This Just in to the Nothing New Under the Sun Department:

"The absence of explicitly racist rhetoric afforded the racial nature of his coded appeals a certain plausible deniability. For example, when Reagan kickoff his presidential campaign at the annual Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights activists were murdered in 1964, he assured the crowd, "I believe in states' rights," and promised to restore to states and local governments the power that properly belonged to them. His critics promptly alleged that he was signaling a racial message to his audience, suggesting allegiance with those who resisted desegregation. But Regan firmly denied it, forcing liberals into a position that would soon become familiar: arguing that something is racist but finding it impossible to prove in the absence of explicitly racist."

The New Jim Crow

by Michelle Alexander

Wow. 

I knew I was no Reagan fan, of course, but I never thought of him as a racist. In fact, a little Googling seemed to prove that the opposite was true--e.g. these comments he made to the 1981 NAACP National Convention:

 "A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about. Recently in some places in the nation there's been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence. If I may, from the platform of this organization, known for its tolerance, I would like to address a few remarks to those groups who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice, to those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior.

"If I were speaking to them instead of to you, I would say to them, 'You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct.' My administration will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who, by violence or intimidation, would attempt to deny Americans their constitutional rights."

But my arms is too short to box with Michelle Alexander--because 

(1) I like her,

(2) I am sure that she knows one hell of a lot more about American presidential history than I do, and

(3) what matters here is more the point: that for most of the history of this country politicians have used racial hatred as a fulcrum to advance their own political agendas, careers, and livelihoods.

Motherfuckers one and all.

But especially

P.S. If you're interested, the full text of President Reagan's speech can be found at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=44016&st=NAACP&st1=Denver .