Really?! RNC Leader Michael Steele Thinks Obama 'Is the Magic Negro'
By Ali Frick, Think Progress Posted on May 1, 2009, Printed on December 18, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.thinkprogress.org//139398/
During the January campaign for chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele slammed his opponent Chip Saltsman's distribution of a CD with a song called "Barack the Magic Negro." "It doesn’t help at all," Steele said. "Absolutely, it reinforces a negative stereotype of the party." However, while hosting Bill Bennett's radio show this morning, Steele laughed when a caller called Obama the "magic negro" and seemingly agreed with the characterization:
CALLER: It's just like the LA Time said last year or two years ago: He is the magic Negro.
STEELE: Yeah he -- [laughing]. You read that too, huh? [still laughing]
CALLER: Oh yeah. I read that too. Even when things go wrong, he still manages to come out smelling like a rose.
STEELE: Well, yeah.
Listen to it:
As Steele is facing an internal power struggle, he may be trying to shore up his radical right-wing credentials. Though he earlier refused to call the president a "socialist," this week he declared Obama was "moving towards a collectivist socialist approach to government."
Ali Frick is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
