Funny thing is, you see Democrats invoke Reagan more than do the Republicans, as if to suck up to the basic-cable-TV part of America: Tim Ryan (deer in the headlights look): And the last person to ever do something wonderful was........Ronald Reagan! Basic-Cable-TV Part of America: GRAMPA! It reminds me of, "You'd do it for Randolph Scott." "Ran-dolph SCOTT!"
I grew up in East Texas 50 years ago, everyone I knew back then was racist, everyone said ****** with derision. When my high school was integrated we had race fights and some knotheads tried to blow up every school bus in town. I'm glad I fell in love with Blues Music and Hendrix. But I absolutely know I was socialized racist, I just try to intellectually understand it and never let it show it outside of the primitive parts of my brain. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/06/archives/explosions-damage-36-school-buses-in-eastern-texas.html Lyndon B. Johnson said in the 1960s to a young Bill Moyers: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” This was the modus operandi for everyone. White egos felt better about themselves because they felt better than someone else, and we felt less bad about exploiting an under class for our own profit, like having black maids, yard men, porters etc. It was absolutely an economic status we had exploited since slavery and wanted maintained.
I agree. I just think there needs to be clarity on what racism is. Because there are plenty of people who treat minorities differently but since they don't hate minorities or want them killed they feel they aren't racist. So when that racism is called out. They think it's just people overreacting and whining all the time.
Old White Guy said something racist back in the 80's.... shocker. Was he an open racist like Trump is.... no. Not in my opinion from what I can remember at least. He'd NEVER use blatant racism in political campaigning to purposefully divide the country for his own political gain. He had more effective tools for winning the presidency which was mostly personality based & sold the concept of Reaganomics & small government that has died with Trump. But when it comes to his actual record he didn't support many of the civil rights bills that came through the government during the LBJ era and Congress actually overrode a veto of his for a Civil Rights bill in 88. He was no champion for Civil Rights even if he was a very popular president in many ways, and was a president that my family loved until Trump brainwashed them into thinking he was an open borders Democrat. So no... he wasn't a Political Racist like Trump is, but it shouldn't shock anyone that he might have said some things like this behind closed doors & his record on Civil Rights was garbage. However... the biggest stain, and the worst thing about Reagan is that his presidency & the rise of his political power center is where MONEY IN POLITICS started and opened the floodgates for corruption in Washington whether that was his intent or not. That is his major stain on our country's legacy IMO that goes far beyond his legacy on Civil Rights.
It was without doubt a horrible statement most don't use statements like that as a joke so it goes without saying there maybe grounds to say he is.
Very well said. People who didn't know East Texas back then would have it hard to fathom - or maybe not. There's still a lot of racism in East Texas. It's beautiful up there. The countryside can be amazing, and most of my relatives (some are still there) lived in the country. Unfortunately, it's also the most "Southern" of the regions of Texas, with all the worst part of the South that entails. It has to be better today than it was then, but I know racism hasn't disappeared. Not by a long shot.
That would by Johnson is the basis for Trumps ascension he just expanded it to include immigrants. some things never change.
Yes, and so was John Wayne and probably most of our parents....anyone that grew up when blacks had to use a different fountain or ride in the back of the bus is probably environmentally tainted. DD
Good to know. I find more people have found the courage to express their ideology in the open now since trump has been president
at my parent's house house. My mother loves Turner Classic Movies. She was watching On The Water Front. I turned the television back on and a Reagan movie is on. It's called Storm Warning. I'm not gonna finish it because I'm also watching Band Of Brothers but it's totally tripped out. Reagan is playing a District Attorney investigating a Klu Klux Klan murder. The movie is from 1951. You can look it up but really quickly, Doris Day plays a woman who comes to a small town to visit her sister. She witnesses the murder getting off the bus, the Kllan drug a reporter out of jail who was investigating Klan activity. Her brother in law is a Klansman which she didn't know but she sees him. Reagan knows she was there, so forth and so on. I'm just shocked that Hollywood portrayed the evil of the Klan as early as 1951. The movie also has some black actors as random townspeople. On The Waterfront actually has Bllacks with speaking roles. Lastly, Black people didn't like Reagan and he was against things affirmative active. That being said I didn't think Reagan was racist. I really think it's about his conservative views.
I didn't read the O.P. when I posted the previous post. I didn't see this thread when it was started, just looking for a thread to post my seeing that movie in. I didn't think Reagan was racist but that's pretty bad. I forgot about the stuff with South Africa as I really wasn't fully aware of our goveenment's relationship with them. I was just a kid aware of apartheid in general only
I missed this thread when it came out but I’m not surprised that Reagan said such things. Reagan was certainly mixed and had complicated views on many things. While he had policies that hurt many people of color and minorities he also signed a comprehensive immigration bill that had amnesty and said in his farewell address how important immigration is to this country. I mentioned this too in my reflections on how my life paralleled George Floyd’s and in the hangout thread about living in the past. Racism was more open and accepted in our he 80’s and earlier. Houston was a segregated city and Texas had Jim Crow laws and fought for the Confederacy. That legacy is still there. Racist language and attitudes were openly widespread in Texas and America. I remember my friends grandmother who was a sweet old white lady from Louisiana would call black people “darkies” not out of insult but just because that was what she grew up with. While I was in high school there was a situation where a county in Georgia still had sundown laws and there were protests and counter protests over repealing them. A white friendly of mine one time while eating lunch at Lamar High School said “I wish I was there. I would be yelling N^%%Er GO HOME!” This was with me sitting across from him and in earshot of many black and other students. So whether Reagan was an outright racist he was also a man of his times and was President when racism even open racism was more tolerated in this country.
