Reply #19: front page in Chicago Trib.......DC blacks couldn't care less

[buycitgo]

WASHINGTON -- The television at the MLK Community Barber Shop won't be tuned to Ronald Reagan's funeral on Friday. And it doesn't appear that any of the regulars will make the 15-minute subway ride over to the Capitol to pay respects.

The death of the celebrated conservative leader has been received in this inner-city neighborhood of shuttered shop windows and shattered dreams in much the same way that residents here feel Reagan treated the urban poor while he was president: with indifference.

The mid-1980s economic boom that much of the country fondly associates with Reagan passed by Anacostia--a poverty-plagued, mostly African-American community separated by a polluted river from the gleaming white-marble buildings that hold the seats of American political power.

Their feelings about Reagan find strong echoes throughout liberal America, which decries Reagan's policies while expressing sympathy at his death. Though he won powerful majorities--including a 49-state rout in 1984--a substantial segment of the public also strongly disagreed with him on education, the environment, abortion and civil rights, views that now help to complete a fuller portrait of the 40th president.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0406090151jun09,1,6062642.story?coll=chi-printnews-hed