From The Washington Times:
Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.
Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an “Uncle Tom” and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.
This is the sort of thing that Michelle Malkin writes about in her new book and that you don’t hear about from the mainstream media. Where are the voices of tolerance to tell us that this is getting really old?
Nothing unhinges Democrats faster than successful minority conservatives, especially black conservatives. Why? Because any hint that Republicans might capture a meaningful percentage of the black vote means decades in the political wilderness for Democrats. Without a monopoly on the black vote, they’re finished. So the ends (political survival) are deemed to justify the means (spewing vicious, racist bile).
UPDATE: The AP belatedly covers the story. More updates from Michelle Malkin.
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Just goes to show that hatred, being rooted in fear, comes from all corners and every angle.
Thanks for the link.
What is the REAL, but unstated, reason Democrats hate Michael Steele enough to engage in a racist, hate campaign against him?
FEAR and a desperate need to distract the press and the public from focusing on how the Democrats have sold Maryland Blacks down the river.
Michael Steele is a native of, and lives in, Prince George’s County, Maryland.
EVERY county and state level elected official in Prince George’s County is a Democrat.
The majority of them are Black.
Half of the non-Black minority are Hispanic.
Top school adminsitrators are predominately Black.
If you believe the Democrat’s rhetoric, you would expect Prince George’s County to be a paradise, especially for “minorities.”
You would be wrong.
Prince George’s County’s rapidly increasing murder rate is second highest in Maryland and the highest in the Washington, DC, suburbs.
Prince George’s County’s schools are the second worst in Maryland and the worst in the Washington, DC, suburbs. The Black school chief recently resigned while being investigated by the FBI; one of his
top assistants ($130,000 per year) has just been convicted on federal drug laundering charges and has been indicted on witness tampering charges.
Prince George’s County has more car thefts and violent carjackings than all the rest of Maryland and the DC suburbs put together.
Attacking Michael Steele is just part of the Democrats scheme to distract the public and the press from their ongoing abysmal failure to either protect or educate the people of Prince George’s County.
Unfortunately, the GOP will not field, much less effectively support, respectable alternatives to the failing Prince George’s County Democrats.
Democrats racist? What??? Those pillars of tolerance??? NO!!!
Of course, you hear next to nothing about this in the mainstream media. I guess they have more important things to cover.
You’re absolutely right — if the demeecrats lose just 10% of the black vote, they are finished. And they will become even more Unhinged.
This may be more of a problem with Maryland than Democrats. Writing from Mississippi, I testify that, despite our frustrating, ugly history, our constant, interminable conversation on race and race relations yields some mighty fruit. For the last two elections cycles for our predominantly black congressional district in the Delta, we have witnessed vibrant campaigns between black candidates from both parties. The Democratic incumbent, Bennie Thompson, has won re-election both times but he’s facing a stiff challenge from another black Democrat next year.
Yes, Nation, I challenge and call you to look toward the state that has come the farthest, the fastest in these areas, and this state that has the highest per capita population of black Americans. We may not have achieved racial reconciliation, but we’re nigh upon racial harmony. Mississippi has some lessons to teach.
As with all racist people and groups, the solution, the cure, is exposure and integration and real relationships. Racism only thrives in fear and isolation. Most of the Republic hasn’t enjoyed living in such close proximity with other races as we have here.
No JRB, it’s a democrat problem. Just look at what happens nationally whenever a black conservative gains prominence. They are viciously attacked by the left. Secretary of State Rice is a great example.
The last thing the democrats want is a successful black conservative — because they know that they are in deep do-do as a party if they lose the black vote.
Maybe - gasp - it’s Democrats attacking REPUBLICANS.
I certainly agree that infusing vicious, racist and insulting language, from either party, from any race, is ugly and wrong. Neither party and no race is immune, especially when attacking their own. My criticism of this post and these comments, however, is that you are criticizing Black Democrats for a general, human, American problem. They are wrong to do it, but they are not necessarily doing it because of the motives you describe.
I sense that you are neglecting a wide, wide range of issues here to make a discrete, self-serving political statement. Of couse, that’s a general human problem, too, just one I think we should avoid.
Consider this possibility, that the folks you’re criticising are not acting primarily from an identity as Democrats but from an identity as Black Americans. The meanness, from whatever p.o.v. is damned, but what difference might it make to your implications, if these people aren’t speaking as Democrats but from some other perspective?
Also, I consider myself more a Democrat than a Republican at this point in life, and I rejoice in the Colin Powells and Condi Rice’s of the world. I rejoice in CJ Watts. Their ascension is a credit to our Nation’s progress and our progress as a people. I’m white, too, and I am not an exception. Just please be careful when ascribing motives to groups, any group, wholesale, or you fall victim to the same thing you’re criticizing here.
Here’s a parallel: Many Catholics and Catholic churches criticized, even “disfellowshipped,” John Kerry for some of his political views, especially on abortion. Many Democrats complained that this was political posturing and an attempt of the Catholic church to assert itself inappropriately into the election and our political process. I daresay that many of those Catholic Bishops were not acting primarily from a Republican p.o.v. but from a moral, theological, religious and Catholic p.o.v., despite the overtly political ramifications.
I’m simply suggesting that these racist barbs may not be flung from the motives you perceive them to be.
People would really love us to believe that racism exists because of political, religious, philosophical, ethnic reasons. Hog wash! Racism does not exist because one is either democrat or republican, Christian or Muslim, black or white.
Racism exists because of fear and ignorance. Ingnornce because we fail to realize that God who made us in his image is the same God who made the person(s) we hate in his image as well. Fear, because when we fear someone else, especially the fear of that someone or people group gaining an equal playing ground (i.e blacks or white gaining the right to vote), we turn our fear into a cause for oppression.
JRB said:
They’re not being racist because they’re Democrats; they’re being racist because they’re black?
There are a few problems with that thesis. First, the point of this post is not that “Democrats are racist.” The point is that when Democrats do something racist or otherwise unhinged, it is generally underplayed by the media — especially in comparison to when Republicans or conservatives engage is similarly foul behavior. The secondary point, is that Democrats tend to overreach in this way more often in reaction to successful black conservatives. In addition to Michael Steele, we could point to the Clarence Thomas hearings where white, southern Democrats like Howell Heflin engaged in some “high-tech lynching.”
More to the point, in this specific instance, white Democrats in Maryland have refused to condemn the attacks, but responsible black Democrats have condemned them:
Moreover, the examples in Malkin’s book about unhinged Democrats are not limited to black Democrats.
Every one of my posts neglects a wide, wide range of issues — in order to focus on one issue. I can’t address the universe in every post. What I wanted to focus on here was the lengths that some Democrats will go to in order to oppose genuine diversity of opinion within the black community and the lengths that some other Democrats (in the media and on left-of-center blogs) will go to in order to ignore or dismiss these excesses.
Extremist said:
“I can’t address the universe in every post.”
You are not alone!
Ex Your comment in response to mine re-qualifies better your post, and I appreciate it. My point was not that they are racist because they are black, but that they are racist for some other reason than being Democrat. You’re post implied initially otherwise, that they were acting out this way because of party politics, and to that I do not agree. I also, explicitly and expressly, here state that I am not apologizing for them or justifying them.
My criticism was to the tendency of those who concern ourselves with politics too often, way too often, to see things only in terms of party motivations and party condemnation. That tendency does a disservive to whatever position we advocate.
JRB
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