Chris Wallace Flummoxed: How Could 'Greatest Generation' Be Racist AF If They Also Beat The Nazis?

[Nevilledog]

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Former "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace has started doing his new longform interview show "Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace," on CNN+, the new streaming service from CNN. This week, Wallace spoke with New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones about her bestselling book adaptation of The 1619 Project, which argues quite persuasively that the story of American democracy is largely the story of African Americans and their exclusion from that very democracy. Slavery and segregation weren't a glitch or a sidebar; they were integral to the project of creating a nation where white people did very well by exploiting the labor and lives of Black people and other racial minorities.

Although you have to subscribe to see the full interview, Mediaite provides a nice seven-minute clip, in which Wallace pushes back on two of Hannah-Jones's assertions in her Pulitzer-winning introductory essay for the project (non-paywalled but legal PDF version here).

While Mediaite notes most of the interview was a "mutually warm and respectful discussion" of her work, Wallace took issue with Hannah-Jones's point that "Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different. It might not be a democracy at all," which she fairly effortlessly defended by noting that for much of US history, roughly half the states in the country denied the vote to vast portions of the adult population. Add to that the period up to 1920 when women were unable to vote, and America was even less of a democracy.

But what really bothered Wallace was Hannah-Jones's Greatest Generation libel, because after all, those young folks who grew up in the Great Depression and fought WWII were heroes who saved the world from fascism, weren't they? Wallace seemed unable to wrap his head around this bit from the essay where Hannah-Jones argues that during the "Good War,"

Many white Americans saw black men in the uniforms of America’s armed services not as patriotic but as exhibiting a dangerous pride. Hundreds of black veterans were beaten, maimed, shot and lynched. We like to call those who lived during World War II the Greatest Generation, but that allows us to ignore the fact that many of this generation fought for democracy abroad while brutally suppressing democracy for millions of American citizens.

*snip*

[Demsrule86]

1. Black men were not allowed in the regular army until Korea...Roosevelt was not good on this issue...

He also fought the Nazis.

[Aristus]

2. Because American racism is the BEST racism in the world!

[Hekate]

3. Many people find it difficult to hold more than one idea in their minds. Dark and light....

Heroes on the one hand and egregiously flawed humans on the other — both at once.

Chris Wallace should grow up and learn.

[JanMichael]

4. Good question. Same as people in Poland or Russia (or any Slavic person) being a Nazi.

The Nazi's want to either enslave or kill all Slavic people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Ethnic group /
Nationality targeted Percentage of ethnic group to be eliminated
by Nazi Germany from future settlement areas[17][18][19]

Russians Unclear

Estonians[19][20] almost 50%

Latvians[19] 50%

Czechs[18] 50%

Ukrainians[18][21] 65% to be deported from West Ukraine 35% to be Germanized

Belarusians[18] 75%

Poles[18] 20 million, or 80–85%

Lithuanians[19] 85%

Latgalians[19] 100%

[kskiska]

5. Black soldiers were not allowed to be treated by white nurses

and vice versa, I believe.

[hedda_foil]

10. You are correct. Black nurses were not allowed to touch injured white GI's.

An exception was made in the case of wounded German POW's. When the white nurses were overloaded treating white GI's, the black nurses were allowed to tend to the POW's.

[Jm7603]

6. Chris Wallace must be easily flummoxed

How does fighting Nazis exempt one from racism? Our troops were not fighting racism in WWII. It was all about stopping the Axis aggression.

[maxsolomon]

7. Why CNN bothered to give this fossil a platform escapes me.

He's complicit in Murdoch's global anti-Democracy media project, but oh, he finds a scrap of a conscience, and he gets his own show.

Why not give Hannah-Jones a show instead?

[Carlitos Brigante]

12. There you go! I'd be all for that. They might even get me to watch that show. I'd be willing

to make an exception, just for CNN.

[Runningdawg]

8. I had 2 uncles who killed Nazi they were very proud of their medals.

But they had no problem telling others they would have rather killed (some) Americans. They made Archie Bunker look like a Sunday School teacher. The only good news here is they never had kids.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. The most salient points of history gloss over a lot

Sanitized reality just feels better.

[Wounded Bear]

11. Apparently hasn't read how we treated the Japanese...

The Pacific war was very racist, and it wasn't a lot better on the home front. We didn't line them up and shoot them, but the "relocation" was definitely not a high point in US history of race relations.

[Initech]

13. A very toxic combination of Facebook propaganda and Fox News.

When you paint yourself in a bubble and your media diet is as toxic as your regular diet, you're bound to hear and say some ridiculously racist shit.

[Midnight Writer]

14. If we evolved from apes, how can apes still exist? Republican logic doesn't follow a linear path.

[Behind the Aegis]

15. I see a similar "confusion" when it comes to the South and the Civil War.

Many liberals can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that just because their ancestors fought for the Union that somehow, they weren't racist as fuck too! Just because someone opposes one form of bigotry, it doesn't mean they are not bigoted against other groups. The same holds true for those who may support this or that, which is good for a minority, doesn't absolve someone from other forms of prejudice, even for the group in question; e.g. supported marriage equality but still think people should be allowed to not serve gay people or opposed slavery but still didn't want people of color living in their towns our using the same facilities.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. I have an ancestor from Kentucky who was in the Union army, and his father was a slave owner.

At least, he was in 1850, when his name appears in the slave schedule of the census. And Lincoln himself said "if I could save the Union without freeing a single slave, I would do it." Casting the war as a righteous moral crusade to end slavery is a bit of feel-good revisionism that came later, and it certainly isn't what most Union soldiers would've thought they were fighting for.

[Baitball Blogger]

16. Easy. They had everything go their way. We self-censored

In order to make them comfortable with us. They learned nothing.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

18. Nikole Hannah-Jones was amazing in this clip

Nikole Hannah-Jones took Chris Wallace apart in a very effective and dignified manner. I am impressed

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