06 June 2009

Un-whitewashing history

The President's attendance at this year's D-Day commemoration may have a special meaning for certain American veterans of the landing, who at the time were brutally betrayed by the country they fought for.

3 Comments:

Blogger 50 said...

You have a point about segregation in the American South at that time, but the greatness of a society like American society is that things change, in this case, within the span of one generation. Blacks are equal in the States now, the Tuskegee airmen are receiving recognition for their achievements (not a single bomber lost on their watch, as I recall) and we can all hope that no racial group ever again keeps another in chains. Remember all of the men and women, of whatever colour, who served their country in World War II.

06 June, 2009 12:46  
Anonymous Nick M said...

I am proud that my country was a place these folks felt at home in. That is the Britain, the very civilization they all fought for.

On the Mall in London is the Empire and Commonwealth War Memorial. We hit those facsist bastards with the kitchen sink. Lads from Manchester and London, Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India...

WWII was terrible but if we take one good thing from it it is that everyone pitched in.

I always suspected that the experience of African-American servicemen in England gave a kick-start to the civil-rights movement.

And that is why I hate the likes of the BNP. They do not represent the England I do. More to the point they don't represent the England of my grand-parent's generation.

(NB the latest BNP leaflets had a picture of a Spitfire on it and much bitching about East Europeans coming over here taking all our jobs - problem for the knuckle-draggers was it was a Polish Spit - obvious as such due to the Polish emblem on the nose - arseholes).

The whole point of WWII was that everyone of the free (or free-ish) peoples of the world pitched in. That is what made the victory ever so much sweeter after the utter horrors of that most abysmal war.

06 June, 2009 16:46  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Zardoz -- Indeed, part of my point was that our now having a black President shows how much the country has changed since 1945. Even if one dislikes many things about Obama (as I do, as any reader of this site for the last year and a half knows), the fact that he could be elected shows how much the influence of racism has faded. In fact, I think the US might well have had a black President several years earlier if Colin Powell had made a serious run.

As for past discrimination, including the "whitewashing" of black Americans military contributions out of history, we can't change the past but we can make amends for it.

Nick -- The experiences described in the linked article speak for themselves, and may well have helped inspire the civil rights movement.

I agree with you 100% about the BNP -- you may have seen how I contrasted the BNP and UKIP as potential "protest vote" parties in the EU elections posting on Wednesday. I was rather unsure about the BNP earlier, but was convinced by the posts and links about them on Counting Cats in Zanzibar and on DunGeekin. Good that they don't seem to have gotten far in Thursday's local elections. I know if I were British I'd be voting UKIP for certain.

And I saw a couple of postings on CCiZ about the BNP using a picture of a Polish squadron plane in service of their anti-East-European diatribes. One couldn't make such stuff up!

06 June, 2009 18:01  

Post a Comment

<< Home