Monday, September 25, 2006

The New York Times appears to want to complete the lynching of Senator George Allen of Virginia for an alleged racist remark.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 — Two acquaintances of Senator George Allen of Virginia said today that he had used racially inflammatory language in the 1970’s and 1980’s, compounding allegations of racial insensitivity that have dogged his re-election campaign since he referred to a young Indian-American as “macaca” a few weeks ago. Mr. Allen said he had never used the language attributed to him by the acquaintances.

Christopher Taylor, an anthropology professor at Alabama University in Birmingham, Ala., said that in the early 1980’s he heard Mr. Allen use an inflammatory epithet for African Americans. Mr. Taylor, who is white and was then a graduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said the term came up in a conversation about the turtles in a pond near Mr. Allen’s property. According to Mr. Taylor, Mr. Allen said that “around here” only the African Americans — whom he referred to by the epithet — “eat ‘em.”

Color me skeptical, but I believe Anthropologist Christopher Taylor is pictured above with his wife Esperance during a field trip in Rwanda. I say skeptical as Taylor's speciality is African Studies. It's a little difficult to imagine he's the type of guy one would want to hang around the pond and crack wise with about race....

Mr. Taylor, the Alabama professor, said he was “kind of taken aback” by Mr. Allen’s language because it was their first meeting and Mr. Allen knew he was talking to a graduate student in anthropology. “Most of us are antiracist,” Mr. Taylor said.

Still, Mr. Taylor said, he did not give Mr. Allen “a moral lesson.” Mr. Taylor said he had come to pick up an Australian shepherd puppy and left with the dog.