Sen. George Allen of Virginia (Rep.) used the term “Macaca” on two occasions at the same press event to describe a volunteer on his opponent Jim Webb’s (Dem.) campaign. The volunteer was videotaping Allen’s speech as filming the opposition is a common practice in political campaigns. The event took place this past Friday in Breaks, a town in southwest Virginia along the Kentucky border. Macaca is a term for a genus of monkey, inhabiting the eastern hemisphere of the world and is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants in some European countries. Twice while the volunteer filmed Allen as he spoke, the senator pointed at him and used this term to refer to him. Currently Allen denies that his remarks which included the statements, “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is,” and “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” were not meant as racial slurs and that was “certainly not his intent” to offend the volunteer, according to several news sources. The volunteer in question, S.R. Sidarth, a man of American Indian descent is a native Virginian. Sidarth captured the senator’s remarks on film and turned them over to Jim Webb also of Virginia, on whose campaign he is working. Though Senator Allen has issued a public statement claiming that he never meant to offend “the young man”, Webb and his supporters are unmoved. Sidarth has replied that “…if he is going to single me out in a crowd of 100 people, he ought to apologize to me personally,” to voice his belief that a personal humiliation deserves at the very least personal apology. Jim Webb’s campaign Jessica Vanden Berg provided wholehearted agreement in the statement, “From my perspective, if a U.S. senator wanted to directly apologize to somebody, he would do so. Sidarth has not been apologized to.”