Previously, I pointed out that Paul Krugman got his facts wrong on two of the three examples he used in a much-cited column to allege that Reagan used “tacit race-baiting.” But what of the third example? “During the 1976 campaign Reagan often talked about how upset workers must be to see an able-bodied man using food stamps at the grocery store. In the South — but not in the North — the food-stamp user became a ‘strapping young buck’ buying T-bone steaks.”
I traced the source to a February 1976 New York Times article by reporter Jon Nordheimer about Reagan’s Florida primary campaign. The article states that Reagan made no direct appeals for antiblack votes, and said explicitly he didn’t welcome them. However, Nordheimer added, sometimes “the impression is left, perhaps inadvertently, that he comes close to an indirect appeal in this regard.” The example he gave is that the previous night, Reagan gave a speech in which he repeated a favored anecdote about people being upset when they see a healthy young man buying a steak with food stamps. However, Nordheimer wrote, in Ft. Lauderdale this young man became a “strapping young buck,” a phrase he didn’t use in New Hampshire and other states with small black populations. “Young buck,” the reporter adds “to whites in the South denotes a large black man.” Reagan soon denied any racist intent, stating that when he grew up in Iowa in the 1920s, a young man of any race could be describe as a “young buck.”
I’m not sure what to make of this. Except in the context of Reagan’s remarks, I’ve never heard of [or at least don’t recall hearing of] “young buck” being used as a racial term, and I’ve read lots of racist drivel from the South in [...]