The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Arlington National Cemetery

  • Newswire : Trump Administration erases Black History at Arlington National Cemetery

    Military graves at Arlington National Cemetery

    By Stephen A. Crockett Jr., NewsOne

     

    It’s one thing to say that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives give an unfair advantage to people of color inside organizations; it’s a gross overstep to use DEI as an excuse to purge the existence of notable Black, Hispanic, and veteran women from Arlington National Cemetery — which is exactly what the Trump administration has done. 
    According to MSNBC, the final resting place for some 400,000 soldiers has scrubbed its website of the gravesites of notable “prominent minority veterans, as well as educational pages on the Civil War, African American history and women’s history.”
    They have also removed all language about diversity and inclusion and placed some pertinent information about extraordinary people of color under different categories that don’t mention race or gender because the Trump administration hates history that makes white people look bad.
    Seriously, why else would they want to stop teachings on African American history or the Civil Rights Movement, all information that was once on the Arlington cemetery’s web pages until the Trump administration war on DEI? There used to be a section on Black war heroes, and that page is no longer there because god forbid some Black child sees these powerful images and thinks that maybe he could be a pilot or a Marine one day. 
    The cemetery is not entirely at fault. A spokesperson for the Arlington National told the Washington Post that they are just trying to adhere to Donald Trump’s policies after confirming that the webpages of “Notable Graves” of Black, Hispanic, and female veterans were taken down. 
    Because Donald Trump and his brood of white cis-gendered men hate diversity, they hate anyone who doesn’t look like them, and they are working diligently to erase years of progress under the guise of “Making America Great Again,” which is really just a synonym for white. 
    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has claimed that he’s getting rid of “wokeness” in the military but showcasing the work of people of color in the Armed Forces isn’t “woke,” unless “wokeness” means people of color (I admit that I don’t know what wokeness means now that it’s been bastardized by MAGA).
    MSNBC notes that one of Donald Trump’s first firings when taking office was to get rid of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, a Black man, and one of the most highly decorated officers and replaced him with a white cis-gendered man.
    He also pushed out “Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the head of the U.S. Navy and the first woman to lead any branch of the armed forces.” Her firing left the armed forces without any 4-star female commanders. 
    Since being confirmed as defense secretary, Hegseth noted that he believes the dumbest phrase in the military is “Our strength is in our diversity.” So clearly he was for a ban on all cultural heritage celebrations, “including Black History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, National American Indian Heritage Month, LGBTQ Pride Month, Women’s History Month, Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day,” MSNBC reports. 
    Oh and in case you wanted to clear up any doubt, yes, they are looking to ban trans people from serving in the military.
    And get this: After scrubbing the Pentagon of some 26,000 images that showed veterans of diverse races and identities, they also took down an image of a World War II B-29 aircraft that dropped the world’s first and only atomic bomb on Hiroshima because it was named “Enola Gay.”

  • Newswire : Black troops fought on D-Day 

    Edward Carter was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in January 1997 for his heroic actions while serving in World War II. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He is one of seven Black men awarded the Medal of Honor long after WWII ended due to racial discrimination

    Seven Black men were awarded the Medal of Honor
    in WWII long after the conflict was over

    By BlackmansStreetToday

    The Allies recently celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which was the beginning of the invasion of France to overthrow the Nazi government in Germany. 

    The movies recount the terrorizing experiences of men cut down by gunfire while running to the beach, while also depicting the jubilation of those who survived and were not harmed physically. The big-budget films include
    “The Longest Day,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Big Red One.” 

    But those films are short on the truth and long on lies.The movies ignored the role Black soldiers played in the overthrow Nazi Germany.

    Roughly 2,000 African American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. 

    Serving in a U.S. military still segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home.

    The troops included the 320th Balloon Battalion, the 582nd Engineer Dump Truck Company, the 385th Quartermaster Truck Company, and the 490th Port Battalion with its 226th, 227th, 228th, and 229th Port Companies.”

    Seven Blacks won the Medal of Honor racial prejudice prevented them from receiving their medals long after WWII had ended.

    By 1945, 432 American service members had received the Medal of Honor for their gallantry in the face of enemy fire during World War II. 

    Not a single Black man among them was recognized.

    It took almost 50 years for the Army to recognize some of the incredible heroics of Black American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who served during the war.

    More than a million Black men wore the uniforms of the United States in World War II, and many of them saw combat.

    In 1993, President Bill Clinton initiated the Army’s review of its World War II records to determine why no Black men received the Medal of Honor. 

    It discovered that a culture of discrimination in the awarding of medals prevented the Army from awarding the medal to a handful of deserving Black heroes. Only one of these vets was alive when the Medals of Honor were officially presented in 1997.