Facebook Publication Date: 11/2/2019 6:11
From Son of Baldwin:
I have many feelings about this.
1. It saddens me deeply that American society is set up in such a way that marginalized people have to demonstrate a commitment to maintaining the status quo and empire for a chance at being treated as a human being by the selfsame society.
2. It saddens me that despite having agreed to the empire’s terms, the empire had no intention of holding up its part of the bargain. To this very day, marginalized peoples have not learned this lesson.
3. It saddens me that the society ensures that the marginalized, who are considered expendable, join the military by enticing us with certain access and benefits that any actually civilized nation would be providing period.
4. It saddens me that most Americans are largely pro-military in that very “Support Our Troops!” cult sort of way, and yet, when those troops return–and return fucked up from what they were made to do, realizing that the reasons they *thought* they were going “Over There” were false and they were merely over there to clear the path for the pillaging of people and plunder of resources–those same pro-military people are anti-veteran AF, and don’t give AF about the veteran’s mental health, shelter, or security.
5. The Black soldiers who served in World War I must have been in such desperate straights, believing that if they out-patrioted the white folks, they’d be accepted as human beings. And then once they realized that wasn’t happening, the German offer below must have been incredibly tempting–even if they knew the Germans were just another version of the American bigots, and they were trading one set of problems for another.
6. What those soldiers who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma got for their troubles was bombed by the very same aircraft used in World War I, piloted by the bigots they served with.
7. What the other Black soldiers returned home to was a Jim Crow that didn’t let up one bit.
8. What I’m learning is that proximity to and performance for oppressors (however that is shaped and determined) buys some time, I suppose. But how *much* time (before the oppressor turns on us despite our proximity and performance) is always the question I ask.
“In the real world, German airplanes dropped the leaflets behind American lines, meant for the nearly 370,000 black soldiers drafted into the service but segregated from white units. So many black Americans joined the service that the War Department had to stop accepting volunteers only a week after President Woodrow Wilson declared war in April 1917; they had more than filled the black ‘quota.’ Still, despite their patriotism, their eagerness to serve a country that had for centuries marginalized them, most black recruits were barred from combat units—serving instead as cooks or in non-combat roles. They faced discrimination, goading, and racism.
‘You have been made the tool of the egotistic and rapacious rich in England and America,’ the German leaflets read. ‘What is democracy? Personal freedom, all citizens enjoying the same rights socially and before the law! Do you enjoy the same rights as white people do in America?’
It’s unclear how many soldiers deserted.”
Image description: A scene from HBO’s Watchmen in which an armed Black soldier in military gear holds a letter in his hand. Other soldiers, and trees, in the background.
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a29588328/watchmen-hbo-german-message-black-soldiers-true-story/
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