The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> REAL VIRGINIAN br> Re: Lisa Fabrizio's Sticks and Stones : /p>

Lisa Fabrizio completely misses the point in her ludicrously feeble attempt to whitewash George Allen's "macaca'" comment.

Yes, Lisa, I agree -- we should all just have an understanding chuckle, because Allen merely "fudged the man's name in a juvenile way." After all, "Sidarth" and "Macaca" surely sound close enough to a native Virginia ear to merit a bit of boyish wordplay eh? As an Indo-Virginian Ronald Reagan and George Bush supporter myself, I too look forward to wiping away tears of uncontrollable laughter when good old George Allen riffs my absurdly unfamiliar name into "red assed baboon" or some such equally witty bit of jest. Really, nobody should have to put up all these silly foreign names!

No, the real racism is not there, it's here: "So welcome, let's give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." In other words, according to George Allen (and, apparently, Fabrizio, who jauntily ends her piece by repeating the phrase) you can't be a real American or a real Virginian if you have a brown skin. Don't matter no how that you're Virginia born and bred, as Mr. Sidarth is.

p>Now, despite Fabrizio's attempt to tar them with the bad-smelling George Allen brush, and for all their "unashamedly unnuanced cowboy" manner, it's hard to imagine Lincolnian Republicans like Ronald Reagan or George Bush making such a low, ugly, stupid, just plain mean-spirited comment. br> -- M. Brahmbhatt br> Alexandria, Virginia /p> p>

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