Veterans Day memorial 'Half American' explores how Black WWII servicemen were treated better abroad

[Marcus IM]

'Half American' explores how Black WWII servicemen were treated better abroad
Heard on Fresh Air
DAVE DAVIES

Interview highlights

On Nazi prisoners of war being treated better than Black American soldiers

It's one of the most common stories that Black veterans would tell. ... These white Americans were treating the Germans infinitely better than they ever treated their fellow Black troops. They're allowing them to eat in the same dining facilities, go to the same movie theaters, sit in the same parts of the train cars. And for Black Americans, it it reveals that in many ways Nazi racial policies and American racial policies were just two sides of the same coin. And that really leads them to question the sincerity of what their fellow white soldiers have been fighting for. That if they were going to be this chummy and this friendly with actual Nazis who had been at war with them just months earlier, it really led them to question real commitments to freedom and democracy at home.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134756262/half-american-matthew-delmont-black-wwii

[Better Days Ahoy]

1. I heard that interview--heartbreaking

And criminal

[Marcus IM]

2. It was. The truth about America and it's "heroes" is a mixed bag of honor and horror.