I'm reading Half American by Matthew Delmont about Black servicemembers in WWII. The sheer waste of man power and talent is maddening and the coddling of white supremacists is enraging. He doesn't get into draft numbers, but I'd like to see a comparison. In the south during WWI, Black Americans were disproportionately drafted. I'm wondering if the discrepancy went away for WWII b/c it was more popular.

Also, I mentioned this in another thread, but I wish I could write movie scripts. Some of these guys served in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion before hand. There's a woman, Salaria Kea, who volunteered as a nurse in Spain and in WWII and could only get work outside of the war in the US in TB wards at hospitals b/c of prejudice. She apparently went on to do a bunch of work in the civil rights movement. Someone else brought up Edward Carter who was an officer in Spain and then had to deal with the US army's prejudice during WWII.

It's insane that we have movies about people like Desmond Doss that had to be totally hyperbolized when we have these other stories that probably have to be down played to be believable.

Also, the section on the Port Chicago disaster made me so mad. White officers basically wasted 300 soldiers lives for petty bets and the navy blamed the enlisted men. It was just a galling dereliction of leadership and duty.

I'd definitely recommend the book.