Our minds on media.

An awful lot of people are dissecting this term “Macaca” and questioning whether Senator Allen really knew what it meant. I can’t see the point in all of this speculation about what he did or did not know about the word he used at the time. His intentions and his racist attitude were made perfectly clear after he used the term: “So welcome, let’s give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America, and the real world of Virginia.” To look at someone with dark skin and presume them an immigrant is nothing short of racist. Does it even matter what the word means? When it’s clear that the senator was making assumptions based on S.R. Sidarth’s appearance, it hardly matters if he had called him by his actual name. The Senator’s intent and assumptions were racist.