The secret slurs of American presidents
Perhaps if I had ever truly respected Ronald Reagan, his low opinion of black people would be more devastating than it is. If anything, the recently unearthed recording of an Oct. 17, 1971, phone call between President Richard Nixon and then- California Gov. Reagan, comparing African diplomats to monkeys, provides an unobstructed view into the underbelly of Republican racial politics.
Reagan, a future two- term president, called Nixon to vent about a United Nations vote that recognized the People’s Republic of China. Reagan was particularly angry at African nations because he believed they provided the margin for China’s entry to the UN even though European nations and other Western democracies voted similarly.
“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said to a chuckling Nixon, “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries — damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”
There’s no point in Nixon or Reagan defenders trying to spin this conversation as the overheated but not- too- serious rhetoric of two anticommunist Cold Warriors blowing off steam because of yet another disappointing vote at the UN. Nixon’s laughter echoed the utter noxiousness of Reagan’s words.
Any notion that both men are a lot bigger than their ugliest and most unguarded moments is to engage in the kind of magical thinking that has made white supremacy the foundation of American politics for this nation’s entire history.
If there’s any doubt, listen to the Gipper’s own words on the tape. The image that Reagan paints of African diplomats for the president who is recording him without his knowledge leaves little doubt that he considered Africans an inferior
species of human.
Of course, the most cynical Reagan defenders will say all humans look like monkeys when you think about it. Monkeys who are uncomfortable wearing shoes are our cousins if you believe in evolutionary theory. If we’re all primates, how can this be considered racist? As long as he didn’t use the n- word, what’s the problem?
Of course, Reagan’s attempt at humor, seething with racial resentment, defies any contemporary attempt to place his analogy into a less brutally racist context. You have to destroy the meaning of words to twist his riff into something innocuous.
Some will insist that any suggestion that Ronald Reagan was a bigot is absurd and that he was merely “performing” for Nixon and not really sincere about his racial animus.
After all, Reagan was a former Hollywood liberal who “palled around” with black people, union members, actors and other unsavory types for decades before he saw the light. Reagan’s only intent with the phone call was to plant a seed that might actually get Nixon to withdraw the United States from the UN.
It is clear that a deep- seated bigotry in Reagan’s soul emerged fullblown in a conversation with a president he knew or suspected was just as bigoted as he was. Racism doesn’t operate in a social vacuum. It’s a contagion. It has lots of willing and unwilling accomplices.
Like a naughty school boy, Nixon felt the need to draw his patrician secretary of state, William Rogers, into his tight little circle of intolerance with Reagan. In a phone conversation with Rogers, Nixon paraphrased his earlier conversation with Reagan with some interesting tweaks:
“He [ Reagan] saw these, uh, he said these uh…,” Nixon said finally embarrassed about how to phrase Reagan’s naked bigotry to someone outside their racist California circle. “…[ T] hese cannibals on television last night, and he says, ‘ Christ, they weren’t even wearing shoes, and … the United States is going to submit its fate to that,’ and so forth and so on,” Nixon said.
Fast forward 48 years to the current occupant of the White House. Donald Trump is a man whose racial animus dwarfs both Reagan’s and Nixon’s in obnoxiousness and whose bigotry has been documented by the media since the early ’ 70s when Nixon’s Justice Department took the Trump organization to court for discriminating against black tenants. Unlike Reagan, there’s nothing remotely obscure about Mr. Trump’s racism.
After nearly two weeks of blatant racial attacks against four progressive congresswomen of color and one senior African American congressman, Mr. Trump declared himself “... the least racist person you’ll find anywhere in the world.”
That odd attempt at gaslighting took place after days of tweeting about the “disgusting rat and rodent infested mess” of Baltimore. In defending himself against charges of racism, Mr. Trump insists that “the African American community” has called him in recent days to thank him for insulting Baltimore. Yeah, that seems plausible.
“What I have done for African Americans, no president, I would say, has done,” Mr. Trump said. “The African American community is so thankful they’ve called me and they’ve said, finally, somebody is telling the truth.”
Where other presidents were discreet about their prejudices, Mr. Trump openly embraces a more transcendent bigotry — one that implicates those he is most disgusted with as fellow travelers on that unenlightened road. In Mr. Trump’s mind, minorities agree with every disparaging word he utters. Because they can’t beat him, they’ve joined him. They now hate themselves when not praising Mr. Trump.
Honestly, even the Gipper could’ve learned a thing or two from this guy.