When I saw the news this morning that the Air Force would no longer be including its own history in its Basic Training curriculum if that history happens to involve Black and/or female Airmen, my mind went back to a review I wrote after I saw the movie Red Tails when I was stationed in Germany in 2013. I think the review still speaks to some of the underlying reasons that have brought us to this point in our national life, so I’m reposting it here. [UPDATE: After a loud public outcry, AETC restored the suppressed portions of the curriculum]
I saw Red Tails while I was stationed in Germany, and it occurred to me when I was on my way to see the movie that it was a somewhat historic moment, for me personally at least. Here I was, a black Airman in Germany, on my way to see a movie at an American military base about the first black Airmen and their exploits in the skies over Germany during WWII, the first such movie to feature an all black cast, almost 70 years later. The Tuskegee Airmen, in more ways than one, were directly responsible for the fact that I had a seat in the theater. They fought for the rights that I take for granted: the right to be an American Airman; the right to be a full and free citizen of my own country; the right to simply sit wherever I want in a movie theater. Ironically, it took George Lucas 23 years to secure a release deal for the film, even though he financed it himself, because it had an all black cast, and no studio believed that a film with an all black cast could make money in wide release.
Despite the significance of the occasion, the movie itself left me feeling ambivalent. I’m glad the story was told. I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it. But I can’t say I was happy about the the way the story was told. You could quibble about the movie’s artistic choices (for instance, seriously, what was up with Ne-Yo’s Bubba Gump shtick?), but it was more than that. George Lucas tells a story about a group of men who fought for the opportunity to prove that they were skilled and courageous combatants. They certainly proved that, and the film celebrates that fact, but it does so at the expense of the story of the Tuskegee Airmen’s larger struggle. They didn’t struggle to be allowed into the fight simply for the sake of proving that they could in fact fight. In risking their life for the nation, they were affirming their claim to their own country, and eliminating any possible excuse for being denied their rights as citizens. The interviews done with the Tuskegee Airmen in the years after show that they were fully conscious of that fact:
[Speaking of the “Double V” campaign launched by the Black press] “The idea was that we should have a victory. Not only a victory over Adolf Hitler, but that we African-Americans should have a second ‘V’, the victory over the prejudice and racial segregation that was endemic in society also.”
-Mr. Lee Archer, former Tuskeegee Airman
The movie never goes anywhere near that social and historical context. But that context is crucial to understanding the depth of character the Tuskegee Airmen possessed. As courageous as it was to face enemy combatants on the battlefield, it took far more courage to do so when the citizens of your own country would refuse, for instance, to allow you to use an off-base commercial laundry service, preferring instead to accept laundry from German detainees. While their white comrades in arms had to fight on the battlefield, the Tuskegee Airmen had to fight every moment of every day, before, during, and after the war, to be simply treated as human beings.
However, as far as the movie is concerned, it was simply a matter of some obstinate old school racist officers who were determined not to let them fight, and therefore put word on the street that they couldn’t fight. Then, after they demonstrate that they’re actually s***-hot pilots, they’re immediately welcomed into the Armed Forces fraternity and everything is cool. It’s a reflection of a narrative about the history of race in America in general that shrinks from acknowledging the depth, intensity and complexity of the racial prejudice that afflicts this nation. In the context of a movie that aims to pay tribute to exceptional courage in the face of exceptional adversity, that kind of timidity is especially unworthy.
I still think the movie should be seen. But I think it should be seen with a commitment to use it as a launching point for starting an honest conversation about what the Tuskegee Airmen’s mission truly was, and what still remains to be done to to fully accomplish it. That would be a truly worthy tribute to their memory.
