Macaca is a word used by George Allen in 2006 that began a controversy because it sounds similar to the French word "macaque". It was reported by journalists to be a racial slur against African immigrants in some European cultures[1]; and by Zairian painter Tshibumba Kanda Matulu to be a pejorative epithet used by francophone colonialists in Central Africa's Belgian Congo for the native population.[2] It may be derived from the name of the genus comprising macaque monkeys. The macaque's genus name, Macaca, is a latinization of the Bantu (Kongo) ma-kako,[3] meaning "monkey".
In the United States, the term was at the center of a controversy during the 2006 United States Senate election in Virginia when it was used by the Republican incumbent, George Allen. Most Americans were unfamiliar with the term until continual media coverage alleged it to be a racial slur. Allen alleged that he was unaware of its racial context. Relating to the Allen controversy, "macaca" was named the most politically incorrect word of 2006 by Global Language Monitor, a nonprofit group that studies word usage.[4] The word was also a finalist for the American Dialect Society "Word of the Year" that same year.
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According to Robert Edgerton, in the Belgian Congo, colonial whites called Africans macaques. The term sale macaque (filthy monkey) was occasionally used as an insult.[5] In the ceremony in 1960 in which Congo gained its independence from Belgium, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a speech accusing Belgian King Baudouin of presiding over "a regime of injustice, suppression, and exploitation" before ad-libbing at the end, Nous ne sommes plus vos macaques! (We are no longer your macaques!), as the Congolese in the audience rose to their feet cheering. Lumumba was reportedly still stung by being called a sale macaque by a Belgian woman years earlier.[6]
"Macaca" is a direct translation for "female monkey" in Portuguese language. The translation for "male monkey " (english) is "macaco" (Portuguese). In Portugal and Portuguese speaking countries, racists often call black people "macaco" or "macacos" (plural form) as an insult, because their african origins. "Macaco" is also the Portuguese generic word to designate any kind of ape.[7]
In the Adventures of Tintin written by Belgian writer-artist Hergé, Captain Haddock uses the term macaque as an insult, along with other random terms.[8] In a 1994 essay, literary scholar Patrick Colm Hogan discussed the racist symbolism surrounding the name Makak, the protagonist in Derek Walcott's 1967 play Dream on Monkey Mountain.[9]
English gossip columnist Taki Theodoracopulos referred to Bianca Jagger, who is of Nicaraguan origin, as macaca mulatta in 1996. Theodoracopulos has frequently used racial slurs in his published work.[10][11] Note that Macaca mulatta is the scientific name for the Rhesus monkey. The photographer Marc Garanger recounts the use of Macaque as a slur against Algerian women in a 1990 issue of Aperture magazine.[12]
The failed re-election campaign of Republican U.S. Senator George Allen of Virginia generated much controversy after he used the word macaca in reference to an Indian American. On August 11, 2006, at a campaign stop in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, George Allen twice used the word macaca to refer to S. R. Sidarth, who was filming the event as a "tracker" for the opposing Jim Webb campaign. Prior to this, the term was almost completely unknown in the U.S.
This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent... Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.
Sidarth is of Indian ancestry, but was born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia. Allen's mother, born Sarah Lumbroso, is of French Tunisian descent and commentators have suggested that she may have learned the pejorative during her childhood and introduced it to her son. Even though Allen claimed that he made up the word and said that he did not understand its derogatory meaning, a media outcry erupted following his use of the term. After two weeks of negative publicity, Allen publicly apologized for his statement and asserted that he in no way intended those words to be offensive. The term "Macacawitz," referring to the September 2006 discovery of Allen's Jewish heritage, was coined by conservative pundit John Podhoretz and was widely used afterwards. A campaign staffer for Democratic Congressional candidate Al Weed used the phrase and was fired for her comment.
The controversy created by Allen's use of the alleged slur is seen to have turned a seemingly inevitable re-election of Allen into a victory for Webb.
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