The meme featured a photo of Colin
Kaepernick photoshopped to appear that he was on a landing craft at the
invasion of Normandy. The caption read “I’m not going,” or something like that.
The retching in my stomach didn’t allow time for careful perusal.
There are so many issues that could be used to denounce this
cheap effort to promote hatred. One is that—dear posing person—a person of African-American
descent wouldn’t have disembarked with white units at Normandy. They were
assigned to “special” units of black soldiers, mostly commanded by white
officers, and treated as second-class troops. Despite the discrimination, a
million African Americans joined the military during World War II as volunteers
or draftees. Another 1.5 million registered for the draft.
When they returned to America, after serving honorably, guess
what? They weren’t allowed to buy homes in decent locations as did their
white counterparts. They saw little training for decent jobs. Education
opportunities were sparse. In short, they failed to receive their fair share of
the benefits under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 —the G.I. Bill.
Further:
Further:
They weren’t allowed to bring their families to many restaurants.
They weren’t allowed to vote in Southern states, a practice
now being revived.
Their children faced inferior education in segregated schools, a practice now being revived.
They were even still relegated to balcony seats in many
movie theaters throughout America.
These men, many of whom, wore the Purple Heart and Combat
Infantry Badge, faced being hauled off buses and beaten on their return, simply
for “acting uppity.” Outrage could result in lynching, which Southern states
refused to make illegal. While their white comrades kissed women in Times Square
following the Allied victories, African-American veterans were denied every
form of basic decency imaginable.
The “dis-honorment” did not end with WWII, nor with the Korean
War. President Harry Truman saw the injustice, and he did integrate the
military. For this, he became one of the most hated men in the country and was
hounded from office, albeit while walking out of office on the right side of History.
It hadn’t ended, the injustice, by my time “in the barrel.”
I’ve mentioned this before, but I can’t rid myself of the image. After our airliner
cleared the massive Da Nang airport, and we saw the blue water of the South China
Sea below us, we passengers broke out into applause. It was then that I remember
thinking how 15 percent of those in the cabin were not going back to the same America
I was, and didn’t share the reason for applauding.
I don’t know if I would have done what Colin Kaepernick did
or not. I’m white, and not very brave. There is no way that I could ever know.
My friends who posted that noxious meme, and those of you who “liked” it, can
never know either. Your distrust of Americans of different color has been
carefully honed by false news channels and slogans rolled out by entities that want
Americans to hate one another. The only way we can survive this assault on our
decency and our country, is to end the poisoning. It’s not hard. We just avoid it.
As Shakespeare had Hamlet say to his mother
“Assume a virtue, if you have
it not.
That monster, custom, who all
sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet
in this,
That to the use of actions fair
and good
He likewise gives a frock or
livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain
tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of
easiness
To the next abstinence; the
next more easy;
For use almost can change the
stamp of nature.”
Can we at least try?
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