Bigot of the Week: Michael Steele

Okay, I was wondering what GOP bobble-head would insult Governor Bobby Jindal by comparing him with the characters of the Oscar winning best picture Slumdog Millionaire. Wow, that didn't take long. The Bigot of the Week Award goes to RNC Chairman, Michael Steele.

Michael Steele speaking for the GOP and the Republican Party showed his culturally insensitive behind when he linked Governor Jindal with the Untouchable caste of East India. Damn man, that would be akin to Governor Jindal calling Mr. Steele a "buckdancing coon" or a "watermelon eating Sambo."

Mr. Jindal could say to Mr. Steele: "Remember that little ditty that was so popular during the Tin Pan Alley Era: 'All Coons Look Alike To Me"? Or, what about that great children's novel by an English author during her tenure in India......"Little Black Sambo?" Governor Jindal could just say, "I'm just keeping it real my nigger." After all, isn't that the langage of the hip-hop crowd that you are trying to attract to the Republican Party?

Mr. Steele embarasses the whole black race. India is an old country, with old customs, folkways and morays. If he doesn't understand the difference between a fictional slum dweller and the Governor of the Great State of Lousiana then he should just hang-up his tap shoes.

From Politico: Steele offers Jindal 'slum love'

In an interview with Curtis Sliwa on ABC Radio last night, the host and RNC Chairman Michael Steele jokingly linked Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to the film "Slumdog Millionaire." Steele offered Jindal "slum love.

Here's the transcript:

SLIWA: Now, using a little bit of that street terminology, are you giving him any Slum love, Michael?

STEELE: (laughter)

SLIWA: Because he is — when guys look at him and young women look at him — they say oh, that's the slumdog millionaire, governor. So, give me some slum love.

STEELE: I love it. (inaudible) ... some slum love out to my buddy. Gov. Bobby Jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state. He's really turned around on some core principles — like hey, government ought not be corrupt. The good stuff ... the easy stuff.

Just when you thought the racist GOP couldn't get any worse, the Mayor of Los Alamitos, Dean Grose's e-mail included the above picture with a heading that read, "No Easter Egg hunt this year."

Keyanus Price, an African American, said she was appalled when she received an e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose's personal account that showed a picture of the White House with a watermelon patch imposed as the White House garden. "I think he's saying that since there's a black president, there will be no need to hunt for eggs since they're growing watermelons in the front yard this year," Price wrote.

She responded to the e-mail with: "Hey, that's not nice at all. Not all black people like watermelon… you should know better than that."

Grose replied: "The way things are today, you gotta laugh every now and then. I wanna see the coloring contests."

Price said Grose's response upset her more.

"As soon as I saw his response; that put me over the top because it was no big deal to him," she said.

Price and Grose have worked together in the past – they both sit on the board of the Youth Center, and she often works with city officials in the community representing her employer. The two have exchanged e-mails in the past.

The e-mail was sent to at least one other person, but the mayor said he isn't sure how many people received it. He said there is a "small group" of people he sometimes forward e-mails to.

In his apology to Price via e-mail, Grose wrote that he was not representing himself as a public official.

"It was not sent to a whole bunch of people, and it went through my personal e-mail," he said. "People e-mail things all the time, but that's not an excuse."

Peter Eliasberg of the ACLU said that while the mayor wasn't acting as a city official at the time, it doesn't mean that it was OK to send.

"Even though as much as we may always think they're always public officials, they're not always public officials; it's kind of going out as a private citizen," Eliasberg said. "That doesn't mean that she doesn't have every right to demand a public apology. It seems like it was pretty offensive." (Source: Orange County Register)