In case you missed it, after a strong backlash from scores of others, including military brass and descendants of the Tuskegee Airmen, the United States Air Force quickly reversed its recent move to remove videos featuring the Airmen out of its training programs.
Well, with that late breaking news, I’m not gonna gloat – well, maybe I will. Just a little bit. I say that because here I was less than 24 hours after I received a message from “Lew,” a lifelong friend. But given that “Lew” is a 5th degree black belt in karate, I was relieved that his expletive-filled email to me wasn’t about anything I’d done or written in the publications you’re now reading or maybe others.
No, like scores of others I’d heard from once the news broke, “Lew’s” justifiable anger was ignited by a cockamamie decision to phase out the teaching of the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Air Force training curriculum.
Now mind you, here’s another twisted attempt to add another leg to the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) boogeyman. If you get stuck in the traffic, blame DEI. If you have a runny nose, blame DEI. If you get evicted from your apartment for not paying your rent, blame DEI. If you pet dog bit your neighbor, blame DEI. If you can’t sing or dance, blame DEI.
Silly, isn’t it, when you think about it?
Well since his email was apparently not enough, “Lew” interrupted my watching an NFL playoff game with a call to add more angry voice to his email. The conversation spilled into halftime.
Like the popular idiom “mom and apple pie,” the story of the Tuskegee Airmen is considered a treasured source of pride and is virtually sacred in the African American community. One would think that, at a minimum, those who crafted such a asinine policy would have done their homework beforehand.
Duh!
But to freshen the memories of those harboring little, fading or zero knowledge of the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen here’s a historical snapshot.
The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of primarily African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations and was cited “flight ready” by then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt after actually flying on board with the airmen.
Now the fact is that the Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. The truth is that during World War II, Black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated as was much of the federal government. Thus, the Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside of the army.
Before the Tuskegee Airmen, no African American had been a U.S. military pilot. In 1917 African-American men had tried to become aerial observers but were rejected. The racially motivated rejections of World War I African-American recruits sparked more than two decades of advocacy by African Americans who wished to enlist and train as military aviators.
The U.S. Army Air Corps established programs including the identification, selection, education, and training of pilots, navigators and bombardiers. Psychologists employed in those programs used some of the first standardized tests to quantify IQ, dexterity and leadership qualities to select and train the best-suited personnel for the roles of bombardier, navigator and pilot. This effort continued with the selection and training of the Tuskegee Airmen.
The War Department set up a system to accept only those with a level of flight experience or higher education which ensured that only the ablest African American applicants were able to join. So it doesn’t take rocket science to know that highly subjective tests like these were instrumental in the non-selection of African-American applicants.
Tuskegee Airman Coleman Young, later the first African-American mayor of Detroit, told a journalist about the section process:
“They made the standards so high that we actually became an elite group,” he reported. “We were screened and super-screened but were unquestionably the brightest and most physically fit young Blacks in the country. We were super-better because of the irrational laws of Jim Crow.”
Seventeen flight surgeons served with the Tuskegee Airmen from 1941 to 1949. By the end of February 1944, the all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had been sent overseas with three fighter squadrons.
Flying escort for heavy bombers, the 332nd earned an impressive combat record. The Allies called these airmen “Red Tails” or “Red-Tail Angels,” because of the distinctive crimson unit identification marking predominantly applied on the tail section of the unit’s aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen shot down three German jets in a single day. Led by Colonel Benjamin O. Davis their bombers ventured over 1,600 miles into Germany and back.
Okay, there you have it, a high-level look at the incredible history of the Tuskegee Airmen. Without doubt, there’s much more to know about them, the barriers they had to overcome and the successes they had despite blatant racial discrimination at that time.
I’ll end this narrative with a bit of curiosity about and questions to those with little or no knowledge about African American history, let alone the history of Tuskegee Airmen; those huddled in some back room deciding with a stroke of a pen to erase an important piece of history that cannot and will not be erased.
Where did you get your marching orders from? And, if this blowback from your decision has caused embarrassment for your “higher ups,” will you unceremoniously receive your walking papers like those accused of clandestinely engaging in DEI work within the government?
So with the news of the Air Force’s correction of this egregious mistake, I immediately tried to convey the news to “Lew,” but was informed by his wife that he was out celebrating.
Terry Howard is an award-winning writer, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.
So, I end this somewhat amused that despite this convoluted edit to eliminate the teaching of the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen from history, the actual result has been quite the opposite….heightened interest in that by scores of people who knew little, if anything, about that history.
