Word: african
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...Islands is the focus of another pitched battle. This time film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee are sparring over the accuracy of Eastwood's two films about the clash, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee has claimed that by soft-pedaling the role of African Americans in the battle, Eastwood has whitewashed history...
Eastwood bristled at the charge. "Has he ever studied history? [African-American soldiers] didn't raise the flag," he countered in an interview with the British newspaper the Guardian. "If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.'" Eastwood also suggested Lee should "shut his face." That didn't go down so well. Eastwood "is not my father, and we're not on a plantation either," Lee fumed. "I'm not making this up. I know history...
History, as it turns out, is on both their sides. Lee is correct that African Americans played a key role in World War II, in which more than 1 million black servicemen helped topple the Axis powers. He is correct too in pointing out that African-American forces made significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. An estimated 700 to 900 African Americans, trained in segregated boot camps, participated in the landmark battle, which claimed the lives of about 6,800 servicemen, nearly all Marines...
...Jima, but that didn't mean they were safe. Under enemy fire, they braved perilous beach landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions. "Shells, mortar and hand grenades don't know the difference of color," says Thomas McPhatter, an African-American Marine who hauled ammo during the battle. "Everybody out there was trying to cover their butts to survive...
That may be true, but it is not enough to placate Yvonne Latty, the author of a book about African-American veterans. Given the hazards of their mission and the virulent racism they endured--McPhatter says he had to execute his mission without giving orders to white troops, even if they were needed--Latty argues that black soldiers warrant more than fleeting inclusion in the film. Christopher Paul Moore, author of a book about black soldiers in World War II, praises Eastwood's rendering of the battle but laments the limited role it accords African Americans. "Without black labor...