"left out of a celebration that I didn't understand" -- great read

[Bertha Venation]

Donna Britt's yesterday's column

~snip~

Shouldn't presidents, who wield tremendous power over a diverse citizenry, be capable of shedding their skins, putting aside the experiences that molded them to understand the lives of the strangers whom they affect?

President Reagan, it seemed, often had difficulty thinking out of the box of his own experience, his sepia-toned image of a monolithic, retro America. Newt Gingrich suggested Wednesday that Reagan, surrounded for decades by wealth, simply didn't know poor black people hamstrung by racism's effects.

Does that explain why he kicked off his campaign by talking about "states' rights" in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were slain in the 1960s? Or why as president he reversed a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to racially discriminatory private schools by granting an exemption to Bob Jones University, which forbade interracial dating?

~snip~

The test of any nation is its treatment of those who have less -- less money, less prestige, less opportunity. Under Reagan, many who started with less lost more -- the physically and mentally disabled, the urban and rural poor, farmers. Meanwhile, the rich and much of the middle class flourished as a president who wore $1,000 cowboy boots classified ketchup as a vegetable for needy children's school lunches.

~snip~

Donna Britt writes a regular column for the Washington Post. This is one of her best.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Newt Gingrich? The right are willing to come out and admit that Ronald

Reagan supported racist policies?

This is very reassuring. Ask any minority and they will tell you that they feel far more comfortable with racists who admit their prejudices, than well-to-do whites who are still in denial.

[silverpatronus]

2. that's not entirely correct...

we just know who to avoid. racists make me uncomfortable whether their prejudice is overt or latent. at least when they're overt, you know what they are.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Understood.

I prefer the overt racist, primarily because it's easier to dismiss them. The covert racist is harder because they really do believe the flawed logic that allows them to hold onto their prejudices.

[skippysmom]

3. Excellent column

I felt equally left out of the celebration I didn't understand.