BS: WW2 made whites-only

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 06:35 PM

I take it Ron Davies doesn't know any delta blues songs about WW2 either.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 07:24 PM

My interest is setting the historical record straight. I have very little to contribute musically, and am in awe of the musical knowledge here.. Accurate history, however, is obviously a minor consideration for an amazing number of Mudcatters whose dial is always set on "outrage"--and don't want to trouble themselves to actually learn anything.

No particular Catter meant, of course. Perish the thought.



I ran across something wonderfully apropos recently.

Some people mistake ideology for thought.

Sorry, there is a difference.

Perhaps someday even some left of center Mudcatters--not all, some already recognize it--will learn this. Of course some right of center posters need to learn it also. And then there are the just confused--like the ones who want to attribute all the world's ills to--Mexicans, religion, "affirmative action", etc.--you pick the villain du jour.

But a simplistic approach to history serves no one.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 08:53 PM

One must say a suggestion the English had to be taught racism by Americans is . . . novel. Intriguing, really, and worthy of examination.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 08:00 AM

The point is that there was essentially NO racism directed against Black people living in Britain until after WW2. There had been a resident Black population, mainly in southern England, since around 1500, but there had never been anything remotely resembling segregation. Britain did run a large part of the slave trade, but it left Black residents of the UK unaffected. The US white GIs were the first examples most British people would ever have seen of anyone insisting that Black people should not have the same rights as themselves.

Remember that owning slaves was made illegal in Britain long before the slave trade itself was abolished (officially in the 1770s, de facto decades earlier) and there was never any Black slave economy in Britain - a few domestic servants, that was all. (There was, however a white slave economy - coal miners were serfs until 1799 in Scotland, and Thatcher's treatment of the miners was simply the slaveholder mentality in a different sphere).

The situation would inevitably have changed in the post-Empire-Windrush era, but certainly wouldn't have got as bad without the infection of American racist ideology.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 08:47 PM

"owning slaves in Britain was made illegal long before the slave trade was abolished (officially in the 1770's...)"

The drivel content of that last post is amazingly high.    I recommend the poster actually do some research before sounding off again, lest he have even more words to eat.

Otherwise I'll be glad to straighten him out in a few days--if others don't do it first.   I don't have the time to waste right now.

I recommend a book called The Slave Trade, by Hugh Thomas, to start with. Please don't miss the bells in various English cities ringing in relief when a bill to abolish the slave trade was defeated--after the 1770's.

So sorry that I, a mere colonial, have to play this role.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 09:07 PM

Hey, ya'll Google "Petersburg, Civil War" of the "Battle of the Creater" and check that stuff out... This was one of the wierdest battles in the Civil War (which is wasn't) where the Union had blown a big hole up in front of well fortified Southern troops and Union soldiers were going to try to invade these well positioned Southerners by climbing down into this hole...

Hmmmmmmmm???

So the 1st plan was for black Union soldiers to do the first assualt until the Union figured out that the first wave was going to be slaughtered...

Now that wouldn't look too good for an army that was supposed to be fighting to free black slaves so white folsk were ordered into the hole and were slaughtered... Kinda an 1864 political correctness thing, I guess...

Some things never seem to change...

"Well, Ralph, if were gonna do somethin' stupid why not do it with good ol' white folks???"

Well, well, well...

What the heck kinda discrimination is this???

Nevermind...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Penny S.
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 04:55 AM

In 1772 Lord Mansfield ruled that English law did not allow slavery, meaning that a slave became free on entering English territory, and could not be sent overseas into bondage. It would require an act of Parliament to establish legality for slavery. The Act of abolition of the slave trade was enacted in 1807. But to postulate the 1770s is not entirely drivel, because of the Mansfield judgement.

Bell ringing need not reflect the public feeling, need it? As boycotting sugar need not, either.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Penny S.
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 05:20 AM

I've been trying to find references to the bell ringing, but can't set up a sensible search term (no doubts about the facts - last night I couldn't find something in Plato for ages despite what looked like good terms) so would welcome a bit of help with it. I expect Liverpool, London and Bristol to be involved, but not so much in other places.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 05:44 AM

the bells in various English cities ringing in relief when a bill to abolish the slave trade was defeated--after the 1770's.

Only the rich can get church bells ringing. Of course a large fraction of the British elite profited from the slave trade. Most of the streets in the centre of Glasgow are named after people who made their money that way (in case you hadn't noticed, Georgian street names were not decided by democratic vote).

That doesn't say a damn thing about the social attitudes of the vast majority of the British people, who had no stake whatever in the slave trade and often saw their own class interests as aligned with those of the slaves (see Marcus Rediker's recent book - Rediker is a rather more trustworthy source than a Tory plonker like Thomas, whose uninspiring book I have upstairs somewhere; I gave up on it fairly early on as it was telling me nothing I didn't already know, and for the period I was interested in, was telling me nothing at all).

Certainly by the 1940s, the whole idea of treating Black people as second-class citizens was something you would only EVER hear in the UK (outside elite circles) from visiting South Africans, Australians and Americans, of whom only the Americans had any influence. Even Mosley's Fascists didn't make an issue of it.

Look at "The Petition of the Sharks of Africa" on my website. That anti-slavery polemic from 1792 inspired a humungous riot (on the King's Birthday) in which the Edinburgh mob attempted to burn down the house of the man seen as central to the continuance of the slave trade. They very nearly succeeded. With better weapons they would have overthrown the administration of Scotland over the issue.

I take it you still haven't remembered any delta blues songs about WW2.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 07:37 AM

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 07:44 AM

Bell ringing".   Try Liverpool, Bristol, and some others. And "it was just the rich" won't cut it. If you don't think sailors, rope-makers and others endorsed this, please do some more research.

And British support of slavery did not end in 1809.   Ever heard of the "Alabama", the Trent Affair, etc?   It also seems clear one of the main goals of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed no slaves immediately, was to minimize any chance the UK might come in on the side of the South.

As I said, no more time now, but I'll be back at some point with more.

Economics plays a huge role.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 07:47 AM

"end in 1807."

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 09:48 AM

Ron Davies appears to have no idea that the ideology of a people and that of their ruling class might be at variance.

I was talking about racism, or the lack of it, in popular culture. I don't give a flying fuck what "the British", construed as meaning the parasite class and their tame government, might have thought about it. (We already know - their ideals were whatever lined their pockets, just as they were in the US).

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 11:01 AM

Somewhat relevant to this thread as it's drifted. The social position of ex-slaves in 18th century Scotland: Scipio Kennedy.

Wendy Arrowsmith (Mrs Banjiman on Mudcat) thinks she might be descended from him. Her astonishing jet-black ringlets are, as she says, hard to explain without a bit of genetic input from somewhere a lot further south than Scotland. She has a brilliant song about him.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 10:03 PM

"When I was young I spoke as a child...but when I became a man I put away childish things..." oh really?

When I was in elementary school I was given the short story of the American Revolution, our great George Washington, the Battle of Bunker Hill. It wasn't real history, but it was a start. It was directed at my level of understanding.

I grew a little older. I learned that Washington could be deemed a war criminal when early in his career his Indian allies slew a French captive uncer his command, also a slave holder (along with Jefferson).

There's a third stage, the resolution of the glorious heroes of old with their limitations of environment and humanity. I now admire George Washington all the more because of his tremendous fortitude in the long War of Independence and especially the peace that followed, for his surrendering his mantle of Presidential office when he could have been a king, and on his death his freeing of his slaves, which Jefferson did not emulate.

As for the thread, Jack Campin' did not make it clear enough in his first post that it was French 'colored' troops who were short-gloried. American troops of WWII were not for the most part integrated although black troops did serve in combat conditions (I think in the book "The Painted Bird" which is quasi biographical, the main character's first meeting an American is a black sergeant from a tank, who rescues him)

I think it would have occurred to some folks that having non-white troops marching in victory over Nazism might have made a valuable point. Unfortunately such folks did not win their point.

Americans serving in the Pacific Islands were often horrified by the French plantation owners treatment of the non-white natives. In the book "Tales of the South Pacific" by Michener, he makes this point, that an enlightened American general he worked with promoted many unique individuals and gave them positions of responsibility. In the main action of the book, the taking of a Japanese held island, this man is killed, and his replacement is not so enlightened, a lot of the mavericks who starred in the war effort were limited in their advancements. Nevertheless, one of the main themes of these stories, and the central theme of the famous Broadway musical that was derived from this book, was a mature grappling with Americans and their attitudes about race. One of the main characters is an American Lieutenant who is in love with a Polynesian girl but he can't take her home. He is conscious of his love and of his prejudice; he can't resolve them. He sings a brilliant song "You've Got To Be Taught" that lasts all of 90 seconds while it summarizes the entire message. Another character is a young nurse who falls in love with a Frenchmen with mixed race children. She has similar feelings, but she resolves them after a lot of turmoil.

In short, I think America's confrontation with race and racism is one of the main themes of our existence, and has been with us since the beginning, and cannot be summarized by the event of one march through Paris. It is a multi-front engagement of ideas and ideals with many battles, many advances and a few retreats.

It involves every American to this day, and it ain't over.

                        - - - - - - - - - -
I got to visit Oahu, Hawaii about 12 years ago and one of my fondest memories was getting on the small boat that the U S Navy provides to visit the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. I sat with Japanese and German tourists, and the boat was commanded and operated by a young black female Ensign. The War in a nutshell. American in a nutshell.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Peace
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 02:20 AM

THAT was a post an a half, Robomatic. Beautifully said.

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Penny S.
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 11:11 AM

I notice that only the cities I cited have come back to me. I expect that those who quote details can supply them - I didn't find any.

On the other side, I do suspect that any bell ringer with access to the tower could do some ringing if they wanted without being paid. Whether they did or not remains to be shown.

What I do remember from a radio programs brief mention of the period is that black people here were seen as part of the servant class, and on being freed married into it. So no problems there with racism. I'll look up that as well.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 11:14 AM

Jack Campin did not make it clear enough in his first post that it was French 'colored' troops who were short-gloried.

The BBC made the point clearly enough for me - Black Frenchmen were left out on the orders of the US top brass.

I might have been more explicit about something else I had in mind: the US military claimed at the time that their policies on race were simply fitting in with norms of the time, that it was not their role to be socially proactive. That was a lie. They were attempting to impose social change. Both in the way they they tried to manage relations between Black GIs and the host population in the UK, and in this piece of PR in France, they were strongarming their allies into adopting reactionary American racial policies that both Britain and France had left behind 150 years before.

And it seems like they succeeded extremely well in one respect: the songs of the Black servicemen of all the Allied nations have been erased from history even more effectively than the culture the slaves carried with them from Africa. There simply must have been responses in song and poetry to being dragged though hell on earth while being treated like garbage. where did they all go?

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Penny S.
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 11:40 AM

I've been chasing up what happened to free black people in Georgian England. Very little came up, except that feeling against slavery was particularly noticeable in London, where there was a largish community, so I can exclude London from bell ringing. They were more likely to intervene to prevent "slaves" being subject to extraordinary rendition. (Notes on an exhibition in the Guildhall - most interesting bit a possible link between high numbers of adult baptisms and freed black people. Meanwhile American states were banning such baptisms.)

Bristol and Liverpool were more likely to be anti-abolition. Nothing is known of the black people in Bristol. There is a rather negative paragraph which suggests that any intercourse was between sailors and local women and marriage would not be acceptable in polite society, so the community faded away. Or assimilated at a below polite level, I suppose. Family history research is not going to show up any of these people as their origins were not asked for for official documents.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Kent Davis
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 06:50 PM

Penny S.,

What is your reference for saying about adult baptism of blacks, "Meanwhile American states were banning such baptisms"? Having read somewhat in American history and in American anti-paedobaptist literature, I was shocked by that. I've never read of such a thing, and am very interested to follow up.

Thanks in advance,

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Peace
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 07:21 PM

This is a rather long post from the introduction to the book, "Blood for Dignity" by David P Colley:


"In early March, 1945, more than 2,000 African American infantrymen entered the front lines in Germany to fight alongside white soldiers in infantry and armored divisions engaged in the final battles of World War II in Europe. Today black combat troops go unnoticed in an American army that has been integrated since the 1950s.
But in 1945 the appearance of these black volunteers in all-white fighting units was a radical departure from military practices dating back to the birth of the nation. For 162 years, from the end of the Revolution in 1783, until the last three months of World War II, blacks served principally in service units and the few who fought were relegated to segregated combat units. The psychological impact of this exclusion on black men was profound. They were deprived of the fundamental right to be men among men.
In the closing months of World War II the army took the first meaningful steps to integrate its combat units by calling for black volunteers and assigning them to various divisions in the European Theater. The high command originally planned to integrate the black infantrymen individually with whites, but, because of feared political repercussions, stemming from long-standing policies of segregation, they were formed into all-black platoons that were integrated into white infantry companies. In March 1945, the first of 52 platoons, comprised of about 50 men each, went into action along the Rhine as the allies began their final push to defeat Nazi Germany.
American military doctrine had long held that blacks were inferior fighters who fled under fire, and who lacked the intelligence, reliability and courage of whites. The combat record of the black platoons in March, April and May 1945, dispelled this notion. The majority of black troops who fought in the integrated infantry and armored companies did so with an élan and courage that deeply impressed their white superiors and comrades. In some cases white officers regarded the black infantrymen as superior fighters to whites. One former white soldier who fought alongside blacks in K Company, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Division, characterized these African-American warriors as "courageous to the point of foolishness." He was not alone in his observations. A white officer saw them as more aggressive than whites in combat, more willing to kill or be killed.
After the war the army conducted a study of the performance of the black volunteers entitled "The Utilization of Black Platoons in White Companies." In interviews with 1,700 white soldiers, including eighty-four percent of the platoons' officers, those queried said the blacks had performed "very well." There was not one instance in which the performance of black troops was rated as poor.
Another surprising aspect of this post-war study was that the color line and racial enmity that had existed between whites and blacks in civilian life, and much of army life during World War II, disappeared at the front. Relations between whites and blacks in combat units were judged to be "excellent." By war's end many of the white infantrymen and officers who served with blacks "endorsed the idea of having colored soldiers used as infantry troops."
After VE Day, however, segregation once again prevailed in the American army. Most of the black volunteers were separated from their infantry and armored divisions and returned to segregated service units prior to being shipped home. In at least two cases black volunteers mutinied and demanded that they be allowed to remain with their infantry units. One incident required the intervention of Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, America's first black general, to defuse the crisis.
The pressure for equality in American life following World War II proved irresistible and, in 1948, President Harry S. Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces. It would be a number of years before Truman's executive order was fully implemented, but the American army, particularly its combat formations, became fully integrated by the mid-1950s. Integration in army combat units began in earnest during the Korean War. Ironically, during the Viet Nam War there were complaints of disproportionate numbers of blacks in the infantry.
It is hard to quantify the impact of the black platoons on the later integration of the American army. Did it speed the process of integration in the military and later in civilian life? Many of the black platoon members believe their service helped the cause of racial equality. Post-war commissions studying the problems of segregation in the military looked to the black platoons as examples of how integration had worked in the U.S. Army.
Blood for Dignity is the first chronicle of the black platoons told mostly by surviving members of 5th Platoon, K Company, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. The story of the "5th of K" is supplemented by accounts of black platoon members in the two additional regiments of the 99th, and in other combat divisions. The 5th of K went into the line on March 12, 1945, and was put to the test in its first hours of combat. The platoon was engaged in both heavy combat and in mopping up operations in the final months of the war.
While focused mostly on three months of combat, the story of the men of the 5th of K transcends war. It also relates the story of their courage and determination to achieve success and acceptance before and after World War II. Platoon members began life in a segregated culture that relegated them to the status of second class citizens. Through the post-war years they struggled and persevered and today many are successful and aging warriors of the Great Crusade. Above all they are proud African Americans.
This is the story of the men of the black platoons, mostly in war, but also in peace."

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 08:18 PM

Nothing is known of the black people in Bristol.

A lot is known, just not known by whoever you happened to be reading - black history is a big deal in Bristol, there have been many publications and the local museums cover it.

Glasgow does much less well. It didn't have a big role in the slave trade itself, but its entrepreneurs (the guys the streets are named after) profited by the trade in slave-produced sugar and tobacco. And there isn't much locally on show to demonstrate that.

The slave economy was disastrous for the working class in Scotland. Caribbean sugar gradually came to replace domestically-grown starch crops as a source of dietary carbohydrate. This both put much of the agricultural sector out of work (leading to the Lowland Clearances, which were on a much larger scale than the better-known Highland ones) and meant that the Scots led the world in adopting a junk food diet, with horrendous results for public health which have lasted to the present day. And Virginia tobacco finished off what made-in-Jamaica nutrient deficiencies, diabetes, alcoholism and dental caries started.

Probably the city that made most money out of the slave trade was Boston (no, not the one in Lincolnshire). Do they commemorate their specific part in it at all?

Subject: RE: BS: WW2 made whites-only
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 10:42 PM

First, let me congratulate the originator of the thread on successfully dragging us off-- both--of the topics he himself brought up: the blacks excluded from the Paris liberation parade and the Aleuts removed from their homes.

As I recall, he was going to tell us just why neither the UK nor France pushed hard for blacks to be included in the parade. As I noted, had they done so, with the strong civil rights groups in the US already pushing for black recognition, there is a good chance they would have been successful. The squeaky wheel....

But it's so much more satisfying to whine about US racism--which obviously did exist-- than to realize that there is actually plenty of blame to go around--as he'd realize if he only read the article he himself started with.



Also, he was going to give us the specific source he has that when the Aleuts were removed from their homes, few ever saw them again. From my reading, that appears to be true, but not because they died before they saw them again, but because the homes often destroyed, sometimes to keep them from Japanese use.   

In fact some Aleuts were captured by Japanese and taken to Japan.   He also, with his perfect 20/20 hindsight-- as the wonderful armchair general he is-- wants to tell us the removal by the US was not necessary at all. In 1942 this was far from clear, and as I noted earlier, a serious military campaign was carried out by the Japanese in the Aleutians.   "In 1942 during World War II, Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska Islands in the Western Aleutians and later transported captive Attu Islanders to Hokkaido, where they were held as prisoners of war." Perhaps he'd like to tell us about the Japanese compensation plan for these POWs.

Added to that, as I noted earlier, the campaign in the eastern Aleutians resulted (per Wiki) in at least 3,929 US casualties and 2,300 Japanese dead.

It's not at all clear--and certainly wasn't in 1942--that the Aleuts could have stayed in their homes unmolested.   Perhaps it has slipped the poster's mind that there actually was a rather serious war going on.

Lots more to say, but, again, no more time.