Reagan to Nixon: African U.N. delegates = "monkeys"

donbosco

donbosco

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Newly released audio from 1971 reveals Ronald Reagan, governor of California at the time, called African U.N. delegates ‘monkeys’ during a call with then-President Richard Nixon.

 
wmheel1287 said:
Yeah...I try not to judge people by today's moral standards but fuck em...pieces of shit both. Reagan was folksy and likeable but he was still a fucking asshole.
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My father was of their generation, from The Rural South, and only had a high school education. He didn't talk like that and let me know very young that I was not to do so.

And I've got to say that I never found Reagan likeable, quite the contrary, until our recent dirtbag of a president, I found him the most unlikeable head of state, surpassing both Bushes. I'll admit that as I have studied history that while I have found LBJ to have been a huge prick, he didn't hold a candle to Reagan.
 
The exact same types, here, have been volleying that same energy since I bought my first computer when our crew was peppers, curry and forte.

It just moves locations.
 
donbosco said:
Newly released audio from 1971 reveals Ronald Reagan, governor of California at the time, called African U.N. delegates ‘monkeys’ during a call with then-President Richard Nixon.

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Is this new? I thought there had been other tapes of Reagan referring to Africans as monkeys in the 70s.

Edit -- yeah, here is a 2019 BBC article on this:

www.bbc.com

Ronald Reagan called Africans at UN 'monkeys', tapes reveal

The former US president made the comment in a 1971 phone call, newly-unearthed recordings reveal.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Reagan was an intellectually shallow man from a poor New Deal Democrat family who idolized FDR as a young man, led a student strike in college when his cash-strapped school (Eureka College in Illinois) tried to cut classes and professors during the Depression, and then seamlessly turned into a right-wing Communist witch-hunter in Hollywood, partly due to his own growing wealth making him greedy, partly due to the wealthy right-wing friends he made in Southern California, and partly under the tutelage of his second wife, actress Nancy, who was very conservative and materialistic.

Reagan was racist, a typical Religious Right hypocrite who cozied up to the likes of Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell while doing what he pleased in private, and he turned his back on nearly everything he believed in as a young man as he grew older and became a spokesman for rich white Californians and corporate interests like GE. What made him different was that, thanks to his career as an actor, he was much more charming and smooth and graceful than your average Republican pol like Nixon or the elder Bush. And he was perfectly comfortable in front of a TV or movie camera, unlike most of his contemporaries like Nixon or Carter or Ford. We're still dealing with the damage he's caused the country to this day.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Reagan was an intellectually shallow man from a poor New Deal Democrat family who idolized FDR as a young man, led a student strike in college when his cash-strapped school (Eureka College in Illinois) tried to cut classes and professors during the Depression, and then seamlessly turned into a right-wing Communist witch-hunter in Hollywood, partly due to his own growing wealth making him greedy, partly due to the wealthy right-wing friends he made in Southern California, and partly under the tutelage of his second wife, actress Nancy, who was very conservative and materialistic.

Reagan was racist, a typical Religious Right hypocrite who cozied up to the likes of Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell while doing what he pleased in private, and he turned his back on nearly everything he believed in as a young man as he grew older and became a spokesman for rich white Californians and corporate interests like GE. What made him different was that, thanks to his career as an actor, he was much more charming and smooth and graceful than your average Republican pol like Nixon or the elder Bush. And he was perfectly comfortable in front of a TV or movie camera, unlike most of his contemporaries like Nixon or Carter or Ford. We're still dealing with the damage he's caused the country to this day.
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Reagan began the whole “distrust the government “ narrative which Trump has amplified. The erosion of confidence in our government institutions began in earnest during the Reagan Administration with his famous “joke,”

“I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.’”
 
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farce© said:
Reagan began the whole “distrust the government “ narrative which Trump has amplifies. The erosion of confidence in our government institutions began in earnest during the Reagan Administration with his famous “joke,”

“I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.’”
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Absolutely. And the key sentence in his 1981 inaugural was: "...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." And every Republican effort since has been aimed at abolishing or gradually whittling away every government program created from Teddy Roosevelt to LBJ (and Obamacare) designed to help middle-class or poor people in some way, or to limit or regulate businesses in any way whatsoever.
 
Y'all give Reagan too much credit as a political philosopher. This was the philosophy of the rich and powerful back until at least the Gilded Age. He was the snake oil salesman who sold it to the public and wrapped it up in a nice chunk of racism and populism for white people to swallow. Imo, he's right up there with JFK as our most overrated president.
 
Meh.. a lot has changed. I don't fault people for doing things that were viewed as acceptable in a time when they became unacceptable.

If Reagan said it today, or in the last probably 20 yeas, it would be a major issue although old people, at that time, tend to be more racist.

If he said it today, that would open a much larger can of religious worms.
 
donbosco said:



Channeling ancestors?
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Data, if collected correctly, can't be racist. It's not racist to point out that low IQ people are more likely to be a drain on society, because they are. It's not racist to grade math problems based on getting the right answer.
 
ZenMode said:
Data, if collected correctly, can't be racist. It's not racist to point out that low IQ people are more likely to be a drain on society, because they are. It's not racist to grade math problems based on getting the right answer.
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Would you care to cite data that supports this about Somalia or your reason to believe that it might exist?
 
finesse said:
Would you care to cite data that supports this about Somalia or your reason to believe that it might exist?
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Since I'm not personally collecting the data, I'm not able to provide the raw data. However....

Global IQ data is collected primarily through academic meta-analyses of localized studies, specialized cognitive testing, and proxy measures like international student assessments (PISA/TIMSS). Rather than official national censuses, researchers, such as in the Qeios 2023 update, synthesize data from small, often unrepresentative studies. Key methodologies include:
Qeios +4
  • Standardized Tests: Psychometric tests, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) or Wechsler scales, are administered to specific groups.
  • International Student Assessments: Data from PISA (15-year-olds) and TIMSS (4th/8th graders) are used to estimate cognitive ability, which can be converted into an IQ scale.
  • Estimation and Imputation: For countries lacking direct studies, researchers often estimate IQs by averaging data from neighboring countries with similar demographics and educational systems.
  • Regional Studies: Localized studies in schools, universities, or clinical settings (e.g., in West Africa or Latin America) provide raw data for international comparisons.
    Qeios +5
Key Data Characteristics & Issues:
  • Bias Risks: Many studies use convenience samples (e.g., small groups of school children), making data unrepresentative.
  • Environmental Adjustments: Results often require standardization to a common baseline, typically the U.S. or European standard.
  • The Flynn Effect: Long-term studies show that average raw IQ scores increase over time, requiring periodic re-norming of tests.
  • Measurement Methods: Modern studies, as described in this OpenPsych paper, attempt to create national averages through meta-analysis of multiple test types.
 
ZenMode said:
Data, if collected correctly, can't be racist. It's not racist to point out that low IQ people are more likely to be a drain on society, because they are. It's not racist to grade math problems based on getting the right answer.
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IQ testing itself is not racist, but lots of racists sure like to use IQ data to make their arguments. Just like they used to love to use things like skull measurements for the same purpose.

Trying to use IQ testing as a proxy for intelligence more broadly has a lot of flaws.
 
ZenMode said:
Meh.. a lot has changed. I don't fault people for doing things that were viewed as acceptable in a time when they became unacceptable.

If Reagan said it today, or in the last probably 20 yeas, it would be a major issue although old people, at that time, tend to be more racist.

If he said it today, that would open a much larger can of religious worms.
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Referring to black people as monkeys was acceptable in 1971?
 
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