Students want Woodrow Wilson's name removed from Princeton

[JackRiddler]

30. You are abusing the concept of presentism.

Excuse me, many of us here remember 1995 pretty damn well and there would have been nothing whatsoever anachronistic in expecting Clinton to behave like a responsible human being toward his fellow human beings who happened to be gay. The idea of equal rights was entirely current at the time and very easy for a smart guy like him to understand. In fact, pre-election Clinton sang a different tune to the gay community than the presidential version. The difference was not the context of his time but the character of the vote-counting politician, who was out for himself.

Same deal with Wilson, of course, who as president aggressively made the race situation worse than it was before his election, and in the process promoted fairly new for the time convictions of scientific racism. The decorated political scientist also endorsed a movie about how great the KKK was. Oh my, he didn't participate in a lynching, so that makes him just an average guy.

Plenty of people at the time were less partisan on behalf of the racist cause than Wilson. What he did in office was his choice.