Final-Fan said:
Kasz216 said:
Final-Fan said:
[...] TR's enlightenment still had him saying things like, "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."
The "civilizationist" angle is pretty arguable IMO when it just so happens that all the "civilizations" are white. Unless you can show me that he thought otherwise?
I mean, from what I've seen in a brief review, TR's attitude seems very close to the "White Man's Burden" theme, whereas FDR was operating on the level of equal treatment, even if he didn't always deliver.
You say FDR is horrible for the Japanese internment camps, but you quote TR saying that atrocities towards the 'savages' are the price of progress. Why is that more enlightened? |
Simple...
He said the only correct thing to do was to treat each man soley on a person to person basis based on their abilties.
TR would of seen Japanese immivgrants as no different then anyone else, people that should be treated on a case to case basis... and not interning them. Japanese Internment wouldn't of happened under TR.
When you look at TRs quotes he says "Dominant World Races" in otherwords not just white. The Japanese themselves probably also counted among this, as did black people part of the United States.
[...] |
But now you're applying his views on something to be done on a case by case basis (judging individuals) to something done en masse (treatment of large groups). Lots of people have seemingly contrary views there. Also, isn't it the case that he actually considered blacks generally inferior, but that he allowed for individuals to rise above to the level of whites? So he might be consistent in supporting treating black and white peoples differently but always treating individuals according to their own merits, if the black peoples are inferior to the white peoples generally.
As for "Dominant World Races", I think a lot of (white) people from that time period were considering different European groups as entire different races (whereas most now group them into "white" or at most "white/Hispanic"). I am completely unconvinced that the DWR reference applied in TR's consideration to the Japanese instead of the "races" being (perhaps) Nordic, Mediterranean, and Eastern European. Can you give me an example where Roosevelt considered a non-white group to be a dominant race of his time?
Hell, he might well have considered the Japanese an example of savages becoming civilized by the proper method of copying the DWR culture, since they spent the entire late 1800s co-opting European technology/science/government/etc.
On the other hand, maybe not. Can you show me otherwise?
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Savages becoming civilized are then civilized and dominant tht was his point.
I mean compare the racism... which is worse.
"They come from a worse enviroment."
or
"Their race is inherently defficient."
The top is TR the bottom is FDR.
Hell the top is still used today. It's nationalism pure and simple. Just how people in Europe thing Americans are Stupid, and everyone feels bad for the poor africans... etc.
TR was for All races and Women to be treated equally under US law as white men. It's in just about every bit of writing there is about him.
All citizens of the US should be treated the same.
He's views were scarcly different then the views of today on the matter. He held his country and his allies countries ahead of other countries... what president doesn't?
As for thinking White people as a whole were better then black people... lets be honest, what part of that wasn't true during his time? There was very little skilled labor among the black community due to the effects of slavery... in general "savages" would need to adjust to the "modern world".
That's why TR was for desegregation, he wanted equal oppurtunites for all so that all men could be equal and judged not by their skin color but by their merits.
