According to the Washington Post story, Allen says he doesn't know what the word "Macaca" means. He actually wants us to believe that as he pointed to a person of color and used the French word for monkey, twice, that he doesn't know what it means.
Reached Monday evening, Allen said that the word had no derogatory meaning for him and that he was sorry. "I would never want to demean him as an individual. I do apologize if he's offended by that. That was no way the point." ...
Asked what macaca means, Allen said: "I don't know what it means."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081400589.html
He's lying. And anyone who speaks French knows what a Macaque is. "Macaque" is French for monkey. And George Allen speaks French.
Here is a quote from the president of the University of Virginia, Patricia Cormier at UVA's commencement exercises in Spring 2005 introducing Senator George Allen:
"A little known fact about Senator Allen is that his undergraduate education was enhanced substantially by his excellent performance in French class, taught by none other than Dr. Raymond Cormier, visiting professor of French at Longwood, and my husband! I have up here on the podium the gradebook, and he got a very good grade. No wonder the senator can applaud his superior education."
http://longwood.edu/...
(Google is your friend!)
So now we know he was lying when he said he didn't know what it means. Was it a racial slur?
George Bush speaks spanish. If he called someone of color the spanish word for monkey... well you get the picture.
And not only is it the French word for monkey, it is a known racial slur in his mother's home country of Tunisia. Hell, I am from Louisiana and unfortunately I have heard it much too often in reference to blacks amongst my French speaking relative (including I'm ashamed to say my parents).
Anyone who speaks French knows what Macaque means... both in context of the animal and the slur. And we know now, thanks to Dr. Cornier, George Allen speaks French.
*_EDIT UPDATE_*: Some down below have questioned whether "Macaque" is in fact French for "Monkey". Check out the definition of "Macaque" on answers.com:
ma·caque (mə-kăk', -käk') pronunciation
n.
Any of several short-tailed monkeys of the genus Macaca of southeast Asia, Japan, Gibraltar, and northern Africa.
[French, from Portuguese macaco. See macaco.] http://www.answers.com/topic/macaque
It is French and it does mean Monkey and a short-tailed monkey from northern Africa. Allen's mother is from northern Africa. Moreover, there are more ways to say one word in some languages.
I'm from a time in Louisiana when schools, restaurants and movie theatres were segregated. My grandparents had black sharecroppers. Everyone over the age of 40 spoke French as his first language. And the word "macaque" was used for black people. And we knew why. The word was also used by my parents to us kids when we monkeyed around. If we were being bad they would call us down and refer to us as "macaques".
Allen of course is not from Louisiana. But his mother is from Tunisia where the word "macaque" is also an ethnic slur as it is in Europe.
Macaque (Belgium & France) a Negro (originally) or a person of North African origin (more recently); derived from macaque monkeys
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-ethnic-slurs#M
Again, this is no coincidence that he used the word TWICE and pointed to a person of color.