Iam Macaca

This is the title of an op-ed piece written by Sidharth, who had a pivotal role in changing the course of the just concluded US mid-term election. Sidharth, an Indian-American who was born and brought up in Virginia, was a campaign worker for Democrat Jim Webb who was up against the incumbent Republican governor George Allen. Allen was your typical republican red-state American politician, the kind that swears by guns and god and swears at gays. In fact some reports say that had Allen won he would have been a contender for president in 2008.
Sidharth was tasked with the job of making recordings of Allen’s campaign speeches. He shadowed Allen throughout the state and was by all accounts (including his own) received courteously. This is remarkable considering the politically surcharged affair that this election has been.
The now famous incident occurred at a speech Allen was giving. Sidharth was in the crown recording Allen who knew exactly who the former was working for. During the course of the speech Allen welcomed “Macaca or whatever his name is to America and the real world of Virginia.” Gosh, that sounds like a racial slur. I don’t even know what it means. But it sounds awfully condescending, like something you would use for some kind of sub-human retard.
Maybe Allen thought he was being funny. Unfortunately for him the seemingly innocuous statement snowballed into a huge controversy which ultimately led to his loss against his democratic opponent. But, was this one incident responsible for tipping the balance of power in favour of the democrats? How did it influence the vote in Virginia? Did the average redneck hick in the state think to himself before going in to vote: Macaca, no good man. I am not gonna vote for this racist scumbag?
Your guess is as good as mine. But the incident does highlight the darker side of American democracy, albeit one that rarely comes to light. Racism is probably sewn into the fabric of American society. Ok, I don’t want to make silly generalizations. But why is it that the world’s oldest democracy has never elected a black, jew, Hispanic or woman as president? John F. Kennedy was the only catholic president. And I wonder if New Orleans was left to its fate after hurricane Katarina because most of the city’s residents are black. A lot of blacks think so.

---------------------------------------------------------

I’ve been reading up about Muhammed Ali lately. I admire the guy. He had the courage to defy white America in the prime of his fighting career. He threw his Olympic medal into a river after a bunch of white racist bikers taunted him one night. He showed mainstream America a side of itself that it did not want to acknowledge, a dark side inhabited by bigotry and racism. His reason for avoiding the Vietnam draft: “I ain’t got no fight with the Vietcong, no Vietnamese ever called me nigger.” In the end, in his own words “this is one nigger you don’t own white man.”

hmmm...think the next book I will buy will be frantz Fannon's 'The Wretched of the Earth'. Am proud of the fact that Fannon was born in a family of mixed African and Tamil indentured labourers in Martinique.