1. Who is Roosevelt addressing in this speech?
2. “[submitting to] alien control… in spite of all its defects is, in a very large number of cases, the prerequisite condition to the moral and material advance of the peoples who dwell in the darker corners of the earth” What do you think Roosevelt is trying to say here; or, rather what is he trying to justify?
3. Considering the time this speech was delivered (1909) what correlation, if any, do you find between Roosevelt's rhetoric and the issues/sentiments of postbellum America?
4. What do you think of Roosevelt’s use of the extermination and disintegration of Indian communities throughout the Americas and the rest of the world as an example of why the expansion of the White Races is necessary and beneficial to all whites and non-whites alike? What is he evoking here?
I think that the extermination and disintegration of Indian communities throughout the Americas was very cruel. However, if i look at the situation from Roosevelt's point of view, i guess it was the right thing to do in order to increase the fitness of the worlds population. According to him, whites were more fit than the natives. Those tribes ruled by natives didn't advance as well as those countries ruled by American or European. In order for a native to rule a country they must "assimilate the ideas of civilization and Christianity" (250). For example, the original people from Dominican Republic are natives, if it wasn't for the Europeans that taught us (Dominicans), to fallow the idea of civilization and Christianity i don't know where would my people be standing today. Europeans also fought for our independence, thanks to them we are a free country.
ReplyDeleteI would have to totally disagree with Karina, as a immigrant myself I see no benefit in completely demolishing a race of people for the "greater good". Even from the point of view of Roosevelt who think that it is okay to sacrifice a few for the greater "good", that idea to me is one that is flawed and cruel to say the least. Native Americans have long held up their beliefs and in fact taught the "first settlers" at Jamestown how to farm, hunt gather and basically not starve to death, it is with the help of the Native Americans that the first colonists had any chance for survival. The context in which I am understating what Karina is saying is that certain races need to forced into being assimilated in order to survive??? Thats like saying African Americans needed to be slaves in order to be civilized and conformed. I do not believe that imperialism and putting emphasis on the superiority of the "white" race is by any means a good thing and I just once more would have to disagree with the above statement and Roosevelt statement also.
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Terryann, I understand why Roosevelt's view of the supremacy of the White race is, in some ways, flawed because it certainly undermined the values of those who were not descendants of Europe. At the same time, just like Karina, I also think that many individuals benefited from Roosevelt's foreign policy of extending the notions of civilization to "peoples who dwell in the darker corners of the earth" (250). For example, based on my limited knowledge of the Philippines, Filipinos could not have gained their independence from Spanish colonial rule without help from Americans. Although I do not condone America's roughly fifty-year annexation of the Philippines, the influence Americans had on Filipinos is still evident today in such ways that it can be seen through all aspects of Filipino politics, economy, military, etc. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say that is morally right for Americans, particularly those who are White, to exterminate or disintegrate foreign regions that were not White; however, many foreign regions can attribute the survival of their people to their exposure to American/European ideals of civilization. In fact, the spread of America's ideas of civilization helped many foreign regions not only learn how to extract their own natural resources but most importantly, it taught them how to self-govern themselves.
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