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Black People Knew All Along: Ronald Reagan Was No Saint
Since before this country’s inception, black people have unwillingly, unwittingly, but absolutely necessarily, served as this republic’s proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” warning the wider — read whiter — public about impending danger. Deeper than a mere warning signal, though, and more to the point, black people have likewise always been the unheeded conscience of America.
The recent revelation of Ronald Reagan’s racist core is the latest case in point. These long hidden telephone tape recordings between the odious Richard Nixon and the still sainted Ronald Reagan, now, at last, have been revealed. These heretofore secret musings by both presidents have not a few Ronald Reagan worshipers clutching their pearls in bewilderment, disillusionment, and, in some hopeless cases, in outright denial of what their ears are actually hearing.
Yet, black people have known about and understood Ronald Reagan’s racism from the get-go. We knew, for example, from his first forays into national politics in the 1960s, as he abandoned his faltering career as a Hollywood B-movie actor, that there was something not quite kosher about this man with the avuncular, “aw shucks” and “gee whiz, mom” disarming persona.
