Real black folks don’t vote Republican. They don’t ever speak out against ills in the black community, like that race traitor Bill Cosby. And they don’t work for President Bush, like Condi Rice.

Everybody knows that these are some of the most basic rules for actually being black. Only it would appear that someone forgot to tell Michael Steele.

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. 

For daring to believe that skin color does not have to equal political preference, and that personal principles don’t have to hinge on racial identification, Steele is fair game for racial attacks. That is sad and sick. Indeed, if the majority of blacks in America agree with this stance, then, politically, there is something very wrong in the black community at large.

Read the story.

Update: Michelle Malkin has much more on the subject. As does Ace.

Another update: Jeff G, too. Although I have a quibble with this bit:

On one level this is quite frightening, as it signals the mainstreaming of a decidedly anti-American idea (in the Constitutional, rather than a patriotic, sense); But on another level, it is a welcome development—one that allows us to engage with the direct (rather than the implied) arguments of those who would embrace group identity as a political tool.

I think it absolutely does rise to the level of being anti-American in the patriotic sense because it raises racial heritage to a level of importance over national heritage. That is, for a person who thinks that it’s okay to throw Oreo cookies at Steele, their racial heritage and the percieved baggage that skin color carries is more important than the shared American heritage. I can’t see how that is anything other than anti-American in nature.