LBJ, Bobby Kennedy, JFK, Bryd, Humphrey, Rayburn all were.
Iâm hard pressed to think of any greatest generation politician who didnât use racist language in the 60s or 70s.
Iâm sure some exist but Iâm struggling to find any
While itâs true JFK voted against Eisenhowerâs civil rights act in '57 and that the Kennedy brothers didnât want to get involved with MLK events, JFK in particular evolved over time on race issues.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.
Reaganâs racism informed his policies as it did for the Republican party writ large. âWelfare queensâ and the constant attacks against the âpoorâ being âlazyâ is by design. Reagan let shitty Americans feel better about themselves, not unlike what trump is doing today.
Edit: To be clear, Iâm not implying anyone here is a shitty person or a racist.
Edit edit: More Reagan nostalgia
Nesrie
2048
Reagan was incredibly racist. Itâs absolutely a pipe dream to shrug at that and say well everyone was doing it. Itâs lazy ass excuse for hero worship.
Iâm not arguing that Reagan wasnât racist. As someone whoâs spent a lot of time around members of the greatest generation, Iâm just agreeing with Timex that almost all members of the generation were. Between the late 60s and mid 80s it stopped being socially acceptable to for example to use the N word or say âcolored people were lazyâ. and almost all politician stopped saying that in public. How many of those old white guys stopped using this language because they had a genuine change of attitude vs it just become politically incorrect I donât know.
My personal belief is that Reagan remained bigotted against African-Americans but he was not xenophobic with respect to immigrants and foreigners. Unlike most of Trumpâs base who hate both.
Nesrie
2050
This is not true. I donât know why you guys think everyone was so incredibly racist just because the people you knew were. Thatâs just who you guys hung out with, but that doesnât mean the entire country was like that everywhere.
So I was born and raised in LA (1/2 in in conservative town of Glendale), went to school in famously liberal Berkeley, worked in liberal Silicon Valley, and then lived in deep blue Hawaii for the last 20 years. Whites are less than 30% of the population in Hawaii. In short, I lived in very liberal areas for most of my life, it wasnât acceptable to use racist language. I seldom heard any since the 1970s from my fellow boomers, or Gen X, much less a Millennial.
The big exception is the greatest generation who if they are surrounded by white guys of any age, will revert back to using racist language. You as a biracial woman simply wonât hear this language, from grandfatherly white guys case they know it is not proper to use it. Likewise, I as white guy will never hear the racist language that you are exposed to, from the MAGA crowd.
Nesrie
2052
Letâs be clear here⌠I am not saying people didnât use more racist language then than they do now.
Look at this sentence.
Just take a good hard and long look at this. This is not typical. This is exceedingly racist. Itâs so outrageously disgusting, and no, that is not the typical language you would hear from someone even if that same person says a word like nigger. Youâre mixing language with someone who created, enforced, pushed for and commanded racist policies that were attributed to the country he ran, and he even felt the need to dismiss and belittle people around the world. Racism, bias⌠sure it was there, but this was way beyond just someone grumbling about the local black kids.
You have no idea what Iâve heard in my life, unless you read it right here. If you did read it, you would never say something like this. Racists are generally not as polite as you seem to think they are.
edit: sorry scott, trying ti fix the quote.
I suppose I have more regard for people like LBJ, who grew up racist and was undeniably hampered by that legacy yet somehow managed to get on the right side of civil rights, than I do for Reagan, who grew up racist and decided to embrace it when he had a chance at power.
I have no doubt this is true for some, but I also have no doubt it is not true for others.
Rules? What rules? The whole point of being in the GOP is that you do whatever the fuck you want:
Yeah, this is just weird. Reps control the committee, so theyâre going to get the result they want anyway, and they donât really need to break the rules to get it. This is just a kind of fuck you to the Democratic Members.
âReagan is a completely different person today,â Giller added.
Itâs funny because heâs dead.
CraigM
2058
Of course heâs different. Being dead does have that effect đ
Itâs a deliberately crafted statement, though. The language is designed to make you think about how long ago that was â thus irrelevant! â rather than about how it was only half a dozen years before he became President. Easy to believe he is a changed man after 50 years, not so much for 7.
There are many non racist old white guys from that era we could site but perhaps one of the most relevant examples would be Jimmy Carter.
Nesrie
2061
Well that and Civil Rights had people on the right side of it from the beginning, not everyone had to convert decades later.
I certainly have heard black called monkeys several times, both in general and specifically from African countries. I remember one incident was attending the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 2001) and a number of survivors (who were roughly 80 at the time). Us younger folks were outnumbered by 2-3 :1, and while not all the survivors made racist comments certainly a majority did.
If you read an LBJ biography he certainly said things every bit as bad, the word Coon was a common term used by LBJ. Sure there is a difference Reagan saying these things in 1980 and LBJ saying them in 1967.
I guess what Iâm saying is that Reagan and LBJ were generational racist. LBJ deserves credit for being able to rise above his generational and regional racism to push for civil rights legislation. Reagan wasnât able to do that. LBJ was unusual for his generation, Reagan was typical. Both were vastly better than the MAGA racists.
