Steele-as-Sambo Meme Lives On in Radical Left Blogosphere

Liberal blogger Steve Gilliard passed away in 2007, but his most infamous contribution to the blogosphere lives on as leftist bloggers continue to lodge racists attacks at Michael Steele, the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Gilliard's 2005 photoshop depicting then-Lt. Gov. Steele as a minstrel was re-syndicated by the leftist blog perceptionmanagers.org on January 31 (see screencap taken Feb. 10 at right).

The text of the blog post reads:

Apparently the Black community in Maryland (and the rest of Black America) doesn't like Michael "Oreo's fell like Locusts" Steele very much.

So the RNC would prefer to be known as the party of "Uncle Tom" instead of the Party of Racists. Way to broaden the base guys! Good luck with that in 2012.

Under criticism for his depiction of Steele, Gilliard himself removed the offending photoshop from his October 26, 2005 blog post, replacing it with an unoffensive photoshop featuring an unaltered photo of Steele and U.S. currency. The offensive caption -- I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House -- remains.

To be fair, the Blogger.com-templated Perception Managers site seems to be a very low-trafficked one -- judging by the spate of recent blog posts with zero comments -- and I'm certain most liberal bloggers would castigate the blog for its racist depiction and description of Mr. Steele particularly and black Republicans generally. 

That being said, it's racist rhetoric of this nature is worthy of notice and repudiation from liberal and conservative bloggers alike.