Allen and the N-Word - The New Republic Reports, You Decide

By: David M
Published On: 10/6/2006 12:29:08 PM

If itGÇÖs true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, something that Senator George Allen has repeatedly encouraged throughout his career, than Allen is in big trouble.

In this weekGÇÖs issue of The New Republic Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy links a white man committing a hate crime in Bensonhurst against a black man, whom he suspected of being a car thief, and thus said to him, GÇ£Whattup, nigga,GÇ¥ before proceeding to beat the man with an aluminum baseball bat with Allen's usage of the N-word.

In the article, entitled GÇ£Allen and the N-Word,GÇ¥ Kennedy quickly recaps the above story, his being called as an expert witness in the case and a brief history of the N-word in America. In between, Senator AllenGÇÖs convoluted and recently revealed history with the N-word is thoroughly discussed.

GǪif the N-word is so complex, how do we evaluate the case of Senator George Allen?...He has been accused of repeatedly referring to blacks as "niggers" during his college years in the 1970s...Allen does not deny that referring to blacks derogatorily as "niggers" would have been terribly wrong. He swears, though, that he did not and does not use such language."...

I don't believe Allen's denial.
His accusers, including Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, are credible....his conduct fits all too well into a pattern...including his past embrace of Confederate insignia, his opposition to a Virginia holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., and his recent outburst (fortunately caught on videotape) in which he referred to a man of Indian descent as a "macaca"--a term he was clearly using for purposes of denigration....This raises the question: Can a white politician, in twenty-first-century America, ever recover from having used the N-word in his past?

This is the question that Virginia will answer November 7th and America may or may not answer at a latter date.

What makes Allen's past use of the N-word particularly reprehensible is that he lies about itGǪGeorge Allen has refused toGǪcome clean about his bigoted vocabulary. He hasGǪprevented himself from apologizing for it. And his public record is not one that offers any sensible basis for believing that he takes seriously the moral and legal injunction to accord to all persons equal respect, regardless of race.

But perhaps he doesn't have toGǪ[l]eading Republicans have withheld public repudiations of Allen, and conservative commentators have largely portrayed the junior senator from Virginia as merely a victim of "liberal" media.[?] Allen's incumbency, with its winks, code words, and hollow denials, is a bitter reminder that the attitudes that inform and attend the primary historical meaning of "nigger" remain all too evident, even in the highest circles of the U.S. government.


Again and again, when Republicans engage in reprehensible behavior, they circle the wagons to defend their empty ideology.

These constant perversions of their own credo have cast George Allen and Mark Foley into the inner sanctum of the indefensible during the election cycle of 2006 and beyond.

Somewhere in Heaven Dante is busy writing a sequel.

Comments



its too bad.. (drmontoya - 10/8/2006 7:04:46 PM)
Jim is running a more statemans campaign then to create ads about this. There is MORE than enough info, video, and people out there to hammer his racist pattern in negative TV ads.

But, Jim Webb has more class than George Allen.

I just fear, will our class be our downfall?

Do negative campaign ads really work????