Informed Speculation

I’m just wondering…is there a ‘black’ way of thinking? Would I be called a racist if I suggested that blacks don’t appreciate fine art? I think I would…yet it’s all right, apparently, for Democrats to impose a mental plantation when it comes to political views, from which one dare not stray. How long will this tired game continue? At what point will a prominent Democratic leader say ‘enough is enough’?

Today, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, in writing of the demographics of the Supreme Court, assigned an asterisk to Clarence Thomas. That’s right, he doesn’t even deserve to be called black:

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

Well, that’s much politer than just flat out calling him ‘Uncle Tom’, as many have and continue to do, or a ‘house ni**er’…

Unfortunately, Michael Steele, Republican Lt. Governor of Maryland, is given no such ‘courtesies’:

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.

Operatives for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) also obtained a copy of his credit report — the only Republican candidate so targeted.

But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with “pointing out the obvious.”

“There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names,” said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.

“Party trumps race, especially on the national level,” she said. “If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It’s democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy.”

Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black.

“Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community,” she said. “His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people.”

During the 2002 campaign, Democratic supporters pelted Mr. Steele with Oreo cookies during a gubernatorial debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

In 2001, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. called Mr. Steele an “Uncle Tom,” when Mr. Steele headed the state Republican Party. Mr. Miller, Prince George’s County Democrat, later apologized for the remark.

“That’s not racial. If they call him the “N’ word, that’s racial,” Mrs. Marriott said. “Just because he’s black, everything bad you say about him isn’t racial.”

Let’s let that sink in a minute…

Okay. Ahem….

UNCLE TOM IS NOT RACIAL????!!!!????

The former head of the NAACP, mind you, says it’s no problem to point out the obvious…the National Association for the Advancement of Correct Political stances, apparently – funny how I thought that acronym had a different meaning all these years…

Now, I don’t want to paint with a broad brush. Certainly the vast, vast majority of Democrats, white and black, see these statements for the outrages they are and don’t share those sentiments…

…so why aren’t they talking? Why isn’t the Chairman of the Democratic Party calling these party members to task and publicly repudiating their views?

Time and time again we see people, yes, on both sides of the aisle, who are afraid to condemn idiocy because it might be perceived as harming their stance with a particular constituency. Smear tactics of this sort are particularly galling, however, coming from a party that congratulates itself on its representation of minority rights at every opportunity…yet the first time a gay Republican or a black Republican comes into view, all those nice principles of tolerance fly right out the window.

The Golden Rule comes to mind, yes, but also this old saw: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander…even if the goose is registered with a different party…