For conservatives, a moment like the death of Nelson Mandela is hard. They want to make it clear that they are not racists like that. They aren’t like those people who believed in slavery or Jim Crow or apartheid. It’s just that what minority groups want today that’s all screwed up. Of course, in 20 years, they won’t admit to what they believe today either. That’s just what it is to be a conservative, as I discussed earlier today before I had even heard of Mandela’s death. My colleague Michael Stickings tweeted, “Republicans praising #Mandela should just shut the fuck up, because their politics are pretty much the exact opposite.” That’s absolutely correct.

But I can’t hear the name “Nelson Mandela” without thinking of the conservative icon—and let’s be honest, saint—Ronald Reagan. A couple of years ago, Justin Elliott wrote an excellent interview with historian David Schmitz for Salon, Reagan’s Embrace of Apartheid South Africa. It doesn’t contain a lot of new information for me, because I was around during that time and involved in the divestiture movement. This was the idea that we just shouldn’t do business with an explicitly racist country.

There was a counter argument, called the “Sullivan principles.” But even at the time, it sounded like nothing but apologetics. Reagan and others argued that we needed to stay engaged with the South African government, because there were moderates who wanted to change. Also, it was claimed that American companies were the only ones there who would hire blacks. Well, it turned out that the first idea just wasn’t true. And as for the second, there were lots of whites who employed blacks as servants. That wasn’t exactly moving the country forward. What’s more, by 1987, Sullivan himself had repudiated the idea. Schmitz noted, “The crackdown of 1986 and the reimposition of martial law just made a total lie out of the notion that there were moderates in the Afrikaner government.” But of course, Reagan held firm.

Elliott asked, “Would you argue that Reagan’s foreign policy extended the life of the regime in South Africa?” Schmitz responded:

According to Reagan, it was all about the Soviet Union. If blacks got the right to vote, the Soviets would sweep in and take over the country. But I don’t believe that at all. I think that deep down, Reagan was a bigot. He simply thought that whites were better. I return again and again to how he launched his presidential campaign in Mississippi at the Neshoba County Fair where he talked about “states’ rights.” That was a dog-whistle heard ’round the world.

And Reagan repeatedly called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. He put Mandela and the African National Congress on the United States terror watch list. And they stayed there until the last six months of Bush Jr’s presidency. Just in time for his 90th birthday, the United States government admitted that Nelson Mandela was not a terrorist. But today, while supporting policies that go against everything that Nelson Mandela stood for, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor tweets out:

And why not. Now that he’s dead, he is no threat to the unjust status quo, which Cantor and his Republican allies are so committed to protecting.

See also: Conservatives Can’t Admit Reagan Was Racist Because They Are

One of my favorite songs is Gang of Four’s “Not Great Men.” It starts:

No weak men in the books at home
The strong men who have made the world
History lives on the books at home
The books at home

It’s not made by great men

They wrote that in 1979, when Nelson Mandela was rotting in prison on Robben Island. I know they would all agree that sometimes history is made by great men. It’s a sad for the world that Mandela has died. But if any man has deserved this just rest it is him.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

There will be more later of an angrier nature.

Jonathan Chait has written a great article about the way that liberals and conservatives look at racism in this country, 12 Years a Slave and the Obama Era. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but I’m going to talk about just one aspect.

The truth is that it is hard for me to talk about racism because I’m well aware of my own racist thoughts. These aren’t rational and I work very hard to fight them. To the racist, every crime committed by a member of a minority group is more proof that “those people” are no damned good. The non-racist may have that initial reptilian brain impulse, but he fights it with his higher brain functions. Statistics are a powerful tool in this regard. You are a racist if your response to a black man saving a kitten from a burning building is, “Well, that’s the exception that proves the rule!” I’ve seen this again and again. When people are racist, they create a filter where all data against their prejudice is discarded as exceptional and all data for their prejudice is accepted as reinforcing.

But except on the edges of society, explicit racism is a thing of the past. As Chait discusses, first it was thought that it was right and fitting that blacks were slaves because they were inferior. Then that was wrong, but it was right and fitting that blacks be legally separated from whites because… Well, actually, I don’t really know why. Now we are at the point where blacks are economically separated from whites because, well, the supposed free market cannot be denied. It’s all the same. It’s all racism.

I am economically poor. But I’m still a walking and talking billboard for white privilege. Given the life I’ve led and the person I am, if I had been born black, I would most likely be dead. And I certainly wouldn’t have what I consider a near idyllic life with thousands of readers and work I find profoundly stimulating—not to mention the many great things in all the other parts of my life.

So I’m not going to sit here and talk about how I understand the plight of the black man and how I’m “evolved” on the topic. I try to be a better man. Always. That, to me, is what it means to be a liberal. I want to fix social injustices and I do what I can. And I want to remain open to social injustices that I’m currently blind to. That is probably the hardest thing.

The conservative way of looking at the world is not the opposite of this—although it is with a small minority that unfortunately seems to be growing in this country. The conservative outlook is that the way things are is just perfect. Of course slavery was wrong. Of course Jim Crow was wrong. But how could anyone think that voter ID laws are racist? How could anyone think income inequality was racist? Because to the conservative, social injustice is always something that used to exist. It never does exist.

Jonathan Chait quotes an interesting statistic, “Republicans, by a 60-40 margin, now believe discrimination against whites has grown to be a larger problem than discrimination against minorities.” So it isn’t just that racism has been solved, now it’s turned around and the whites are being oppressed. That’s not normal, of course. Left alone, conservatives would just think that minority groups have nothing to complain about. It is the Rush Limbaughs, the Michael Savages, the Sean Hanitys who have pushed this idea. And this is more in line with lynching mentality, because otherwise, how do you explain this:

There are only two ways that this disparity in wealth can exist. Either we still live in a racist society with a legacy of slavery. (Part of the money my family has comes from the fact that 150 years ago they owned property, they weren’t owned as property.) Or blacks and Hispanics really are inferior to whites. So unless conservatives are going to accept this latter contention (and most absolutely will not), then they must admit that we live with racism today. And it isn’t against the oppressed while folk with all their wealth.