You made a meme using one of my all time favorite movies. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough for my upvote.
I watched it so many times. It never got old. “Welcome to the new world. God save you, if it is right He should do so.”
“Well the pope may be French, but Jesus is English. You’re on!”
You have been weighed.
You have been measured.
And you been found based and cool for these memes. Thanks!
Movie name?
A Knight’s Tale
TIL Woodrow Wilson was a huge racist.
In Europe there are quite a few streets named after him, due to US joining WWI under his leadership.
That, and his influence on the peace treaty resulted in the creation of new states. The whole Fourteen Points thing was wildly influential.
I’m not much of a historian, so I have to go look up these references.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race
“While Wilson’s tenure is often noted for progressive achievement, his time in office was one of unprecedented regression in racial equality, with his presidency serving as the lowest point of the nadir of American race relations.[1]”
https://www.history.com/news/woodrow-wilson-racial-segregation-jim-crow-ku-klux-klan
“How Woodrow Wilson Tried to Reverse Black American Progress By promoting the Ku Klux Klan and overseeing segregation of the federal workforce, the 28th president helped erase gains African Americans had made since Reconstruction.”
"Woodrow Wilson is best known as the World War I president who earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to found the League of Nations. A progressive reformer who fought against monopolies and child labor, he served two terms starting in 1913.
But Wilson was also a segregationist who wrote a history textbook praising the Confederacy and, in particular, the Ku Klux Klan. As president, he rolled back hard-fought economic progress for Black Americans, overseeing the segregation of multiple agencies of the federal government. "
https://woodrowwilsonhouse.org/wilson-topics/wilson-and-race/ "
As the Democratic nominee in 1912, Wilson had garnered the cautious support of many among the nation’s influential and politically diverse Black leadership. His New Freedom platform promising fairness and equality caught the attention of prominent African American activists including W.E.B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP and publisher of The Crisis magazine, and William Monroe Trotter, a prominent and vocal activist and publisher of the civil rights newspaper, The Guardian.
Before long, however, Wilson’s policies and personal racism dashed the hopes of Du Bois, Trotter, and many other African Americans who had broken away from the Republican Party – or in Du Bois’s case the Socialist Party – to vote for the “progressive” Democrat. Wilson’s failure to address Jim Crow disenfranchisement, his decision to screen Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915, his dismissal of African American activists, and – most notably – his administration’s active segregation of the federal government, together helped to further cement the systemic racial injustices that defined American life in the 20th century. "
Wilson pledged to keep America out of WWI. He reneged on that promise, but did so after the war was already winding down. Instead of a fair, negotiated peace between mostly equal forces, the Allies negotiated from the position of having a fresh fighting force entering the war to finish Germany off.
The imbalance of power allowed the Allies to impose the extremely punitive Treaty of Versailles on the Central Powers, which ultimately led to WWII.
Wilson also made income tax a constant thing and created the Federal Reserve. He is a legit target for a time traveling assassin.
Germany got a treaty that was less punitive than the one they gave Russia, or the one they gave to France the last war. The Entente at one point considered disassembling Germany entirely. The cause of WW2 wasn’t the Versailles treaty, it was the German military not being able to take the L.
If he woulda had polio or something, the world could’ve been a vastly different place
I’m glad that despite the good they did, we are starting to call out these awful people from history. Yes they did great things for the world or country, but they’re still shitty human beings. Some, straight up evil. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind, also Winston Churchill.
I generally give leeway to historical figures as products of their time, but holy fuck, how racist do you have to be to be more racist than average in the 1910s USA!?
Wilson answered. With segregation of the Federal government and assurance to prominent figures in the Black community that they should know their place and be grateful.
Fuck Wilson, man. KKK revisionist fuck.
I mean even the founding fathers I don’t give leeway to. Jefferson and Washington shouldn’t be excused for being slave owners when people like John and Samuel Adams, their contemporaries were staunchly anti slavery and saw it as evil.
If a man in your own time can tell you that what you’re doing is evil, there’s no excuse imo. Like if all of society sees a thing as normal ok, but there were plenty of people in Jefferson’s time telling him to his face that being a slave owner was wrong, but his response always amounted to “yeah but it would be so hard for me to be rich and comfy without them”
I give no leeway to Jefferson, but some to Washington, who did turn against slavery after the American Revolution and never expressed the level of racism that Jefferson did.
At least he freed most of his slaves in his will. Jefferson only freed like 5 out of hundreds
The slaves Washington didn’t free in his will were ones he, legally, could not. Washington made plans to free his slaves before he died, but he was one of the largest debtors in America, having gone deep into debt funding the American Revolution, and couldn’t find a buyer for Mount Vernon that would have allowed him to pay his debts and retire.
Ideally, Washington would have freed his slaves regardless, and his attitude in the end is that of a stuffy old patrician more interested in doing right things the ‘right’ way than doing right things in a timely manner. But I think that’s not unreasonable to expect of a man of his upbringing and era. He was deeply flawed, and a man of his time.
Jefferson, on the other hand? Making outrageous purchases and expansions to your house and then pleading debt as to the reason why he totally couldn’t free his slaves? Fuck him.
I learned a lot recently about how many landowners and even founding fathers motivation to split from great Britain, was based on their hopes that it would wipe out their huge debts in England. Not as selfless about Liberty as it’s always been claimed.
I’m glad Wilson is starting to get the hate he deserves for his blatant racism and less people retort “but his foreign policy!”
Oh no, FDR? After I learned about Timor Leste and Carter, I thought there was at least one really great president… I guess I’m going to have to angrily read Wikipedia
Japanese-American internment.
Oh, yeah, that’s an entirely reasonable criticism.
Edit: wait, was Biden actually the most progressive American president? Holy shit
lmao, it’s like winning by default.
With all seriousness, though, I think it’s reasonable to judge historical figures by the standards of their time - at least the higher standards of their time. Those who take steps away from repeating the horrors of our past should be (critically and conditionally) admired, while those who take steps back should be scorned as the shitheads they are.
I try to judge historical figures by where they ended versus what was normal when they were young.
Otherwise there is nothing left but smugly judging the past by our fleeting standards and missing the real lessons of the past.
There’s probably an argument for a few of the Progressive Republicans.
