They said they did not want to issue statements or comment about what appeared to be an ethnic slur by the senator who is seeking reelection in Virginia because “it would be misconstrued as siding with one political party against another.”

“We are a non-profit organization and therefore prohibited from engaging in politics,” said a Filipino American leader who requested anonymity. Some Filipino Americans said the slur was “deplorable,” “uncalled for,” and “insensitive, adding that they were assuaged by the fact that the senator, after a long while, had personally apologized to the person involved.

S. R. Sidarth, who is an Asian Indian born in Virginia and is a senior at the University of Virginia, was acting as a volunteer for Jim Webb, the Democratic challenger of Allen, by videotaping the campaign sorties of Allen in Virginia. During Allen’s campaign in Breaks, Virginia recently Allen singled out Sidarth:

“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia, and he’s having it on film and its great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he’s never been there and probably will never come."

Later, Allen said: “Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” said Allen.

Kibitzers said Macaca refers to Macaque, a species of monkeys in Africa. Democrats said Allen, who speaks French, knows the meaning of the word “Macaque.”

Allen later launched into a full-scale damage control, calling a press conference with Asian Indians surrounding him and apologizing to Sidarth for calling him Macaca. But he said he was referring to Sidarth as a Mohawk because he had a similar hairdo.

The blogs in the internet had a field day gathering comments from surfers about the Allen flap.

Depending on how it is spelled, the word “macaca” could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa.

In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.

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.” He said the word sounds similar to “mohawk,” a term that his campaign staff had nicknamed Sidarth because of his haircut. Sidarth said his hairstyle is a mullet — tight on top, long in the back.

But the apology, which came hours after Allen’s campaign manager dismissed the issue with an expletive and insisted the senator has “nothing to apologize for,” did little to mollify Webb’s campaign or Sidarth, who said he suspects Allen singled him out because his was the only nonwhite face among about 100 Republican supporters.

“I think he was doing it because he could, and I was the only person of color there, and it was useful for him in inciting his audience," said Sidarth, who videotaped the event for the Webb campaign. “I was annoyed he would use my race in a political context."

Allen is running for a second term in the Senate while planning a possible presidential bid in 2008. Webb, a Vietnam war hero and former Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan, is working to derail those plans with an underfunded campaign based principally on Webb’s early opposition to the war in Iraq.

Steve Mukherjee, a spokesman for the Washington chapter of the Association of Indians in America, said Allen’s comments were “hurtful,” and he chided the senator for not being more sensitive.

It’s not the first time Allen has confronted charges of insensitivity to race or ethnicity from minority leaders and longtime political opponents.

Before he ran for governor in 1993, Allen was criticized for keeping a Confederate flag in a cabin near his Charlottesville home, part of a collection of flags, he has said. He stirred controversy as governor by issuing a proclamation noting the South’s celebration of Confederate History Month without mentioning slavery.

Vol. XV, No. 20