Reagan the Racist.

[Estebonrober]

Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary.

“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’ And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a terrible scene.” And, Nixon added, “they cheered.”

explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”


Nixon’s analysis of African leadership reflected his prejudice


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-07-30T21:25:54&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0qPOi_W896YybyC2fqaZWqZ1M1MxuTNOT0HHJIwgQ-jZ9xeI6Pa1yphgg

Yea. . . you know it is not racism until it is explicit. . . yea . . ?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Reagan isn't that different from the current potus; both are racists with failing brains lol

 

[Zardnaar]

Generational thing, my grandparents were racist by modern standards.

Didn't really like my grandmother for other reasons.

I don't buy into all the liberal stuff on Africa but if you dumped a heap of Europeans there minus their toys they got to import from Europe I don't see them doing any better.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't buy into all the liberal stuff on Africa

Yeah, dumb liberals with their idea of "human equality"

 

[Patine]

Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary.

“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’ And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a terrible scene.” And, Nixon added, “they cheered.”

explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”


Nixon’s analysis of African leadership reflected his prejudice


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-07-30T21:25:54&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0qPOi_W896YybyC2fqaZWqZ1M1MxuTNOT0HHJIwgQ-jZ9xeI6Pa1yphgg

Yea. . . you know it is not racism until it is explicit. . . yea . . ?

Ah, yes. The "paternalistic racism." Best epitomized in public political rhetoric when Joseph Chamberlain (the uncle of the later "Appeasement" Prime Minister), as Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs for the Benjamin Disraeli Government (the big pushers of the "New Conservative" of a firmly-entrenched but "benign" aristocracy toward the lower classes ideal that dominate the whole them of "Downton Abbey") used in a speech on the affairs "uplifting" indigenous people across the British Empire the term from pro-Imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling "White Man's Burden."

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, dumb liberals with their idea of "human equality"

No not that, they give them a lot of free passes and play up white guilt a lot. Bob Geldoff and co with those stupid rock concerts.

Africans much like everyone else are perfectly capable of their own screw ups but liberals like blaming everything on the white man.

Can't really blame the west for attitudes towards women, aids, and albino murder etc. Or making bad loan deals with China.

Not that the West is doing much better with serial killers etc. I used to work with a Nigerian christian he had some interesting stories. So did a white South African who moved here as he opposed apartheid and was of English not Boer descent

 

[Patine]

No not that, they give them a lot of free passes and play up white guilt a lot. Bob Geldoff and co with those stupid rock concerts.

Africans much like everyone else are perfectly capable of their own screw ups but liberals like blaming everything on the white man.

Can't really blame the west for attitudes towards women, aids, and albino murder etc. Or makingv bad loan deals with China.

Not that the West is doing much better with serial killers etc. I used to work with a Nigerian christian he had some interesting stories. So did a white South African who moved here as he opposed apartheid and was of English not Boer descent

Well, Neo-Colonial economic and political policies from the U.S., UK, France, Russia, and China (mostly - and a few others to lesser extents) kind of screw over them "picking themselves up and advancing themselves," because those policies prefer corrupt, bloody-handed, human-rights-abusing, infighting regimes over ones who actually care about their people, the latter of whom are not nearly as conducive to being pliable to those policies. Also, there have been notable few serial killers cropping up of late, not even that many cold cases with new leads. I believe you mean MASS SHOOTERS, which, of course, are forensically speaking, a completely different thing, and with different circumstances, reasons, and backgrounds that lead people to that than lead them to become serial killers. Terminology and clarity of term, as I've said to you, specifically, several times now, is VERY important. By the way, have you changed that old thread's title and opening post yet so they actually refer to a socio-concept that actually meaningfully EXISTS, and isn't a nonsensical, void-of-meaning, non-term that kills your point utterly, by definition from the start, by effectively addressing NOTHING?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

This is besides the major thrust of the piece - because that Reagan and Nixon were obscenely racist isn't that surprising/is already known - but it's painfully true that decades of Republican presidents have legit been considerably unintelligent people in the areas most important to being a good president. Also the idea that any president should have any privacy claim to stuff they said while in office that isn't a security threat is absurd. These people are ghouls who should have every word they say available to everyone.

 

[Lexicus]

Africans much like everyone else are perfectly capable of their own screw ups but liberals like blaming everything on the white man.

Yeah African countries should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps amirite

 

[Cloud_Strife]

This is besides the major thrust of the piece - because that Reagan and Nixon were obscenely racist isn't that surprising/is already known - but it's painfully true that decades of Republican presidents have legit been considerably unintelligent people in the areas most important to being a good president. Also the idea that any president should have any privacy claim to stuff they said while in office that isn't a security threat is absurd. These people are ghouls who should have every word they say available to everyone.

I mean let us be honest here, The Republican party fullstop are full of ghouls.

Anyone who can support a party that is hellbent on reducing peoples rights, their access to healthcare etc, aren't good people, especially if it's pointed out to them.

 

[warpus]

So why is it the biggest political party in the country, their fingers in every single public office possible? They run the place!

Either the opposition is made up of morons or this are the sort of politicians Americans crave

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

So why is it the biggest political party in the country, their fingers in every single public office possible? They run the place!

Either the opposition is made up of morons or this are the sort of politicians Americans crave

That's probably a subject for another thread, but America is hardly alone in this regard, given, say, the existence of England, Canada, Australia, Israel, Japan, and really most any other country. The Republican party has a very strong brand. The synergy between Republicans and the Religious Right, to the point where their brands are inseparable, is powerful. White identity politics, which is what the Republican party most fundamentally represents, are even more so. And when you can grab the wealthy and corporations in too by promising lower taxes and regulations, manage to rig the system in your favor via geography and gerrymandering and a government set up structurally to be protective of their base, you have a powerful team. And the fact that politics - particularly in America - has truly become a celebrity game show, in a country where celebrities running for office do ridiculously well, means that barbs and violent rhetoric and drama and conflict become king, just like the structure of any other reality show.

This isn't really different, though, than Boris Johnson, or Doug Ford, or etc etc etc. It's a powerful mix in almost any context, because racism and religion and identity and wealth are very powerful things.

Edit: This didn't address the intelligence barb, which is a thing that quickly turns ugly. Politics attracts people desiring power, but other than that, we just get stupid people running the country. I have full faith that millions of people who voted for Trump are much smarter than him in areas of politics/history/geography, etc. (but also very racist too! whoopee!) He just had the money and fame to run. Same with Reagan. You can be a genius but if you aren't born rich about the most you can afford to run for is like, city council.

 

[warpus]

We might have some morons in office here in Canada, but they don't do 10% the damage the Republicans do. They are also not openly racist and bigoted. Our federal conservative party here is tame compared to the sort of fire coming out of the buttholes of your Republicans

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I mean yeah, America is a unique blend of uber-conservatism, in part also given its self-imposed state of being ~world police~, but to say that Canadian conservative politicians aren't openly racist and bigoted is extremely inaugurate! Harper had a pernicious obsession with "barbaric cultures" which just so happened to always involve Muslims, took multiple pages out of the Bush playbook, including stifling basically all public environmental research, and then there's that indigenous people in Canada keep getting killed and most Canadians don't at all care. Andrew Scheer is chums with Faith Goldy, an unambiguous white nationalist, yadda yadda. Rob Ford literally was a self-avowed racist. Canada is just a very slightly more mildly racist country than America, with a barely less racist major conservative party, but it's like arguing between pees in a pod really. Mostly Canada just can't do as much damage as America routinely does, thankfully.

 

[warpus]

Our conservatives aren't disenfranchising minorities and taking away their vote. But I digress. This is supposed to be about Reagan

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Nixon couldn’t stop retelling his version of what Reagan had said. Oddly unfocused, he spoke with Rogers again two hours later and repeated the story as if it would be new to the secretary.

“Reagan called me last night,” Nixon said, “and I didn’t talk to him until this morning, but he is, of course, outraged. And I found out what outraged him, and I find this is typical of a lot of people: They saw it on television and, he said, ‘These cannibals jumping up and down and all that.’ And apparently it was a pretty grotesque picture.” Like Nixon, Rogers had not seen the televised images. But Rogers agreed: “Apparently, it was a terrible scene.” And, Nixon added, “they cheered.”

explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”


Nixon’s analysis of African leadership reflected his prejudice


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-07-30T21:25:54&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0qPOi_W896YybyC2fqaZWqZ1M1MxuTNOT0HHJIwgQ-jZ9xeI6Pa1yphgg

Yea. . . you know it is not racism until it is explicit. . . yea . . ?

For those that didn't read the story, the archives deliberately sat on this information until after Reagan had died despite appeals from one of the lead archivists to release it. Even after Reagan died, they sandbagged on releasing the information.

Oh and for those that are interested, Obama's library has fought oversight from the national archive system successfully and will not be under the purview of the public at all and will instead be run by a pro-Obama organization.

 

[Arwon]

So why is it the biggest political party in the country, their fingers in every single public office possible? They run the place!

Either the opposition is made up of morons or this are the sort of politicians Americans crave

A big part of it is a lot of white folk just like white supremacy, but a non trivial factor is an actively vote-suppressing electoral system.

 

[Arwon]

Our conservatives aren't disenfranchising minorities and taking away their vote. But I digress. This is supposed to be about Reagan

Well except by maintaining first past the post and single member districts I guess

 

[Berzerker]

I don't buy into all the liberal stuff on Africa but if you dumped a heap of Europeans there minus their toys they got to import from Europe I don't see them doing any better.

Drop me off in the Kalahari and I'd be dead within a day or two unless a Bushman saved my arse

Yeah, dumb liberals with their idea of "human equality"

So you edited out the rest of the sentence where Zardnaar 'equated' Europeans with Africans to accuse him claiming equality is dumb?

 

[warpus]

Well except by maintaining first past the post and single member districts I guess

The politician who refused to change FPTP, even after running on the platform of "After I'm elected this is changing for realz" is someone conservatives in this country hate.