Word: downplay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...time did Thernstrom downplay racism in American history. He described the Jim Crow system in plain terms that any new-comer to the subject could have understood. He stated clearly that is was an unfair and unequal system that failed to provide a solution to the problem of race relations...
Concerning the First Lady, whom Deaver describes as his best friend, he seems blind to an unseemly implication when he writes, "Nancy raised half a million dollars herself for the Joffrey Ballet, and ((Son)) Ron turned out to be one of its rising stars." Despite Nancy's attempts to downplay her influence on her husband's decisions, Deaver confirms her role in the firings of James Watt and Donald Regan...
...Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 seem instead to be foregone conclusions, the visible death throes of nations that had previously mismanaged or squandered their resources. Kennedy does not subscribe to the "Great Man" theory of history. He acknowledges that his account of the Napoleonic wars tends "to downplay the more personal aspects of this story, such as Napoleon's own increasing lethargy and self-delusion." But the author insists that inspiring < leaders or brilliant generals can at best cause momentary glitches in the relentless "dynamic of world power," which entails constant change both within and between nations. "Those...
...which village elders and religious leaders gather to consult in times of national crisis. Though the Afghan leader, who joined the Communist Party in 1965, has never been notably religious, he opened all his speeches with the Islamic preamble, "In the name of Allah, the beneficent and merciful . . ." To downplay his connections to Moscow, he dropped the red star from the national emblem and said it would no longer be necessary to address him as comrade. He even insisted, "We do not want to build a Communist society, and we are not a Communist Party...
...would tend to downplay facist tendencies in American skinheads," Whelan says. The prejudice that exists among the skinheads "is a different way of expressing a feeling they inherited from their parents, because many of the people from Charlestown and South Boston basically are racists," he adds...