Remembering Reagan's Racism

One of my black colleagues called Ronald Reagan a racist today. Normally I reserve that term for special people--like Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond--who seem to embrace the philosophy in public ways. Because racism is so much a part of American culture and history, it's also a part of all Americans--if not in who we are, then certainly in how we behave. If you presume a certain amount of latent racism in every American, then the term "racist" can be meaningfully preserved for only the most special of individuals.

Having failed to review the Reagan record, I initially lumped the Great Communicator in with the rest of us--well, very broadly, anyway. Within the spectrum of racially-conditioned America, there are those who work to confront racism, and there are those who do nothing. At best, I thought, Mr. Reagan--white, male, wealthy, Republican--did nothing. As I told my co-workers when the debate began, "I don't know if I would call him racist. I would say he didn't care."

Then my co-worker, "Abe"--a Liberian emigre--ran down the record. First of all, Reagan initially opposed the creation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, calling the civil rights leader a "trouble-maker." I personally did not know this. Another black co-worker, Greg, asked Abe how this made Reagan a racist. Abe told him it was "clear as day." This was not a satisfactory response for Greg. I sensed Abe missed the sincerity of Greg's interest, misinterpreting it as a dismissal, so I tried to explain why Abe had a strong argument, since Martin Luther King, Jr. has come to personify for most Americans the goals and achievements of the civil rights movement. For Ronald Reagan to dismiss this as "trouble-making" indicated to me that he either opposed the goals of the civil rights movement--making him a very special kind of racist--or he simply didn't understand their significance, being completely insulated from the black American experience his entire life. I still felt myself leaning towards the latter, wanting to give the newly corpsified president the benefit of the doubt before branding him a racist.

I repeated my opinion of the former president not caring enough about black people to understand their history.

"I don't know," Greg told me. "He sounds pretty racist."

The second point Abe articulated in the case against Reagan related to his dealings with the very racist South African government in the 1980's, and its program of racial segregation--apartheid. I'm telling you these goddam Jim Lehrer tributes to Ronald Reagan can really fuck with your head: I had completely forgotten about apartheid. Anyway, if hating Martin Luther King, Jr., isn't enough, supporting a blatantly racist government and refusing to participate in its international embargo should tell you something about Ronald Reagan's opinion of colored people.

So there you have it. Ronald Reagan, a very special racist. Who knew?

A comprehensive analysis of Reagan's special brand of racism can be explored in this MSNBC article.