{"id":265,"date":"2012-09-29T13:14:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T19:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aafcollection.info\/comm\/?p=265"},"modified":"2013-11-10T19:36:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T01:36:22","slug":"mixed-race-mixed-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/2012\/09\/29\/mixed-race-mixed-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Race, Mixed Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OnHere’s something interesting from On Course!<\/a>, class 45-14B at the San Angelo Army Air Field.\u00a0 This class trained at least fifteen black cadets to be bombardiers.\u00a0 Assigned to Flight 6, they are pictured along with their Bomb-a-dears (wives, sweethearts and children) starting on page 57.<\/p>\n

That they are pictured at all, especially with their family members, shows the base was somewhat ahead of its time.\u00a0 They were still segregated, but they appear in the book like any other cadets.\u00a0 A cartoon on page 67 emphasizes the situation.\u00a0 It’s humorous, but still not quite right.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Bombardier<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are two bombardier cadets.\u00a0 Both have a circle around an eye from looking through the bomb sight so long.\u00a0 The white cadet has a black circle while the black cadet has a white circle.\u00a0 It’s a subtle bit of humor that a bombardier would understand.<\/p>\n

This cartoon shows comaraderie and shared experience between two men of different race.\u00a0 Yet still, the black cadet is drawn in blackface<\/a>, the stereotypical way to illustrate black people back then.\u00a0 So it’s sort of a mixed message:\u00a0 Inclusive on the one hand and perhaps a little insulting on the other.<\/p>\n

I’d be interested to hear from any veterans who want to share their thoughts on race relations in the Army Air Forces during World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s something interesting from On Course!, class 45-14B at the San Angelo Army Air Field.\u00a0 This class trained at least fifteen black cadets to be bombardiers.\u00a0 Assigned to Flight 6, they are pictured along with their Bomb-a-dears (wives, sweethearts and children) starting on page 57. That they are pictured at all, especially with their family … Continue reading “Mixed Race, Mixed Message”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartoon","category-highlighted-item"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aafcollection.com\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}