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December 22, 20!0
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Ignoring Reality to Embrace Prejudices
Richard
Nixon’s bigotry
L ee A. D aniels
“ You won’t have
Nixon to kick around
anym ore, because,
gentlemen, this is my
last press conference
by
If only Richard Nixon had
kept the bitter promise he spat
out to reporters the day after
losing the California gubernato
rial election in November 1962.
His pledge that day, destined
to become one of the most fa
mous lines in American political
history, was vintage Nixon: full
of bitterness - and completely
false.
That fundamental part of the
character of Richard Milhous
Nixon is on display again in the
newly-released batch of record
ings, courtesy of the Nixon Presi
dential Library and the secret
taping system he had installed in
the Oval Office when he be
came President.
In them he exhibits a peevish
disregard for a large swath of
American population, snapping
off disparaging remarks about
Jewish Americans, Irish-Ameri
cans, Italian-A m ericans and
African-Americans.
For example, speak
ing to his longtime loyal
secretary, Rose Mary
Woods, Nixon refers to
the relatively enlightened
view of blacks held by
William P. Rogers, then his Sec
retary of State: “Bill Rogers has
got somewhat - and to his credit,
it’s a decent feeling - but some
what, sort of, a sort of blind spot
on the black thing because he’s
been in New York. He says,
well, ‘They are coming along,
and that after all, they are going
to strengthen our country in the
end because they are strong
physically and some of them are
sm art.”
Nixon, however, makes it
clear that he’ll have none of it.
“My own view is that I think he’s
right if you ’ re talking in terms of
500 years. I think it’s wrong if
you’re talking in terms of 50
years. What has to happen is
they have to be, frankly, inbred.
... that’s the only thing that’s
going to do it, Rose.”
The vehem ence and breadth
of N ixon’s bigotry, which was
w idely suspected in the years
when he occupied the W hite
House, no longer has the pow er
to shock. It was first proved in
the backw ash o f m aterial that
came flooding out of the W hite
House during the W atergate
scandal, and has been deep
ened by the L ibrary’s periodic
releases of other Nixon tapes
through the years.
But the newly-available tapes
are no less important, because
N ix o n ’s harsh language and
harsh views underscore some
thing we should never forget: the
persistence of bigotry.
Richard Nixon cam e of age
during the middle decades of
the tw entieth century, the era
indelibly m arked by the cata
clysm o f W orld W ar Tw o.
A m erica’s literal and rhetori
cal fight in that war against
G erm any’s and Jap an ’s ver
sio n s o f the M a ste r R ace
theory substantially destroyed
the respectability in A m erica
itself o f discrim ination against
w hite-ethnic Americans -and
it helped prepare American so
ciety for black Am ericans’ all-
out challenge to legalized racism
that would burst into the open in
the 1950s and 1960s.
As Vice President for eight
years under Dwight Eisenhower,
and as a partner in a white-shoe
New York law firm during the
mid-1960s, Nixon had easy ac
cess to the “ best and the bright
est” of American society at a
time when it was abundantly
clear that the old prejudices were
just that: prejudices.
He, how ever, preferred to
cling to stereotypes - against
Irish- and Italian Americans that
were staples of the anti-immi
grant fervor of the 1800s and
early 1900s and stereotypes
against blacks and Jews that
were much, much older.
C onsiderable progress has
been made in reducing the power
of prejudice in American society
since N ixon’s term s in office.
But prejudice still exists. It still
has an impact, not only because
racial bias remains ingrained in
the American system, but also
because some significant num
ber of individuals ignore, as Ri
chard Nixon did, the reality of
American society in order to
cling to their prejudices.
O ne need only com pare to
N ix o n ’s ran ts m any o f the
b lo g g ed read er resp o n se s to
E dw ard S c h u m a c h e r-M a to s’
W ash in g to n P ost colum n a
co u p le o f S un d ay s ago on the
D ream A ct having hit a snag
in the S enate. A nd, on the
sam e d ay , b lo g g e d re a d e r
resp o n se s to a W ash in g to n
P o st n ew s a r tic le on th e
se ttle m e n t o f the b lack fa rm
e r s ’ d is c rim in a tio n c la im s
a g a in st the fed eral D e p a rt
m ent o f A g ricu ltu re.
The illogical thinking and the
callousness that consume some
of the respondents underscore
the point: In some people, big
otry is impervious to logic or the
experience of living in a multira
cial society.
Now, as in Richard N ixon’s
time, that affliction can grip those
at all levels of the society, right
up to the very top.
Lee A. Daniels is director o f
com m unications fo r the
NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund.
■m
hr »
The Immorality of ‘America at War’
‘We the
people,’ are
removed from
war’s burdens
J im H ightower
Are you aware that
A m eric a has now
been at war for nearly
a d e c a d e ? W e'v e
been fighting, bleed
ing, and dying in two
by
till
* u u n v
hellacious, multi-trillion-dollar
conflagrations since 2001 - and
our blood continues to flow, with
no end in sight.
Well, not our blood. Not yours
and mine. We continue to go
about our daily routines — go to
work, go to the mall, go out to
eat, go golfing, go to
church, go on vacation,
go dancing and drinking.
War? Americans pay far
m ore attention to the
World Series than to the
ongoing carnage in Af
ghanistan and Iraq.
In a little-noticed speech, Pen
tagon chief Robert Gates re
cently pointed out that, "For most
Americans, the wars remain an
abstraction — a distant and un
pleasant series of news items
that do not affect them person
ally." Military service, he bluntly
says, "has become something
for other people to do."
He's right. You see, "we" are
not at war. We handed off that
awful duty a decade ago to the
2.4 million active and reserve
soldiers in the armed services,
less than one percent of our
nation's people. They and their
families are the ones "at war,"
cycled and recycled into debili
tating and deadly deployments.
"We the People" are not even
making the minimal sacrifice of
paying for the burden we've so
carelessly stacked on their shoul
ders.
Both the Bush regime and the
O bam acans—fully backed by
both Republican and Democratic
majorities in Congress — cra-
venly put Afghanistan and Iraq
on the national credit card. W e’re
piling up trillions of dollars in debt
for future generations to cover.
The widening disconnect be
tween Americans and America's
wars is not only dangerous for
our democracy. It's immoral, al
lowing politicians and corporate
profiteers to sink our national
soul in the diabolical depths of
perpetual war.
Jim Hightower is a radio
commentator, writer and pub
lic speaker.
-i
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