| Popis: |
The conclusion traces the ways that racist boundaries waxed and waned in the final stages of World War II military service and addresses the larger impact that these boundaries had on American troops, the American military, and the nation. In the end, black-white lines, if blurred some, still defined many troops’ last days in uniform. White-nonwhite lines also appeared here and there, but still lacked the same institutionalization, reach, and force. And this broader complex of lines fundamentally shaped postwar America in numerous, complicated, and too often forgotten ways. They politicized a varied and substantial group of veterans, who returned home prepared and determined to democratize the military and the nation. But the cost of these lines was enormous. They impeded America’s war effort, undermined the nation’s Four Freedoms rhetoric, traumatized, even killed, an unknowable number of nonwhite troops, further naturalized the very concept of race, deepened many whites’ investments in white supremacy, especially anti-black racism, and further fractured the American people and their politics. |
