Shekar Ramanuja (S.R.) Sidarth has just published a wonderful first-person account of his experience with the Webb campaign in a Hampton Roads
Daily Press opinion column:
Other voices: 'Macaca' ... or whatever my name is.
I don't have a lot to add here; mostly I'm posting a diary on this to share it with the DailyKOS community. Although I'm a general faculty member at the University of Virginia, it's a large school and I've never met Sidarth or the other member of our community who received national publicity as consequence of run-ins with the Allen campaign, Mike Stark.
I think that Sidarth's op-ed piece helps us appreciate how important his contribution was, and that it was far more than just being the passive victim of a confrontation. Although he freely submitted to interviews when the "macaca" story was at the top of the news, he was always careful not to make the story primarily about him, or to engage in the kind of politics of victimhood that would have provided ammunition for Republican scoffers. He has waited until the election was over to provide a fuller first-person account of his experience, and it is one that undermines some of the unthinking stereotypes that were floating around in the days after the incident became public, in particular the notion that Southwest Virginia is some kind of backwards nativist stronghold where it's unsurprising that a dark-skinned outsider would be symbolically "lynched". And it's one more piece of evidence to make the case that Webb's victory was not just the story of Allen screwing up, but of a campaign that had the right team and the right message for Virginia this year.
Update: As a couple of comments suggested, the Daily Press wasn't the first place where this piece appeared. I noticed the source this morning because it was included in UVa's daily "headline news" bulletin, and assumed it was an original publication. But it first appeared, it looks like, in the Nov. 12th edition of the Washington Post:
"I Am Macaca"