I thought this essay was kind of confusing in the beginning but I thought it was interesting that a president would say all of these mean things about another race. I mean isn't a president supposed to be a role model and leader? He said all of these bad things about African Americans and then talked about how good they were, was he doing that just so people wouldn't get mad?
Agenda Item- Can having a president that says all of these mean things about people simply paint the picture that it is alright as long as you say something nice at the end? If the leader of our country says that slavery is right isn't that giving the rest of the world the excuse to continue with it? What kind of role models did we have in the past and did they influence the beginning of slavery and the beginning of the civil rights movement?
And another shocking thing Thomas Jefferson did was have sex with one of his maids. So he's nothing but a hypocrite, He'll say one thing, and then say something else.
Posted by: Carl Desphy at March 1, 2005 08:09 PMI think you're right, if an authority figure does something wrong but in the end says that it is okay for that person to do it then everyone else will think it is okay too. A perfect example would be children watching their parents. A child watches a parent hit but the parent tells the child that it is not okay but in the end says that it is okay then the child will also it. People play a very important role to others and should watch what they do because others will follow along the same way
Posted by: Kayla Lukacs at March 2, 2005 01:33 PMI also agree. I think people look at the president when they need help on making their own decisions. When 9/11 happened, people turned to Bush to see how he reacted and to see what he did, so that they too could act in a calm fashion. I think as president, everything you say is going to be put under a microscope, so what you say needs to be valid. Look at Clinton, he lied, was accused of lying, and was therefore hated by many Americans. Whatever a president does, they had best think before they act.
Posted by: Caroline Jones at March 2, 2005 07:05 PMThe more that I thought about this and replied to other agenda items I thought about the fact that even now we are looking back on Jeffersons essay and making remarks on it. I bet there are people out there that still believe that slavery should be going on and will go back in history and look for examples of authority figures that agree with them. Who better than the president?!?!? All of this put to the side, the times had a great deal of impact on why he felt the way he did but people will turn that around anyway.
Posted by: Jen Sherbo at March 2, 2005 11:07 PM