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Michael Steele Calls Critics Racist
Michael Steele wishes Maryland Democrats would live up to Martin Luther King’s standard of judging people by their character and not the color of their skin.
Steele, currently Maryland’s Lieutenant Governor and a black Republican running for the United States Senate to fill the seat to be vacated by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, has been the victim of multiple slanders by Democratic politicians and activists in Maryland.
Story Continues Below And he doesn’t like it one bit. In an interview with the Washington Times, Steele challenged Democrats to show him which of his policies are anti-black.
"When I have opponents like that say that I am anti-black,” Steele said, "[I say] show me in my rhetoric where I have been anti-black, tell what I have said that has been anti-black,"
"When I talk about empowering my community and all communities, not just African-Americans but everyone, when I talk about giving your business a fair opportunity, a fair shake, giving your child a fair shot at a good education, giving your community a fair shot at re-establishing itself and growing again,” he continued, "I don't know where that becomes anti-anyone."
Among the insults and attacks Steele has encountered, he has been pelted with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, called an "Uncle Tom,” and depicted as a black-faced minstrel on a blog linked to the Web site of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Web site.
In August, Newsday and the New York Post both reported the Democratic Senatorial Committee was in illegal possession of a credit report on Steele. Two staffers of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) are alleged to have used Steele’s Social Security number to obtain the report. On November 2, the Washington Times reported Steele was the only Republican candidate nationwide to be targeted with a credit history check.
The illegal obtaining of Steele’s credit report is currently under investigation by the FBI.
A number of Maryland Democrats have refused to condemn the attacks. "Party trumps race, especially on the national level,” state Sen. Lisa Gladden (D-Baltimore) told the Times.
Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, told the Times that Steele asks for the 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.
Steele credited Democratic Senatorial candidate Kweisi Mfume for criticizing Maryland Democrats who approve of racial attacks. Mfume, a former president of the NAACP, joined the Congressional Black Caucus in requesting Maryland Democrats "cease and desist” from the racial attacks.
Steele is just one of several black Republicans to be targeted with racially-tinged attacks in recent years. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have also been the targets of Democratic slurs similar to those endured by Steele.
Editor's note:
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