Reagan a Racist?

When Reagan Spoke of States' Rights
Published: November 12, 2007 in the opinion section
To the Editor:
David Brooks (''History and Calumny,'' column, Nov. 9) takes unnamed liberal commentators to task for willfully misrepresenting as evidence of the G.O.P.'s racist platform Ronald Reagan's 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Miss., in which Mr. Reagan uttered the now famous -- or should we say ''infamous'' -- claim ''I believe in states' rights.''
However sincere Mr. Reagan may have been in his approach to the economic problems of black America, there can be no doubt that ''states' rights'' is a racist doctrine, and one that the G.O.P. continues to embrace.
With all the major G.O.P. presidential hopefuls clinging both to Ronald Reagan's legacy and the old Southern strategy of Richard M. Nixon, the issue is as real and cogent today as when Mr. Reagan and the nascent neoconservative sect of the G.O.P. tried to woo black voters by repackaging racism as ''states' rights.''
Cynically, the righteously indignant advocates of states' rights today try to turn the discussion away from the fundamental question of civil rights into a cheap accusation of calumny. As the Marx Brothers said, ''Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?''
Craig Hanoch Highland Park, N.J. Nov. 9, 2007

Mr. Hanoch does ideed have a valid argument, if he was writing in the 1860s or at the beginnings of black sufferage, but Mr. Reagan was not at all racist, infact his idealology of States Rights was olny ment to be used in his ecomonic theory to help all Americans not only the Whites or Blacks. one part of Reagan's economic plans, now known as Reaganomics, was to reduce the growth Government Spending. States Rights is defined in America as a theory that the states should have more Legislative power than the Central Government and by reducing the size and power of the government he can help his economic theory take root and grow to save the nations economic ressesion at the time