Which is why Grover should pay for any memorials out of his own damn pocket
A legacy that left blacks behind
By Julianne Malveaux
Every dead soul deserves a parting prayer. But while decency demands condolences for the former president's family, accuracy requires an assessment of Ronald Reagan's legacy
Ronald Wilson Reagan was openly hostile to African-Americans. In his campaign, he vowed to cut "waste" in the federal budget. But we came to learn that when he said waste, he meant us. Reagan slashed social programs so ruthlessly that the homeless population soared up to 3 million and food-stamp and hunger-assistance programs shrunk. Even as the nation struggled with double-digit unemployment, he cut employment-assistance programs.
The entire urban infrastructure was attacked. The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, which partly subsidized city workers in libraries, parks and social-service agencies, was gutted. Cities did not close libraries during the Great Depression, but libraries were closed during the Reagan years.
Reagan managed to do all of this in a jocular manner, saying that the people who received public assistance were overweight, which meant they were not starving, or noting that the homeless were probably so "by choice." He wanted to make ketchup a vegetable to get around rules that said federally subsidized school lunches should be nutritionally balanced.
By the time Reagan got finished with America, poverty was perceived as a personal problem, and the poor were viewed as somehow morally deficient.
President Reagan was especially hostile to the civil-rights community. He fired members of the Civil Rights Commission because he disagreed with their stance on affirmative action and the enforcement of civil-rights laws.
