The Day of Infamy. Pearl Harbor, Dec 07, 1941. MJoTA 2012 v6n2 p1207
Aces Museum is a hidden treasure in Philadelphia. It was the Black military's USO, the last stop for Black soldiers before being shipped overseas, the first stop when they came home. We are remembering Pearl Harbor Day, and the Black sailors who were banned from having guns, but who took up guns and cannons and carried white sailors to safety and put up a spirited defense during the Day of Infamy.
Documentary on this page, nearly 1200 died on the USS Arizona alone, and are buried with the ship at Pearl Harbor. In brief stopovers on my way home to Australia, I was driven past Pearl Harbor from the airport and back again in early Nov and late Nov. It is a holy place. And mind-blowingly beautiful.
Dory Miller grew up in a farm and knew guns, but he was hired as a cook. His bravery has been documented. I met Sergeant Sherman at Aces Museum celebration of Memorial Day, he met him during his days in the Black military during World War II, when German prisoners-of-war were treated with more respect than our returning heroes. Breaks my heart every day to hear about separate water fountains, separate bathrooms, separate churches.
In my 6 years being in African communities, I have found that I am welcomed openly in communities inside Africa and recent immigrants from Africa. And not as warmly by African communities in and from the Caribbean. And am generally treated with great suspicion by communities of African Americans. I understand why, and that breaks my heart too.
People that look like me need to apologize every day for the abuse and cruelty and genocide we have rained upon the sons and daughters of Africa. Every day.
A good place to start would be to lobby to redirect money that is used to prevent unionization towards hiring more teachers so that children born to teenage mothers and dead fathers have a chance at becoming president. Because until every child has a good shot at becoming president, we are failing them. All of them. And that breaks my heart.
Because why did we even fight back at Pearl Harbor if we do not care for our children? Why did our fathers and grandfathers die in Europe fighting the genocidal Nazis and in the Pacific and Asia fighting the genocidal Imperial Army, if not for the children?
