Earl "Rusty" Butz Gets Weirdly Racist (1976)

It’s October 3rd. This day in 1976, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz hands in his resignation after a media firestorm over racist comments he made on an airplane in front of Pat Boone, Sonny Bono, and former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss Butz’s very baroque form of racism, and what to make of the argument that there’s no connection between what someone says in private and who they really are.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia