FDR was responsible for the internment of over 100,000 Japanese and opposed lifting the quotas on European immigration when Jews were literally dying to get out of Hitler controlled Europe...


That doesn't mean FDR was not a great man or even a good man but it does show the folly of taking leaders out of their milieu and placing them in another and judging them on that basis.

The Jews who died due to being turned away was a terrible thing, but I don't see overt racism in either case you cited. I see monstrous racism in the cases of Jefferson and Jackson, especially Jackson.

If you don't mind my asking, are you OK with the current name of the Jefferson-Jackson dinner?

My first answer is I don't know...Andrew Jackson engaged in ethnic cleansing and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. But how different were they from other white men of their era?


Here's another paradox...Officers like Grant, Sherman, and Custer who fought so nobly to free the slaves and preserve the Union had no problem turning their wrath on the Indians (Native Americans) and denying them of their rights once the Civil War was over.

He was like Ollie North. A gung-ho egomaniac. He fought for glory and was a piece of filth. Grant and Sherman-- I can't speak to their motives on the Civil War, but I'm guessing they bought into Manifest Destiny, the ideology which is the platform for making the planet uninhabitable for humans.

Regarding Jackson, I think there was a vast difference between white men, even at that time when the US economy was capitalized on black backs. Not to say there weren't plenty almost as bad.

As to Jefferson, he was pretty liberal for a southerner, but to me the symbolism for our Party is still wrong. Jefferson was certainly aware of the abolitionist movement, he had the financial means to adopt a non-slavery life style and yet he chose the easy path of immoral wealth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism

Sorry but I see a huge difference between FDR and Andrew Jackson. FDR was not responsible for the Japanese. Jackson was a scum scuzz who once practically beat a man to death with his hickory stick. Hence the name of Old Hickory.

"how different were they from other white men of their era?"

One could easily make the case the PM William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton were all quite different than other white men of their era.

History allows for very few absolutes.

who owned hundreds of slaves and did not free a single one during his lifetime.

Time to start renaming things named after him?

The Democratic Party does not make historical claim to George Washington in the way we make claim to Jefferson or Jackson. The United States has a lower standard because the citizenry of the US has a much higher percentage of white nativists than the Democratic Party. So while I admire some things about Washington, just as I do Jefferson, I am much more in favor of symbols invoking FDR or Jimmy Carter for the nation than slave holders. But that is way outside the scope of my OP. The Democratic Party should lead the US by example, as it has so often on women's rights, labor rights, etc.

So I don't believe we should invoke racists when we name a state-wide Democratic function. I think naming anything after Andrew Jackson is obscene. How do you feel about this issue?