What are your thoughts on president Wilson? Do you think if you were around at the time he was president would you like him? For me, the answer is simply 'no'. For one, Wilson didn't promote women's rights, so for me, that is automatically bad since I am a female. Additionally, he wasn't really in favor of giving nonwhite men the opportunity to vote. I am also aginst this idea because I believe everybody no matter what they look like should have equal rights and opportunity.
While Wilson was president, the US gained Puerto Rico as a territory which is important for me do to the fact I am Puerto Rican. This is something positive about Wilson that he agreed to the Treaty of Paris and Puerto Rico was then given to the US. For the most part, the US was able to give Puerto Ricans a steady government, but it was mainly run by US officials. Unfortunately, though, the US tried to imperialize and take over Puerto Rico by Americanizing the citizens. They tried to force upon them language and political systems. However, without them getting Puerto Rico my life would have been a lot different due to the fact that it would have made it a lot harder for my family to come to the US.
So what are your thoughts? How have his choices affected you?
I agree that while Wilson seemed to be progressive on the surface many of his personal opinions on social relations were largely discriminatory. This is largely due to the fact that he was raised in the south. As a Zimbabwean living as a black citizen in the U.S I do not like the fact that he supported segregation and did a lot to reverse some of the progress that had occurred with civil rights. His lack of interest in women's rights and the way he treated women protesters were also low points in his character. He seemed to be a bit narcissistic and only interested in promoting his own ideals for people who looked like himself and that is a major fault for a president of such a diverse region to have. As you pointed out he did fight for other nations to have self-determination, but he never fully flushed out this idea and the U.S often participated in imperialism as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Wilson seemed to be a lot of a narcissist. He was certain that all of his ideas were absolutely correct and was unwilling to compromise. I personally think that this is his biggest fault - him being unwilling to really listen to other people made him difficult to work with in the large political system that is the US government.
DeleteWhen it came to problems that concerned white males, he was a progressive. His idea of peace without victory was progressive. He was the first to attempt to achieve global peace through collective security. However, like Tori said, his stances on women's rights were not what I would want in a president today. Similarly, his support of a movie that glorified the KKK would be unacceptable to me today.
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