WARS

WARS WITHIN WARS Be sure to remember, or now to learn and to know --that the vast veneration accorded to America's World War veterans by some media personalities means or implies only "white veterans" i.e. , "the greatest generation," of Tom Brokaw fame. Even as recently as World War II black active duty servicemen were made to ride in baggage cars while prisoners of war (Germans, Italians, all white) rode first class. The same disrespect was shown in mess hall. So deeply embedded is the disease of racism in the social tissues of some white people, they would go so far as to lynch servicemen for putting on airs unbecoming blacks! Despite it, most blacks took it on the chin, rationalized their futility, and usually looked the other way. Except, of course, there are always those few who will except to, will not be accepting of, such repeated humiliations. in Houston Texas, in 1917, at Fort Logan, when things grew to become intolerable, in that town, that black soldiers retaliated by killing those racist cops who were killing them. In 1942, in Brisbane, Australia, as John O. Killens has written in the novel, AND THEN WE HEARD THE THUNDER, they fought back too. Indeed in Brisbane , and in other places, "down under" near MacArthur's headquarters, the Australians objected to white Americans' demeaning arrogance, as much as the white Americans objected to 100,000 African Americans' emergence as social "equals" abroad with white Australian women. So throughout the 1940s riots were occurring, but were not reported by media. These riots involved Australians fighting white Americans and Americans fighting each other in midst of war! "Over sexed, overpaid, overbearing " was that the view Australians held of white Americans; whose bases PBX gave them unlimited access to "chocolates and nylons", true blue Australian (or any) female turn-ons. The male Australians lacked access to these luxuries and lost thereby the social interest of their women. It was similar to how the whites viewed America's black troops. Here, too, the blacks fought back! They did the same thing to the white American servicemen by force of arms, who were, as always, jealous of the social attraction black troops held for white Australian females, as whites had done to them! Wars within wars are American facts ; male-female; slave-free; black-white ; rich -poor; ignorant-knowledgeable; atheist-religious.