In WW2, the movement of millions of American troops to Britain, known as the “friendly invasion,” brought to light stark differences concerning racial segregation. Many Britons struggled to understand or accept the institutionalized discrimination that Black soldiers faced in White America, leading to tensions between the two allied nations on the matter of civil rights.
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon And this was in an empire that was based on it's own form of white supremacy. Even they thought American segregation was unconscionable.
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon thanks for the post. I knew this had happened in WW1 in france, there were even official protests from french officers apalled at how the americans were treating their black soldiers. I had no idea that was still going on in britain in WW2 to such an extent.
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon Thank you for this thread. I had no idea about any of this. This needs to be taught in schools in the US. (I'm Canadian so probably explains some of it). So many heros who's stories haven't been told..fighting for a country that didn't respect them.
:skyeface3:
@cenobyte@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon are you assuming Americans or Brits learned about this history? I know we didn’t in my Oklahoma school. I did have an amazing American history teacher that skimmed over the usual stuff and went deep on the civil rights movement- he gave our adv class an actual poll test that black folks had to pass to vote (but white folks didn’t have to take). It was insane and unfair af and HARD.
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon
Institutional racism was so common that also in 1944, in the USA, soldiers of color could not eat in the same dining room and had to give up their seats to captured NAZI prisoners. They couldn't supervise whites and had to give up their stripes.
Source: From the #documentary Medal of Honor → Temporada 1 Episodio 3. Edward Carter. [Netflix, 2018]
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon This is an AMAZING and AMAZINGLY INTERESTING thread!!! Fav'd and bookmarked right now! Any chance of alt text added somehow in the near future? I would LOVE so so so much to boost it, really. In any case, thank you SO much.
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon At least superficially true. The thing is, for all the visible equality there's been a ceiling on power and political leadership for non-white citizens there as well, and it definitely persists.
The classic case of this was that several public houses in #lancashire reacted to attempts to import segregation by putting up signs that they would serve black G.I.s only!
@Deglassco@blackmastodon@BlackMastodon thank you for posting this. With the @internetarchive facing a second lawsuit, our repositories of history are facing an existential threat. I say this as someone who works in a library.
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