Andrew Jackson Misunderstanding

Misunderstandings can cause many mishaps, sometimes even destroying the relationships that bind people together. In fact, a common unattributed quote says “The worst distance between two people is misunderstanding.” Take President Andrew Jackson, who served from 1829-1837, as an example. Many people look up to him as a founding father and stalwart of America, but they also associate him with racism, specifically that of the Native Americans and the Trail of Tears (when thousands of Cherokee men, woman, and children were forced to move across the country, resulting in many deaths), and African Americans. They think of him as a cruel bigot who was only interested in serving the white people. However, after researching the matter at length, some researchers such as Cambridge professor Nicholas Guyatt feel that Jackson was not as racist as many people picture. In fact, they find him to have been an “enlightened American,” doing the best he could to help his fellow man. Others, such …show more content…
People have also cited 19th century segregationists as enlightened, trying their best to help their fellow man. Some of them may have had African American’s best interests at heart, but such a sweeping conclusion cannot be made. What can be concluded, however, is that we do not know all the reasons why people do things. Even the best hypotheses are still just that, hypotheses. Nonetheless, it is still beneficial to examine these issues. By doing this, we can improve our understanding of the people that we still look up to today, and try to reduce the misunderstanding of them which often leads to us looking down on them. Looking down on someone is never a good way to understand, so we should avoid misunderstanding. As the artist and nun Corita Kent once said, “To understand is to stand under which is to look up to which is a good way to