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In my lifetime there have been a lot of racist presidents. President Kennedy let the FBI spy on Martin Luther King and told him to halt peaceful protests for equality. President Johnson, who commonly called blacks the “N-word,” remarked: “We’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

President Carter told white Detroiters the government must protect the “ethnic purity” of white neighborhoods. And until his election, Carter worshipped at a whites-only church, resigning only when the scandal broke.

President Clinton never denounced his wife’s characterization of black men as “superpredators.” And President Obama regularly attended a church whose black pastor spewed anti-Jewish racism, disavowing the racism only during his 2008 campaign.

These racist presidents were all Democrats.

Seth Watkins,
Menlo Park