Column: The Democrat's plantation

I was always under the impression that being African-American was about having a certain ethnicity. The U.S. Senate race in Maryland has proven me wrong. As the race continues between Michael Steele and Kweisi Mfume, both African-Americans, the Democrats exhibit more and more bigotry.

You see, Michael Steele isn't really black according to Democrats. You wouldn't know that by looking at him. He's not black to Democrats, because he's not one of them - he's a conservative Republican. For this, Democrats pelt him with Oreos at campaign events. An Oreo is a term used to describe someone who is black on the outside, but white on the inside.

According to The Washington Times, one of Mfume's staffers said, "There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names." The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pointed people to an image depicting Steele as a black-faced minstrel. In the first campaign scandal of 2006, two staffers for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are under federal investigation for pulling Steele's credit report. These aren't just random people who oppose Steele, these are Democrat Party officials.

When Trent Lott made a comment that some thought racist, there was non-stop news coverage until he stepped down from his leadership post. Where's the coverage of the Oreo-chucking racists of the Left?

The Democrats say that Republican policies are anti-black. Republicans brought you the end of slavery, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the 13-15th Amendments among many others. What have the Democrats brought to the table? There's the break-up of the black family, mediocre education, abortion and affirmative action.

Democratic welfare policies have largely been credited for the break-up of minority families. While Republicans want to give poor black families the opportunity to send their children to good schools with school choice programs, Democrats insist they stay in failing ghetto schools.

Democrats are certainly the party of abortion. That Holocaust of over 40 million children so far surpasses the body counts of two other paragons of left-wing governance, Hitler (socialist) and Stalin (communist). Black women are about three times more likely to get an abortion than white women, according to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, whose writings include her desire to rid America of "the defective and diseased elements of humanity," which she considered blacks to be a part of.

This leaves affirmative action. Affirmative action, when pared down, presupposes that blacks will never be as good as white males. Sure, they wrap it in fancy terms like socioeconomic status, but if that were true, they'd base affirmative action on things like parental assets, income or where one lives. Instead, they base it solely on skin color. If Oprah Winfrey, worth $13 billion, had children, they'd get affirmative action benefits while a poor white kid from the trailers wouldn't. Republicans dispense with this notion and believe that blacks can make it given the tools.

That's not to say Democrats have done nothing for African-Americans. Ron Brown was one of the first African-Americans to be a Cabinet member, and he was nominated by Clinton. He was also the first African-American Cabinet member to die under suspicious circumstances. At least Democrats believe that African-Americans can be important enough to assassinate.

It is important to realize that no-agenda Democrats have done more to keep African-Americans at the back of the bus than the Klan ever could. The only former Klansman in the Senate, Robert Byrd, is a Democrat. Democrats, with their latest antics against Steele, show that if you are black, you better stay on the plantation. Instead of celebrating the freedom of black America, they enforce a rigid orthodoxy. This is why they protest Steele. This is why they protest anything they consider heresy.

This is not a thriving party. It's a dying party that can't enunciate what they are for, but only speaks of what they are against. At least they are helping keep Nabisco in business.

John Bambenek is a graduate student and a University employee. His column appears every Friday. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.