Spartacus, this question has been a deep one. Why did the Allies, especially America, did not do anything to combat racism in their armies?

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101

Changing racial feelings in the United States is/was a process. The US Army allowed African-Americans to fight (and well they did - as well as any white, hispanic, japanese-american, American Indian, and so on.).

The Army (and Navy) allowed them to show the rest of the US (and some within the military) that African-Americans could be as brave, as manly, smart and American as they were, when there were many in the country who said stupid stuff like “blacks are not smart enough to fly aircraft in combat”, or “blacks will not fight.”

The Army (and African-Americans) in WWII set the stage for EO 9981 in 1948.

The success of the process is to be admired, not escoriated. The African-Americans who recognized the process and worked to continue it are to be admired, by all of us… and you. The whites who saw the process, and worked to continue it are to be admired, by all of us… and you.

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102

A little of this (by a very special orator):

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103

The biggest thing the War Department did to combat racism was probably the making of this educational film, although it may not have released it until after the War:

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104

That is a peace of art. The “German teacher” debunking nazi racism. And the man who was born in Hungary, migrated to Berlin, fled to the US, telling an American what America should be.

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105

That’s what government propaganda, including well-meaning and benevolent propaganda, does. Government propaganda shapes a people’s national identity.

By the way, when you said “peace of art”, did you mean that as a pun to suggest that the film was made to promote peace in the future or did you mean “piece of art”?

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106

The later, the “peace” was not intentional.

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107

To Place FDR’s position a bit more into perspective;

  • I don’t think the president can fire members of congress, so he will have to deal with them.
  • FDR was a leftist in terms of economy and government control. He wanted a strong government that could intervene in the economy when necessary. Republicans were vehemently opposed to this. These two principles are still somewhat true today.
  • On progressive/conservative social norms, the two parties were much less clear defined. Progressives tended to side with the republicans and conservatives tended to side with the democrats. FDR may himself be in favour of equal rights for minorities and poc, but he still had to deal with a largely conservative base.
  • This conservative base was an important voting block. You just have to look at the 1940 election map for that. Southern democrats were very important to win a presidential election.
  • Not enough white people cared for racial equality in the 40s to vote for that and black people were not a significant voting block as most of them were not registered to vote.
  • Advocating for racial equality was thus a politically risky thing to do. When JFK did it he only barely won the 1960 election, the southern democrats having turned against him. With the passing of the 1964 civil rights act by LBJ, the democrats definitively lost the south.
  • I hardly doubt the civil rights act would have been able to pass much earlier then it did. Truman had tried, but didn’t get much further than some executive orders.

And as was pointed out earlier, racism was much more deeply entrenched in American society. Segregation was seen by most as natural and normal. Blacks by most white people were seen as second class citizens, not just in the south. Desegregation took decades to complete. Even today black people and people of color while legally of equal status do not enjoy the same treatment and priviliges from the government as white people. WW2 is as far from today as it is from the civil war.

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108

how can you be a leftist in terms of economy? I thought you can only be left or right in terms of politics?

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I hope this is ironic, as I hope you understand politics is not quite that simple nor linear.

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110

Nope. I was serious.

111

… uh, I’m from the south, and a Democrat. The party didn’t lose me (or my parents, or many southerners). Please be careful about painting us all as racist scum.

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112

I am sorry if my generalization insulted you. Obviously not every southern democrat was turned away by this.

However, you cannot deny that when LBJ won reelection in 1964, just having passed the civil rights act, the six states that went republican instead of democrat were: Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. In 1940 these states (minus Arizona) voted for FDR with margins of 85-95%. These states were democratic strongholds at the time of WW2 and it took the civil rights act to turn them republican, not because they liked it, but because they vehemently opposed it.

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114

I did not live in the 40s so I can not know how life was really like back then.
But I do think that is easier to put down others then it is to improve oneself and how people look is a easy way to put down others.
listen to me because

  • that other guy has red hair
  • that other guy likes men
  • that other guy has a dark skin
  • that other guy has a big nose
  • that other guy trusts in science
  • that other guy trusts in religion
  • that other guy is a democrat
  • that other guy is a socialist
  • that other guy has no money
  • that other guy has to much money
  • that other guy does not even speak our language properly
  • that other guy has other traditions and wants to change the traditions you grew up with
    And humans a herd animals and we think we can only trust our own herd for protection
    So listen to me because that guy is not a part of our herd like I am
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The concept of the “Other”:

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116

That other guy makes lists :slight_smile:

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117

Basically I don’t think FDR was ready to take on Civil Rights and ending segregation during his time in office. Unfortunately especially during WWII. He and his administration were interning Japanese Americans so I doubt they were ready for de-segregation. It blows because not only should our Armed forces been de-segregated already for WWI, but we dropped the ball on that one again for WWII. Just like Reconstruction after the Civil War, the next 100 years in politics, especially during FDR’s time left much to be desired.

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118

OK, let’s not get too high-horsed here. Racism was a fact in the US in WWI, and the openly racist US high command was concerned that black and white US units would fire on each other (and so didn’t let African-American in the front lines - although those units “loaned” to the French did, and did quite well.). There was some reason for this, notably the “Camp Logan Mutiny” in August 1917.

Interestingly, John Pershing, commander of the US army in France, was known as “Black Jack” because of his command of the 10th US Cavalry, one of the African-American US cavalry regiments early in his career. But he would still be hamstrung by a racism he was only all too familiar with.

FDR was a supreme pragmatist. He figured he needed southern democrats to defeat the republicans, and was willing to bite the bullet of kowtowing to them.

Famously, in 1936, Hitler did not shake hands with Jesse Owens, but then he didn’t congratulate any athlete - German or not - after being warned by the IOC that he had to congratulate all or none early on the first day of the games. FDR did congratulate the olymipic athletes – all the white ones. Owens and other African-American athletes were not even invited to the White House. In this way, FDR is more racist… than Hitler.)

In WWII, though, African-Americans were allowed to be armed, and many fought with distinction and self-sacrifice. They, specifically, allowed Truman to issue EO9981, that explicitly desegregated the military.

Expecting racism to simply end with the Civil War (in the north and the south - the myth of a racist south and an enlightened north is a myth propogated by northerners) is just foolish, and ignores the realities. Realitiies that we saw even in the 1960s, into the 1990s, when race riots broke out even after civil rights and voting rights were enshrined in law.

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119

Just because it was the easy out or the way things were, doesn’t make it right… It is a high disappointment that arguably the best President ever FDR not only maintained segregated armed forces but also went ahead with interning Japanese Americans… So it is two situations in which he gave up whatever morals or moral high ground he had. He had the morals to see through the Nazi and Japanese threats, but ignored the racism against the Japanese Americans and African Americans here at home. To me maybe sure he’d pay a political price in the short term if he would have desegregated the armed forces, but maybe not. Perhaps blacks see what he does and come out in massive numbers for his re-elections in either 1940 or '44. Bottom line in the long term of history we all would have been better off had he de-segregated the armed forces. I feel he got this issue wrong, same with Japanese internment. I get your point, but he should have felt strong enough morally to take that chance.

120

Well, he didn’t think he did it wrong. Looking back on things and announcing fault of those at the time is a tricky business. Race relations in the US was a complex business, as it was (and is) in many countries (ask any Dalit, for instance.)

At the time:

There were race-riots in Mobile (May 1943), Detroit (February 1942), Beaumont (June 1943), Detroit and Los Angeles (June, 1943) and Harlem (August, 1943). There were explicit (“Jim Crow” laws) and implicit (everywhere not explicit, basically) segregation all over the US – right up until the 1960s.

Many, but by no means all, whites in this country were dead-set against black people having equal status. The upper eschelons of the military were among those. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t smart, it wasn’t right, but it was fact.

In the military, there were race-riots on Guam (December, 1944), a “mutiny” on Hawaii (July 1944) and at Port Chicago (November, 1943), a SeaBee ‘hunger strike’ (February 1945), a ‘mutiny’ trying to break off-duty segregation - illegal in the military - in Kentucky (April 1945), “The battle of Brisbane” (US African-Americans, Australian whites) (March 1942), another in Townsville, Australia (May 1942), Bamber Bridge, England (June 1943). And those are the ones we know about. Ask any older African-American about the endless small indignities of that era. (And it ain’t “just like today”. It just isn’t.)

The military medical service segregated blood until 1950 (that story about Charles Drew is not true, by the way.)

The British tried to keep African-American soldiers out of the British Isles entirely for racist reasons. (Ask anybody non-white about the Brits.).

The NFL and MLB had ‘unofficial’ (but complete) racial segregation up until 1947 (the NFL 1946).

… now, if you’re the US President, and you’re trying to fight a war - primarily with white soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines - are you willing to cause the massive upheaval by desegregating units? Are you going to desegregate units in combat? Are you going to replace officers who refuse to integrate their units? If so, will the replacements be inexperienced and get more men killed? Is this going to get a N*-C* war going in units?

How exactly do you do it? How exactly do you do it and tell grieving fathers, mothers, wives, and children that their loved one died not in defeating Germans, Italians, or Japanese - but because some idiot in the same uniform of a different race decided to kill him?

FDR, and Truman after him, played a much more subtle game. He allowed African-Americans to prove, indisputably, that all the scurrilous thinking about them (“they won’t fight”, “they can’t do complex things”, on and on) was wrong, and completely wrong. He allowed (and indeed influenced) African-American units to be put into combat, and in combat zones. He let African-Americans prove themselves; when integration came, it was not a white man’s gift, it was the black man’s reward.

Belief that a mere stroke of a pen changes people’s thinking is just naive. Know a man, know he is a good man, and you can’t hate him.

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