Media Matters: The ress is ignoring the fact that “macaca” is both a North African slur and that Sen. Allen’s mother grew up in Tunisia. What a remarkable coincidence that the man invented a random word, and he happened to come up with the exact word that is used in his mother’s country of origin and native tongue to describe the very person that he was trying to describe.
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I am native TUNISIA,CARTHAGE if you will,and I am proud what i came from….I never in my life hear about “macaca”is????please correct your infomation before you claim it….don’t mess with tunisia man……
I think the irony here is that it’s usually the “Republicans” voicing that complaint.
Because the media isn’t about to go calling Allen’s mother racist.
There are basically two theories to explain why Allen called Sidarth “Macaca”. The first is that Allen knew and was using a derogatory racial term used in French-speaking North Africa, which he would either have heard his mother use or, possibly, known about because a few White nationalist extremists use it as well. The second (which comes from Republican sources connected to the Allen campaign) is that Macaca was a nickname created by Allen’s campaign staff that mashed together “mohawk” with “caca”, i.e. a sort of short form of “Mohawk caca”.
I have to say that I find the second explanation more likely. It’s the sort of stupid frat-boy-humor nickname I can easily imagine coming out of an Allen campaign staff. People have jumped on the “North African French” explanation without really analyzing the probabilities.
Anyway, the exact source of the nickname doesn’t affect the clear fact that Allen was singling Sidarth out for hostile ridicule, a point that to their credit most media outlets have made.
The Macaque — aka the Barbary Ape — is native to the Atlas Mountains, right along the Tunisian border. It is one of the most well-known and easily-identified primates in the world.
David,
“Caca” usually means “shit.” I’m not sure calling someone “Mohawk shit” is any better.
Also, if that were the case wouldn’t it have been “MOcaca” instead of “MAcaca?”