Spike Lee's Criticism of Eastwood: Black Soldiers in WWII

[Loach]

@mhendo

That was my thought too.

According to this military web site, in 1950 8% of active duty military personnel were black. the figures were 9.7% for the Army, 4.4% in the Air Force, and about 3% in the Navy and Marines. Based on those figures, Loach’s death percentages suggest that Blacks died in Korea at about the expected rate for their level of participation in the armed forces.

The wiki article on the segregation of the military states that at the beginning of the Korean war most black soldiers were in segregated units. That is despite the executive order from Truman in 1948 the desegregated the military. However as the war progressed black soldiers were sent in as replacements to formerly all white units without regard to their race.

[Bricker]

Off-topic, but releavnt to pervasive racism: a friend of mine, Filipino, was in the Army in the 60s, and took a bus down south. He relates that when he saw a sign saying that colored riders should sit in the back, he approached the bus driver, honestly confused, and asked if that included him or not.

[mhendo]

@Bricker

Off-topic, but releavnt to pervasive racism: a friend of mine, Filipino, was in the Army in the 60s, and took a bus down south. He relates that when he saw a sign saying that colored riders should sit in the back, he approached the bus driver, honestly confused, and asked if that included him or not.

The question of what constitutes “white” (or “not colored”) has often been ambiguous in America, especially when it comes to Hispanics and Asians.

Neil Foley discusses this issue in his excellent book, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berekely: University of California Press, 1997), which looks at issues of race and class in Texas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In the introduction, Foley tells the tale of Santiago Tafolla, who left Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1848 and ended up in Charleston, South Carolina working as an overseer on a slave plantation. Tafolla had never been considered white while he was in New Mexico; unsurprising considering the US army was occupying the area after its recent war victory in the region. Yet in South Carolina, where the line between white and “not white” was drawn much differently, he found himself classified as a white.

From Foley’s book (p. 23):

Tafolla recalled how Mrs. Matthews’s daughter asked her: “Mama, is Mexican Jim sure enough white?” The young girl most likely had never seen a Mexican before. Her mother replied: “Daughter, James’ [Tafolla’s] blood is as free from negro blood as yours or mine”…In the South, at least, the absence of “negro blood” conferred whiteness on Mexican Jim…

Foley’s book draws distinctions between Southern and South-Western states regarding racial hierarchies, noting that “white” and “not white” meant different things depending on the region. Obviously, the example quoted was from the antebellum period, but differing notions of what it means to be white and not-white persisted into the twentieth century, and continued to demonstrate regional peculiarities.

[Lakai]

@Bricker

Spike Lee has reportedly leveled a criticism at Clint Eastwood’s casting in “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima.” He says that both films were whites-only affairs, and that Eastwood ignored the role of black soldiers. "

“Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version,” Lee said.

And a more pressing matter is why wasn’t Morgan Freeman in the movie? :dubious:

Last I heard of Spike Lee he was complaining that the government intentionally ignored African Americans in New Orleans during the hurricane. Before that he was complaining that Quentin Tarantino used the N-word too much.

[ExTank]

@Argent Towers

This is Spike Lee we’re talking about. The fact that he would make this criticism is hardly surprising, and the fact that it would be completely off-base and retarded is even less surprising.

Like his suggesting that Charlton Heston, one of the few white actors to support the 60’s Civil Rights struggle, should be shot in the head for his defense of firearm owner’s rights?

Are we talking about that Spike Lee?

[Moirai]

Yep.

[diggleblop]

Maybe Spike Lee should make a movie about Martin Luther King or the Civil Rights Movement and cast a bunch of white men for the role.

[samclem]

I think the OP has been answered, and since this is still General Questions, if anyone wants to continue a Spike Lee discussion, you’re welcome to start another thread in another forum.

Closed. samclem GQ moderator