Plus he was an imperialist.
and this is where i would push back a bit.
yes. imperialism was bad. yes, Roosevelt was an imperialist, and bad at it, which is why the US was never a colonialist nation to the degree that the great European powers were. we were bad at it. we can learn that when we study Roosevelt. we can realize that people were products of their time, and use that to denote the real progress we have made as a species.
as i now understand the issue, i am fine with replacing the present statue which is indeed very White Man's Burden, but we shouldn't cancel Teddy Roosevelt.
i wouldn't have a problem with a Churchill statue toppled in Kolkata, but in London? is that also not offensive to those who survived the Blitz?
there's a huge difference between Roosevelt and monuments to the confederacy. i have no problems with commemorating the southern war dead, or the ordinary conscripted Confederate soldier who likely had little choice in much of anything.
i'm just asking for good judgment, and for people to think a little, and use the past as a way of learning. i have no problems with the Jefferson Memorial in DC, it's one of my favorite places in the city, the writings are truly trippy and mind-expanding. i can honor that while at the same time condemn his owning of other human beings. if we are talking about the US, specifically, i think we need to start understanding slavery as more analogous to Nazi Germany than to "that's the way it was." Juneteenth absolutely should be a national holiday. we need more memorials to enslaved human beings. we need to understand plantations as akin to concentration camps characterize by terror, rape, and assault. we need to understand the role that free labor played in building the early American economy, and how that wealth was passed along by the few people set up to benefit from that labor. Germany is a wonderful country these days, and it's not without it's problems -- but i've always found them admirable i understanding and owning their past. we need to do a better job understanding the details and legacy of slavery. we need to reckon with the past. i'm very interested in ideas of reparations, symbolic and real, and what that could look like.
toppling statues and cancelling presidents does none of this.