Yet another story has emerged about George Allen--this time in the pages of the
New York Times:
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."
This story is particularly interesting to me because I share a professional kinship with the person who brought the story to light: at the time of the incident, Christopher Taylor was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Virginia.
I was a graduate student in anthropology at UVa about ten years later (I don't remember ever meeting Taylor).
The other reason the story is interesting is that it shows how manner of fact Allen's comment was:
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.
This incident raises yet another issue vis-a-vis George Allen's racism.
George Allen, apparently, does not just use the n-word, but actually uses the n-word to make friends.
Given that, reasonable people can conclude that this story is about much more than a political candidate with the stain of bigotry in his personal history.
This is about a Senator who appears to have used racism as a strategy to build his electoral base--and who continued to do so despite all the opprobrium heaped on that kind of politics in the past ten years.