MORE CONDEMNATIONS FOR LEFT BLOGGER’S MINSTREL SHOW

These are comments from readers of KOS, who get why another black man’s posting a picture of Maryland Lt. Governor Micheal Steele in minstrel paint, is at best bigoted and at its worse, racist.

If some right wing blogged pulled the same stunt, even to make the same point about a Dem, we’d be going ape-shit. That was an extremely irresponsible and offensive picture. Would you want your campaign ad next to that?

I don’t understand why bloggers feel it’s okay to post whatever they want and don’t think they should worry about their advertisers. The advertisers of Drudge, for instance, should not be there – he’s a slime merchant.

When is it ever a good idea to post a minstrel picture? Eek.

If a white blogger had put up a caption of “Sambo” and a minstrel face he be SOL and Kos would be calling for a boycott of his blog. Don’t deny that truth.

Accepting people using cheap racist potshots just because they’re a minority isn’t necessary. Take the high road and acknowledge that being black doesn’t magically make what he did right.

Tell you what. Democrats should just run that imagery every time there is a black Republican against one of them. They could include your little explanation of historical significance of the image as a disclaimer of racism. And if people still think it is offensive, Dems can just accuse them of ignorance.

Does that sound like a good idea?

This isn’t a Sista Souljah deal, where a white candidate attacked a black woman for her statements about white people. Kaine’s people dissed Gilliard for crudely insulting a black man.

Minstrel makeup goes a bit beyond just “criticizing a black politician.” It’s a rhetorical – or “artisitc” – bomb. It carries tremendous emotional significance. I think it would be naive not to expect people not to have powerful emotional reactions – many of them negative – to such an image.