Shekar Ramanuja Sidarth, the University of Virginia senior, who shot to public fame after Republican Sen, George Allen ridiculed him as macaca at a campaign stop has been recognized as online magazine Salon's Person of the Year 2006: "He becomes a symbol of politics in the 21st century, a brave new world in which any video clip can be broadcast instantly everywhere and any 20-year-old with a camera can change the world. He builds a legacy out of happenstance."
The incident, which may have been pivotal in the 2006 campaign and led to Allen's narrow loss, flipping the Senate into Democrat hands. Noted Salon: "Allen was just a California transplant with dip and cowboy boots who had glommed on to the ancient racial quirks of his adopted home. Sidarth was the kid next door. He, not Allen, was the real Virginian. He was proof that every hour his native commonwealth drifts further from the orbit of the GOP's solid South and toward a day when Allen's act will be a tacky antique. Allen was the past, Sidarth is the wired, diverse future - of Virginia, the political process and the country."
The Global Language Monitor named Macaca the most politically incorrect word of the year. It's a term that is likely to stick to Sidarth. Indeed, Sidarth gained easy entry into a much sought after political science class at his university with a three-word essay: "I am Macaca." |
