Sen. George Allen dismisses my question

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/07/george-allen-race-sports

Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who is running again for Senate in 2012, was called out in Twitter on Tuesday night for repeatedly questioning NBC4 anchor-reporter Craig Melvin about his nonexistent sports career. The Washington Post's Tom Jackman reported on Allen's apparent stereotyping of Melvin:

NBC 4's reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin's Twitter account Tuesday night: "For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,"what position did you play?" I did not a play a sport."

UPDATE: The son of former Redskins coach George Allen apologized to Melvin. "@georgeallenva:sorry if I offended, ask people a lot if they played sports Grew up in fball family found sports banter good way to connect"

Allen lost his seat after being caught on camera hurling racial epithets at a young staffer working for his Democratic opponent. The "macacca" scandal led to other revelations about Allen's reactionary views on race, including a picture of Allen hanging out with a white supremacy group, and the fact that he had prominently displayed a noose in his Charlottesville law office.

Although Allen has tried to distance himself from his racist past, questions still linger about his view of racial minorities. For example, last year, I attended an event featuring Allen at the Heritage Foundation. After speaking once with the senator during the question and answer period, I again raised my hand for a second question. For some reason, possibly because I was the only minority in an all-white audience, Allen dismissed my second question by asking if I understood what it means to be "at bat," a baseball metaphor:

DUNLOP: I think we have one more question here. [pointing to me]

ALLEN: This guy has a question. I'll talk to you afterwards [inaudible] let everyone get a bat [makes baseball bat swinging motion]. You understand at bats — right?

Watch it:


In Allen's worldview, every tall African American is a sports player, but Asian Americans have never heard of baseball.

Category:

News & Politics

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• baseball

[Allensmackerman]

In b4 someone tries to explain away his racist remark, tries to pretend that this has nothing to do with racism, accuses us of playing the race card, insinuates that we're all paranoid over race, or at best, calls us all racial epithets while simultaneously insisting they're not racist either.