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A review by makane
Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont
5.0
Outstanding. Delmont employs clear-eyed writing and a double-pronged approach to narrate how black Americans fought racism at home and abroad and how this struggle laid the foundation for the CRM of the 1950s and 60s and the Black Lives Matter movement of the 2010s (because yes, BLM didn’t arise in summer 2020).
As Delmont writes, “stories [of World War II] that do not reckon with the Black American experience leave us ill prepared to understand the present. If we tell the right stories about the war, we can meet the resurgence of white supremacy as a deeply entrenched aspect of our country’s, political history and cultural life, rather than as a surprise or anomaly.”
Delmont deftly yet thoroughly illustrates the term “The Greatest Generation” is short-sighted and ironic at best: it elevates the service of white veterans who claimed to fight racism abroad while actively seeking to maintain the racist status quo at home through discrimination, violence, and pseudo-science. By stressing the role that the black press played in telling the stories of black service members, which white journalists and the U. S. government actively chose not to tell—including the way in which the military (at all
levels) denied black men and women from participating in combat roles; spread lies about their fitness for service; erased the impact they had in essential transportation and supply logistics that made so many offensives possible; and, supported verbal and physical harassment and violence against black veterans, including state-sanctioned lynchings —Delmont proves how America’s nostalgia for the GG is deeply embedded in white supremacy and the refusal of many white Americans to seek and tell a complete picture of our modern history that isn’t rooted in American exceptionalism and moral superiority.
To be clear, Delmont doesn’t dismiss the sacrifice of white service members whose served in WW II; rather, he removes the veneer that white veterans were committed to creating a world of equality and freedom for everyone, especially at home.
A must-read for: 1) those who want to understand why racism and its economic, political, and social effects are not an anomaly today; and 2) those who regard WW II as the epitome of America’s moral high ground
As Delmont writes, “stories [of World War II] that do not reckon with the Black American experience leave us ill prepared to understand the present. If we tell the right stories about the war, we can meet the resurgence of white supremacy as a deeply entrenched aspect of our country’s, political history and cultural life, rather than as a surprise or anomaly.”
Delmont deftly yet thoroughly illustrates the term “The Greatest Generation” is short-sighted and ironic at best: it elevates the service of white veterans who claimed to fight racism abroad while actively seeking to maintain the racist status quo at home through discrimination, violence, and pseudo-science. By stressing the role that the black press played in telling the stories of black service members, which white journalists and the U. S. government actively chose not to tell—including the way in which the military (at all
levels) denied black men and women from participating in combat roles; spread lies about their fitness for service; erased the impact they had in essential transportation and supply logistics that made so many offensives possible; and, supported verbal and physical harassment and violence against black veterans, including state-sanctioned lynchings —Delmont proves how America’s nostalgia for the GG is deeply embedded in white supremacy and the refusal of many white Americans to seek and tell a complete picture of our modern history that isn’t rooted in American exceptionalism and moral superiority.
To be clear, Delmont doesn’t dismiss the sacrifice of white service members whose served in WW II; rather, he removes the veneer that white veterans were committed to creating a world of equality and freedom for everyone, especially at home.
A must-read for: 1) those who want to understand why racism and its economic, political, and social effects are not an anomaly today; and 2) those who regard WW II as the epitome of America’s moral high ground