Reagan was a bigot. The nominated judge was a college student when she made the1989 statement. Reagan had opposed the Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act and The Fair Housing Act in the 1960's and as President tried to prevent the bills from renewal in the 1980's. In addition, he vetoed the anti-apartheid bill and to top things off, ignored the aids epidemic and allowed massive numbers of Americans to suffer and die because the disease concentrated on gay men and drug users and the babies of aids victims.
So bigot is now defined as someone not doing what you think he should do?
Not at all. History determines whether a leader or historical figure was bigoted and puts the bigotry in the perspective of time periods in question. Did FDR have massive protest and criticism for his bigotry or did his bigotry coincide with the culture and attitudes of the time? Is he judged by standards of the 1930 or more modern times when the nations perspectives changed? What were the cultural attitudes of the time during the Reagan period? Did he meet the attitudes and cultural changes or did he try to remain in the past and hold on the outdated norms?
Depends on who writes the history books.
FDR was a bigot because the sole motivation for the internment of Japanese Americans, many of whom were citizens, was heritage. That's a bigot.
Sounds to me as if you try to justify FDR's bigotry.
