The goals of groups circa 1980 who might be inclined to support “states rights” were not to defend the obviously crackpot and extremist KKK but rather to overturn progressive federal policies and regulations dealing with the Warren Court (1953-1969) and the New Deal. It’s hard to point to documents in Lexis-Nexis, say, that would show the groups that this possible misstatement by Reagan resonated with because Lexis-Nexis indexes the mainstream media, and not the newsletters from activist groups, especially political extremist groups and industry advocacy groups, especially “Astroturf” groups which were created without grassroots support and broken up after a short period of time when their political usefulness waned.

“States rights” advocates circa 1980 actually didn’t include many particularly influential groups that might be considered overtly racist, like some anti-immigrant groups, for example, don’t base their policies on “states rights” because they want to exclude immigrants from the whole COUNTRY, not from certain states. There was a fringe racist / white nationalist fringe in 1980, especially in the Mississippi Delta which supported overt racial segregation, but they weren’t responsible for turning out many voters nationally.

Influential “states rights” groups from that era opposed environmental protection and wanted to give states the opportunity to grant more exceptions to land development, toxic dumping, air pollution, and to cut taxes, especially taxes on higher income people and corporations. “States rights” groups at the time also included anti-choice groups who with a solidly pro-choice Supreme Court wanted to pursue various tactics to give states more leeway in determining how to restrict abortion access, intrusively intervene in poor families’ lives and custody matters, etc. And under the Reagan administration – and especially in his second term under the people who played an increasingly influential role as he seemed to dodder and deteriorate in his competence – those “states rights” groups certainly did increase in influence.

Reagan had many faults and reactionary political positions, but he may not have been overtly racist – he did come from a part of California society and political thought that wasn’t in the vanguard of supporting segregation, and in his film career he actually did star in a nearly forgotten 1950 anti-KKK film (“Storm Warning”, with Ginger Rogers and Doris Day, Reagan played a DA attempting to prosecute the KKK for murder). Statements attributed to President Reagan against black “welfare queens” were actually in a context that was derogatory to poor white and Latino mothers as well, as I recall, though I can’t find an online source right now for that quote at all. The Reagan administration probably came closest to overtly supporting a racist administration more through foreign policy than domestic, by opposing sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime, for example.

But the mainstream media and popular interest didn’t put as much priority on reporting and editorializing reproductive rights and environmental protection as it did on reporting and editorializing more extreme and more easily caricatured southern KKK racists. That lesser emphasis affects how we contextualize these issues both in history from that time and today.

a) There are many, many more blacks than whites in SA, so once freedom to vote was assured, then naturally —
b) Blacks have more power at the ballot box than whites.

This is not the case for the South post-Civil War. Blacks were an illiterate minority. The culture was feudal. Could Jews have integrated easily into Germany after WWII? The “Mandela Method” only works when the disadvantaged people can fend for themselves.

Right after the war ended, Democrats and Republicans conspired to disinfranchise blacks. You know voter registration? That was made to stop blacks. Felon disenfranchisement? Again, blacks. Combine with trumped-up charges and you get, well, the modern south. And long before Bush crawled his way out of Babs, we had an election stolen in Florida where disinfranchisement played a strong role. (That state just fucking sucks.)

So, seriously, the only solution was to Kill ‘Em All. Mandate a minimum number of non-whites in each Congress, forbid all Confederate politicians and military officers from public office. There’s no point in winning the war if you don’t win the peace.

The alternative was a morally-bankrupt caste system and continued economic strife.

The Constitution’s a living document, which means it can mean whatever you want it to mean, so figure that one out.

For instance, “treason and sedition” used to mean sheltering enemy soldiers, selling state secrets, etc. Now, it apparently means holding up a sign saying We Did Not Vote For Bush.

Wow, that means I’ve committed treason repeatedly for the last seven years. Do I get the electric chair or the firing squad?

Your comment on Reconstruction was interesting. From that I would take it you’re more of Mao guy than a Mandela guy, but I’m probably being too snarky.

I said:

State’s rights, as a rhetorical tool, has nothing to do with the Constitution.

You replied:

The 10th Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”.

. . . which is easy to recall from my ConLaw class. Remarkably, this doesn’t contradict my post in any way shape or form, since I criticized the formulation of states rights as it is use as a rhetorical tool. Before you can claim a state has a right, you’d need to establish a) that it does not infringe upon an individual right of the persons in the state and b) most obviously that the Fed. didn’t establish itself as having power over that right. I pointed out that, as of today, the fed has clearly established that, when it comes to racial discrimination, the states have no “rights” (save to strengthen the anti-discrimination public policy Congress has already established, which is why it may well be better to be queer in New York than Nevada).

The state’s rights arguments in favor of segregation survive to this day, and they are illegitimate now even if they ever were in the 50’s. (I’d argue that they weren’t and the 14th Amendment clearly prohibited Jim Crow, but that’s thankfully all moot now.) You missed the point here, though I find no fault (or particular relevance) in your mention of the commerce clause. The point, again, for the cheap seats, is that the state’s rights argument as used today is nigh-inevitably empty rhetorical, nonsensical obfuscation meant to get whatever the hell it is the speaker wants at that very moment, and will be dispensed with as soon as it grows tiresome.

The historical pedigree of state’s rights is also rather irrelevant. It doesn’t mean what it did in, say 1825 where the federal government was significantly weaker than it is now. (And it actually has some logical basis when it comes to secession. I actually believe the southern states had a legitimate case when it came to secession. Of course, I also hold that most of the socioeconomic policies of the South violated the Constitution and the leaders of the former should have been summarially executed as a result and Reconstruction should have been, in fact, nothing less than a complete and absolute dismantiling of the garbage that passed for southern “culture,” but that’s a policy rant for a different day.)

Brooks ain’t getting this shit past me or my students.

One of the things we discuss in my Race and Ethnicity course is the civil rights movement. Of course, we utilize Omi/Winant’s Racial Formation approach, and although I take issue with some of their movement analysis, they do recognize the role of movements in creating change. So, I spend time making sure students know about the Civil Rights Movement. I make sure they know the names Cheney, Goodwin, and Schwerner. I make sure they know what a big deal, and what dangerous work, bringing down Jim Crow was.

Yeah, racial inequality still pervades. But Jim Crow was brought down, and that was no mean feat.

It wasn’t merely revived for the 60s. It was deployed more strongly. After all, it had been used for nearly a century to maintain Jim Crow, and Eisenhower’s federalization of the Arkansas National Guard during the Little Rock crisis gave it a new impetus. It may have been reinvigorated, but it wasn’t revived because it never went away. [/quibble]

Selective quoting for what end? I pointed out that it was a confederacy thing that was revived for the 60s. So you’re correcting me….by pointing out what I already said? I’m confused as to why.