Settling the George Allen Mess

Ask Zinedine Zidane.

You'll remember Zidane as the player who head-butted an Italian defender, got himself tossed from the game, and cost France the World Cup.

He said he "snapped," and that defender Marco Materazzi insulted him.

How is the question. The most likely culprit is one word, macaque. It started in Belgium, moved to France, and there refers to any North African Muslim. The actual word refers to a species of monkey common to the area. The actual meaning -- sand nigger. (Allen's mother, Henrietta Lumbroso, was a Jewish immigrant of Tunisian/Italian/French background.)   

I want you to think of that as you watch a sitting U.S. Senator and potential President berate a young Virginian (born in the USA) of Indian descent, who is working for the Senator's opponent by documenting the Senator's speeches to all-white audiences like this one:

Can you head-butt a sitting U.S. Senator?

Well, I can't. But if you live in Virginia, you can. In November.

Maybe I'm being over-sensitive here. But living in Atlanta, in what was (until recently) an all-black neighborhood, I'm a bit sensitive on this score. Racial taunts at close quarters, standing with a microphone surrounded by your buddies while you drop N-bombs on a kid with a camera...if the camera weren't there, if this were just 50 years ago, if someone had a rope.

It happened. Thousands of times. It kept the South in the dark for 100 years.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and let some prissy California-bred neo-racist bully bring it back again.