So, as long as you hide the racial slur in flowery language about peace and love it’s OK? I don’t see any substantive difference-- both men used a derogatory racial slur intentially to insult people. That’s all that matters.
Byrd spent a lot of time apologizing because he had more to apologize for, what with being in the KKK for so many years. Besides, I see the same non-apology in his apology, too:
May have offended people? Puh-leeze. That sounds more like an excuse than an apology.
At the very least, you have to admit that someone claiming he called someone the n word, in the sense that normally implies, is being just a leeeetle bit deceptive. It certainly wasn’t used in its conventional sense in the conventional way. He didn’t, for instance, tell someone not to worry that Virginia has a ner Governor, because that doesn’t mean that “they” are taking over. THAT is what I think of when I think of someone using the word to insult people. Not talking about how everyone is okay and white people are ners “too.”
**Martin **just said he used the word, he didn’t say Byrd called someone a nigger.
Actually, I’m not sure what Byrd was trying to say. I can think of several different messages he was trying to get across (none nice, btw), and I don’t have a good way of figuring out which one is more likely to be what he was getting at.
Allen’s comment was more personal in nature, I’ll agree to that. He pointed at someone and refered to that person as “macaca”. Byrd, OTOH, insulted a whole class of people, although no one person in particular. There are probably good arguments on both sides as to which action was worse. I’d say it’s close enough for government work. The amazing thing is that both men said it on camera, and it wasn’t a slip. That indicates some kind of strange mind set to me that I really can’t fathom. How could either have thought his comment was even remotely acceptable?
Who, exactly? I’m not sure I know who he was insulting exactly. White people? Black people being called that word in relation to white people that are a bad comparison?
I still don’t see how that stacks up in any way shape or form with all the uses of the word Allen has been accused of. Stuffing a deer head in someone’s mailbox (which is probably the best confirmed stories, with several different people all backing up the one living witness other than Allen that it happened at the time) certainly doesn’t compare. Causal and near constant use of the word in a definitely and intentionally braggart and derogatory manner just doesn’t measure up to a befuddled attempt at trying to draw racial parity, however un-apt.
I don’t know either, but I don’t see why we must cut him some slack over what was an obviously intentional insult. There are people who don’t consider themselves racist who will say (or think): I have nothting against Black people, I just don’t like niggers (niggers = Black people who don’t try and assimilate into mainstream society). It’s in that context that I most often hear the term “white nigger”-- somewhat similar to “trailer trash”. Maybe that’s not what Byrd meant, but it’s the first thing that came to my mind.
I wasn’t comparing the one incident by Byrd with the many incidents that Allen is accused of. I just said I’d put the “white nigger” and “macaca” comments on about the same level.
"…I have nothting against Black people, I just don’t like niggers… "
You intentionally quoting Chris Rock? Just askin’, no insinuation.
“Macaca” was directed at a single individual who was looking right at Allen. That’s quite a bit different from a comment objectivizing and lumping others not present, whom one can more-or-less safely say things that one wouldn’t even think saying of in person, to an individual. Not to mention that the N-word used against white people (!) is hardly the same as when used against blacks.
The thread is about nuances far more subtle than that, of course, but still understood by their targets. But if you don’t see any difference at all worth mentioning, that’s fine.
I actually was thinking about attributing that to CR, although I didn’t try purposely to quote him word for word. Anyway, it’s a not uncommon thought process in White folks.
Different circumstances, yes, but I think a good argument could be made that Byrd’s comment is more disturbing, since it was addressed at a class of people, not an individual. Maybe Allen was just irritated at the guy because of his job, not because of who he is. There are a lot of different takes on both of those incidents.
There’s no scientific way to calculate which comment was “worse.”
However, I personally feel Byrd’s was probably more inappropriate. Macaca, for what it’s worth, isn’t a word most people traditionally even think of as a racial slur. That obviously does not change the fact that it is a racial slur. However, in America macaca lacks the long, negative history that the word nigger does. Furthemore, Byrd has admitted he was in the Ku Klux Klan. He has repeatedly and strenuously apologized for his past, for his association with the KKK and for his opposition to civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
Someone like Byrd, who has a long history of controversial racial views and then a long history of apologizing for said views should know you just cannot use the word “nigger” as a public official. And you also certainly can’t use it in the sense it was used by Byrd, even if not directed at the ethnic group it has traditionally been directed towards.
I heard on an Air America talk show yesterday (forget which one) that, believe it or not, for a father or other caregiver to putting his/her on the genitals of a male child aged a year or less is actually a Cambodian custom, a gesture of respect or affection. Webb was simply describing something he had seen, a bit of local color. Writers do a lot of that. Anybody know more about this?
I’ve heard a similar thing, something about a Cambodian-American organization putting out some sort of press release about the oral-genital custom Webb describes as being a commonplace in Cambodia, utterly devoid of any inference of sexuality or pedophilia. I’ve been the Googling for a while now, and can’t find any actual substantiation.
I’m so glad we’re talking about the important issues in this election, like Cambodian genital customs. And yes, I know it’s Allen and/or his people who brought that issue up.
I just want to clarify something for non-Virginians: Webb went negative early, hard and cheaply (unless you believe that “macaca” and some locker room slurs from over 30 years ago are substantive issues). This is not a campaign between an offensive brute and a guiltless gentleman. They are both pretty rank.
I’ll be holding my nose when I vote next month.
Oh, well, if it’s a Cambodian custom, then I suppose we musn’t say anything, right? After all, it’s just their custom. How very quaint, or not.
Byrd also has, as anyone should be able to see, a long history of voting against the views he held when he was younger. He has not only apologized for those views, he has spoken, acted, and voted against those who still hold those views. Not only is it years that he has done that; it is decades.
A claim which Allen cannot begin to make.
It’s worth noting that NEITHER of those issues were things the Webb campaign spent a lot of time pushing either via ads, their website, or Webb speaking to the press. Every time Webb was asked about those issues, he demurred to go after Allen when given the chance to do so. About the only thing they did with the macaca fraca was release the video. The press pretty much drove the n word and macaca fracas without releases or direction from Webb, and any quotes they did get from Webb’s campaign tended to downplay the relevance of the issue.
You can of course say that it was Webb and his people behind it all, or liberal bloggers, but by and large it’s Allen that has gone negative officially in ads, direct mail, press releases and so forth, both first and by far the loudest. Trying to pretend there is any parity by how the campaigns have conducted themselves and the time they’ve spent on postive/vs negative ads, and issues here is, I think, simply completely off base. Allen has hands down gone more negative. That’s true nationally I believe as well, by measures such as the number of negative ad buys vs positive ones: the RNC has gone negative to a degree far far beyond anything the Democrats have done.
Again, you can certainly argue that this is because the press has done a lot of this for the Democrats… but then maybe that’s because a Congressman chatting up young boys, a growing civil war in Iraq, and so on, would be pretty hard to ignore just for the sake of balance.
Allen can’t claim to disavow serious racist views he held in his past? I think that’s probably because there’s no credible evidence he ever held such views, certainly not even in the same galaxy as Robert Byrd who was a leader in his chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, a man who said he would see the United States destroyed before he would fight to defend it beside a “negro”, a man who filibustered in an effort to block Civil Rights legislation.
The only thing we have any credible evidence to support the claim that George Allen is a racist is the fact that he used the word macaca. Personally, I don’t tend to think using a racial slur makes you a “racist” or necessarily mean you hold racist views. George Allen actually sponsored a resolution in the U.S. Senate which called for the Senate to officially apologize for never enacting anti-lynching legislation from the late 19th century to the mid-20th.
Hey, if you can tie it into the Khmer Rouge somehow, we can bring Vietnam back up.
Do you have any idea how sick I got about hearing about Vietnam in 2004? Especially being born nearly a decade after the US went to an all-volunteer military?
This is why I hate politics and especially the baby boomers when it comes to politics. Yeesh. I’m glad I’ve at least got an easy Senate vote this year, compared to some of these states.
Sorry, but the testimony on not only his use of words at one time, but more importantly, his attitudes, is credible. Just because Allen and his surrogates deny it doesn’t make it non-credible. The stories and accounts have been backed up by countless people: even those who confirm that the people who have come forward related the stories of his bigoted attitude long long ago, long before this campaign or even Allen’s political career. From scrawling racist slurs on his high school in an attempt to frame a black high school onwards, Allen is one long history of racist problems. It may well be that he’s undertaken a sincere shift quietly over time. But he’s done so without making any acknowledgement at all of his past views, let alone any apology for them.
No, aside from the macaca comment we have conflicting claims about his past. Several classmates from the University of Virginia have said he frequently used racial slurs in those days, and several have said they knew George back then and that he never used such slurs.
He personally says the allegations are ridiculous and does not accept them.
I think it’s very difficult for us to say with any degree of certainty what is true about something that is quite possibly impossible to prove or disprove.