, and in his other public and private actions. Since Sen. Allen has not explicitly acknowledged his own racism, in the context of his rejection of it- his constituents may feel they're not getting the truth. If Sen. Allen did casually use racial slurs, and if he did target a black family for an act of bloody vandalism- then these would not be harmless, college pranks, or excusable attitudes. Behavior like this would have to be acknowledged, and explained by Sen. Allen in order to provide voters in Virginia the opportunity to make an informed choice about their next Senator.
-
George of the Jungle
Allen is a knuckledragging smirking racist asshole, a wannabe southerner of the Bushit school. He's a California kid who moved to where the racial climate was in sympathy with his inner bigot. In other words, he's a typical modern day republikan "leader", winking at coon jokes and slinging slurs when he think's no one's watching. So he's a liar, too.
-
What about that deer's head?
Thirty years ago nobody I associated with except my father -- God rest his soul -- used 'nigger' as an epithet. I wouldn't, however, be so troubled by that if Allen was not still using racist terms, and I think his explanations of where 'Macaca' came from are amusing at best.
Now as to stuffing the deer's head into the mailbox of a black family, that's not just a hate crime. It's a sign of deranged sensibilities, and I don't think it's something you get over. I wouldn't want someone like that to be my senator, but the people of Virginia will make up their own minds.
-
oh come on
George Allen is a boorish wanna-be good ole boy. So what? If the Democrats can't win in Virginia by focusing on the actual issues, of which there are rather a lot of real importance, they don't deserve to win. Dredging up minor crap from 30 freaking years ago just makes the left seem petty and lightweight.
Yes it worked for the lying manipulative Swiftboaters. But if the Democrats ever want to stand for something (like honesty, principles, stuff like that), they need to take the high road. I have to believe that acting like a grown up still has some value in the political arena (though admittedly the last six years have been very trying on my faith in that regard.)
Somehow I bet Barack Obama isn't going to be trumpeting these earth-shattering discoveries by Salon. Take a hint from one of the few Democrats who has crossover appeal and quit sounding like the whiny left.
-
Shocking!
You mean a rich, privileged, football player/frat boy was racially insensitive? What are the chances?
-
and so it goes.
I'm not for Sen. George Allen mostly because he is a republican and I think that party has proven itself to have a racial bias, at least since JFK since I really can't look back much farther than that.
This word that some said he used is so common and I find that when those who think it is a good word are on the defensive they turn to other euphemisms. Do you remember the term soul brother? I found it a really demeaning term and one that attacked a classic form of music. Subsequently I found many of the people who listened to a lot of music started segregating the music. A term used for one ballad produced by Al Green, "Mrs. Jones" was "niggery." Strangely enough the racism that I had found on the southern farm had reached the hippie college students. I rationalize that this was due to the defeat of George McGovern in the fall of '72.
A term also used in that day was "spade." There was a card game by that name as well and regarding the defeat of Sen. McGovern you might remember Sammy Davis, Jr. giving President Nixon his endorsement for re-election.
Now I wonder about these people called NeoCons whom, it is said, were once liberal but became conservatives because they thought it had the answers to the world's woes. Did they like the N-word? Was that their groove?
Richard Pryor was embraced by many white students in the 70's and it was really strange to me to hear a tall blonde hippie boy do the lines to his famous routine "That Nigger's Crazy." Apparently, a dialogue between a wino and a junkie was all you needed to get the boy going.
"Afro," was another thing the boys on the farm liked to say to soften the blow for us liberals who thought desegregation was OK and all. Afro always seemed to be about the style of the hair and hair styles were important to me back then and even now.
But the farm was nothing new to me. There were people in the City, Brooklyn, N.Y. who had ugly things to say. They mimicked what the Black Nationalists said. I think the Black Nationalist were a very frightening vision to white ethnics in N.Y. They called the "Blood," because that was what they called themselves and of course "Brother." I saw a couple of the brothers downtown my aunt would say.
It's really ironic about brothers because later on I would learn of my father Masonic Lodge where all the men were considered brothers and called themselves such, Brother Eddie, Brother Sam, etc. They didn't bother referring to black men as brothers though, they used the other word, the N-word.