I was mentioning this to Purves Grundy, last night, but couldn't remember the name of it ...and still can't. So can OTF's people-with-memories help me out.
What I'm looking for (hopefully on Youtube or similar) is a 'public information film' made by (and only for viewing by) the American armed forces in world war 2. In it, a cliched 'ordinary Joe' GI figure (with the aid of 'dramatised reconstructions') informs Americas black servicemen newly stationed in Britain how to properly maintain the 'status quo'. That is, if the quaintly naive British, who are unaccustomed to dealing with black people should invite you round for tea (something which might and apparently did happen ...at least with white GIs) then you should simply invent an excuse not to accept and politely decline. The idea being that the British don't understand that black and white people should be kept separate!
This was, of course, at a time when America was still fundamentally racist and there were whole separate black divisions in the army and air force (and navy?) - a quite remarkable state of affairs, really, but one which the American armed forces evidently felt may have been sufficiently fragile for British 'naive liberalism' to undermine.
Anyway, does anyone happen to have also seen this film on any TV documentaries (which is where I saw it) and if so, can they point me to it or at least remember its name?
What I'm looking for (hopefully on Youtube or similar) is a 'public information film' made by (and only for viewing by) the American armed forces in world war 2. In it, a cliched 'ordinary Joe' GI figure (with the aid of 'dramatised reconstructions') informs Americas black servicemen newly stationed in Britain how to properly maintain the 'status quo'. That is, if the quaintly naive British, who are unaccustomed to dealing with black people should invite you round for tea (something which might and apparently did happen ...at least with white GIs) then you should simply invent an excuse not to accept and politely decline. The idea being that the British don't understand that black and white people should be kept separate!
This was, of course, at a time when America was still fundamentally racist and there were whole separate black divisions in the army and air force (and navy?) - a quite remarkable state of affairs, really, but one which the American armed forces evidently felt may have been sufficiently fragile for British 'naive liberalism' to undermine.
Anyway, does anyone happen to have also seen this film on any TV documentaries (which is where I saw it) and if so, can they point me to it or at least remember its name?
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