From The Rocky Mountain News, “Salazar joins critics of series on WWII”:
Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Robert Menendez of New Jersey have joined Hispanic veterans and others who say that an upcoming PBS documentary on World War II doesn’t include enough contributions of Hispanics and American Indians.
The seven-part series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores “the experience of war and combat through the personal accounts of more than 40 men and women,” according to Burns’ production company.
“Sen. Salazar became aware that the PBS documentary on World War II did not include Latinos, and that was of concern, not just to his constituents, but to him personally,” Salazar’s spokesman, Cody Wertz said.
And there, in a nutshell, is the trouble with PBS: if the project is at all funded by the government, the government feels free, it seems, to cast aside the First Amendment and begin applying soft pressures to make sure that “misguided” film makers like Ken Burns provide each and every grievance group with annoited representation in Congress with their own little slice of the narrative pie—however thin, and however perfunctorily it’s doled out.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear next of Barney Frank’s concern that the film doesn’t do enough to detail the contributions of homosexual soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge.
It’s part of the new American historiography: we teach what feels good and raises self-esteem among the greatest number of people. And if that means the larger lessons need be watered down for the purposes of egalitarian inclusiveness, so be it. In the union between fact and emotion, fact is content to let the act speak for itself. Whereas emotion just needs to be held after, I guess.
As for truth? Well, who cares that the contributions of Latinos might not be the story a particular filmmaker wishes to tell, or that s/he decides to devote his or her time to those who had a more obvious impact? That’s just racist!
In a statement, Burns responded to the criticism.
“The film was never meant to be a definitive or comprehensive treatment of the subject,” said Burns, an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker who has produced and directed several acclaimed historical documentaries. “As we say at the outset of each episode, ‘The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting,’ “
However, the filmmaker and PBS have said that new footage about Hispanics and American Indians would be included.
—As a bow to political pressure which never should have been brought in the first place. Because not dealing with the roles played by Latinos or Native Americans in a documentary on World War II is an editorial decision. And members of Congress shouldn’t presume to do the job of the filmmaker in order to pander to the egos of their perpetually-aggrieved swing voting groups.
There is no bias being alleged here other than bias by omission. And given that the film can’t cover every aspect of World War II, these criticisms by Salazar and Menendez smack of pure political opportunism—the very kinds that stoke “racial” and ethnic animus and perpetuate the grievance culture that must never, ever be healed (lest these panders lose key constituencies).
Wertz said that Salazar would keep a watchful eye on the production and that the senator has called for a meeting with PBS President Paula Kerger.
“I think the appropriate action is to fully incorporate our contributions into the body of the documentary,” said Cipriano Griego, commander of the Mile High Chapter of the GI Forum, a national Hispanic veterans organization. “We are not a footnote.”
Actually, you are a footnote, statistically speaking—and the irony is, you are such by your own doing. Because by separating yourselves out as “Latinos” who fought in WWII, you have distanced yourselves from the pluralistic “Americans” who fought and won the thing—and in doing so, you have denied yourselves the national pride that comes with such an achievement, hoping instead for the tribal pride that comes with separation.
James Cates, head of the National Native American Veterans Association, is also critical of the series.
“He didn’t do a very good job of researching his material,” he said about Burns’ initial decision not to include American Indians in the series. “There was Ira Hayes, who helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima, and the Code Talkers of the Navajo, Comanche, and Choctaw tribes.”
Indeed. And there was a major motion picture about the Code Talkers, and plenty has been written on the the inability of the enemy to break the cypher.
This was a significant strategic advantage—and represented an very important contribution to WWII—but it is so well-known by now that perhaps Burns didn’t feel like rehashing it, given that it’s been one of the more frequently-cited of recent WWII stories.
At any rate, I doubt his decision was based on “insensitivity” or “racism”—all of which is moot, given that this in not something Congressmen should be dealing with in the first place.
The fact that Salazar will be keeping a “watchful eye” on the program and will be meeting with the PBS president—presumably to make sure that the film is “fixed” with an eye toward some make-believe “equality”—is precisely the kind of thing that people from both sides of the political aisle should be condemning.
***snicker***
Ouch! That’s gotta sting.
What’s sad is that too many of these “advocates” won’t believe that most of us really want to belong to the larger group, and to have their various identity groups standing beside us.
Sad, and frustrating.
TW: Hard to believe, but I actually15 like my neighbors, regardless of color or politics.
You forgot the Fightin’ 57 LesBiGayTransgendered Brigade.
I’m going to be pissed if the film ignores the contribution of Dutch-American immigrant farmers living on West Leonard Road in Lamont-on-the-Grand, MI.
Grandpa’s legacy must be immortalized in this film!
They also served21 who grew the crops.
I sometimes wonder, on behalf of what cause or country were these so-called Latinos serving? Were they American citizens?
Am American-funded documentary, presumably about American efforts in WW II, would be about Americans, no? I certainly appreciate the sacrifice of all who served in WW II, but I don’t think our enemies shot at any of our servicemen on the basis of their ethnic heritage. While people serve–even those drafted–for a variety of individual reasons and motivations, it seems worse than foolish to start counting noses as the only way to tell the stories of our history.
Holy crap. I know exactly where that is. Is the first step due south still a doozy?
Personally, I found the title of the much lauded WWII-themed miniseries ‘Band of Brothers’ somewhat misleading.
For starters, there wasn’t a black man in Easy Company.
Secondly, the guys weren’t siblings.
–
I will be SO glad when the day comes (I’m still hoping that it will) when someone in Burn’s position tells the likes of Salazar, or any of the other race pimps who like to jump in on things like this to simply fuck off.
I’m not holding my breath, though.
Thing is, anyone who is apt to watch this documentary will already know all about the code talkers, and that there were people of assorted races, creeds, colors and hat sizes in the US military during World War II.
However, the fact remains that at that time, the overwhelming majority of those in uniform were (gasp) of the “e-vil white male” persuasion. But what you won’t hear is that this was simply a function of the ethnic makeup of the US population at that time; nothing more and nothing less.
Furthermore, if Ken Burns really wanted to get “in depth” about even most of what happened during WW II, he’d have to make something along the lines of the BBC’s classic “The World at War”. And I rather doubt he had the money to make something quite that big.
And as Jeff points out, there was a movie made just a few years ago about the Navaho code talkers, and there was a movie made about the life of Ira Hayes years ago (Tony Curtis played Hayes). Indeed, there have been countless movies and documentaries made about every damn deaf-redheaded-lesbian-shortstop-mother special interest group and their participation in WW II.
But this sort of thing is nothing new. Twenty years ago, prior to the release of the movie “The Right Stuff”, based on the book by the same name by Tom Wolfe, some NAACP race pimp started whining in the media about how there were no blacks in that movie, blah, blah, ad nauseam.
As much as it pains me to admit this, the reason there were no blacks in the movie in question, which was based on historical events, was because there were no blacks to speak of in military flight test or the space program in the 1950s and early ‘60s (unless you count the Ed Dwight case, which Wolfe does mention in his book, as did Chuck Yeager in his autobiography, but was not included in the movie, most likely for reasons of brevity and the fact that it didn’t contribute anything to the basic story line).
So the producers of the movie, in a sort of backhanded gesture to this loser, inserted a totally pointless and utterly fictional scene involving Australian aborigines, but which apparently satisfied the aforementioned race pimps.
The more things change, and all that…
Why do we have a public broadcasting station?
Strange, I remember the old Negro Space Program quite well.
Ah those were the days.
The zoos are full and they could do too much damage in the educational system?
Hmmm.
So just how many American Indians were there in the armed forces compared to whites? I’d suggest not all that many.
Hmmmm.
Personally, I found the title of the much lauded WWII-themed miniseries ‘Band of Brothers’ somewhat misleading.
And where the hell was the **band**?
I know I didn’t see one single tuba in the whole damn series!
Can I still say Navaho?
yes, Dan. It’s “Nappyho” that’s off limits.
It’s not fair to separate out this particular PBS show as an example of content conforming to a political agenda. There are so many that you have not included in your critique. I will be keeping a watchful eye, sir.
What about the Japanese Americans?
The 442nd RCT “Go For Broke” was one of the most decorated outfits in WWII.
“At full strength the 442nd only numbered 4,500 men, but this unit earned over 3,900 individual decorations.â€Â
-From the book “Americans:The Story of the 442nd Combat Team”
“And there, in a nutshell, is the trouble with PBS: if the project is at all funded by the government, the government feels free, it seems, to cast aside the First Amendment”
How is the first amendment cast aside if it is government funding? I would say it is if the influence is greater than the funding. How much does PBS get? Ken Burns? Anyone know?
“Because by separating yourselves out as “Latinos†who fought in WWII, you have distanced yourselves from the pluralistic “Americans†who fought and won the thing”
Non-americans fight in the US armed forces. In fact some have to register for the draft. In WWI and II, 140 some thousand non-americans fought in the US armed forces. I don’t know how many of them were latino, but nowadays a 1/3 of non-citizens in the armed forces are from mexico and central america.
Of course, there is also the fact that plenty of non americans ‘fought and won the thing’ under other countries’ flags. But thats not what we’re talking about.
Ken Burns, the film’s producer, has agreed to hire a Latino producer to assist in the process.
Indeed. And those other countries may ask their taxpayers to pay for a film to laud their WWII veterans’ acheivements and/or document their experiences.
If were to do this pro rata across the world, an awful lot of the film would be the Chinese experience, as they fought sooner, suffered more and finished later.
What about the contributions of the Irish Americans who hadn’t yet emigrated? I’ll have you know that some of our forefathers went through severe hardship waiting to see who would win the thing before waiting another 20 years to be sure.
They also left out all of us as-yet-unborn-Americans, whose contribution to victory in WW2 was played out in backyards all over America in the ‘50s and ‘60s with plastic helmets and broken broomsticks whose gunfire sounded just like little kids yelling “Bang!”
Well,mara, because the government doesn’t hold PBS out as a government propaganda channel, but rather as Public Broadcasting. Which is not really “public” if the government insists that the members of the “public” whom they fund come to editorial decisions based on government-mandated quotas about inclusiveness. They tow the government line, or else the are threatened with the label of “racist.”
The threat is implied—government hasn’t passed a law abridging free expression—but it has certainly made it known that it will be “watching” and, for good measure, some of its members will be talking to the PBS president about whom she hires and what the content of his film “says” about PBS’s commitment to “diversity.”
Ironic, given that PBS skews notoriously left. But then you can find that irony in heavily-Democratic Denver, where the unions are strongarming the Dem party over the Democratic National Convention.
You lie down with opportunistic dogs…
Incidentally, I have a feeling those who fought for the US as non-citizens share in the sense of victory; and perhaps the Burns film even mentions them. Perhaps what is at issue is that he doesn’t credit them as being “Latino” or whatever their ethnic background.
But that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?
Nice Washington math, mara.
Somewhere north of 12 million served int eh armed forces in World War II. If all your 140,000 were in that number (you didn’t separate WWI), that’s a whopping 1.2% (rounding up).
That 1/3 of non-citizens serving? Give me a number, and I’ll bet it’s somewhere around that same 1.2%.
And you miss the point of the post–why the hell is any one ethnic group entitled to a narrative? And can anyone define a discrete group as “Latino” for me? I can define American. Latino, not so much.
To be fair, Hispanics won a significantly disproportionate number of Medals of Honor in WWII… and an even higher percentage posthumously.
And Gore Vidal did come home with more medals than Norman Mailer…
At the hands of the Japanese AND Chiang AND even more so…Mao.
That’s usually left out of the Chinese outrage over the Japanese invasion, however.
Then maybe Michael Bay can make a movie starring Nick Cage and Benecio del Toro.
Short of that, someone can pitch an idea for a documentary on the Latino contributions to WWII to PBS, or raise the funding using their Latino action committees for just such a project.
Bitching about what somebody else wants to say about WWII—and using the power of government to strongarm concessions?
Not quite the same thing.
prolly. I remember having a Polish civics teacher telling us about how he joined the U.S. Army during WWII to gain citizenship more quickly.
It’s laughably tragic that Salazar feels he has to coerce Burns, whose works advertise their “minority-senstive” segments so consistently you can set your watch to them, into acknowledging minorities.
For all the signfigance of minority units in WW2, their overall contribution in comparison to whites was a drop in the bucket simply due to the segregated nature of the armed forces at that point in time. Salazar’s strong-arming won’t change that fact, and it is irrelevant anyway. Americans contributed to the victory in WW2, not ethnic groups.
2007-01-15
Ken Burns has inked a (really) long-term deal with PBS, agreeing to stay with the pubcaster through 2022.
Exclusive pact gives PBS rights to at least three major documentary series from Burns similar in scope to past projects such as “The Civil War” and “Baseball.” He’ll also produce two or three shorter films for the net.
As part of the contract extension, PBS now has DVD and audiovisual rights for both new and existing Burns series. That part of the pact runs through at least 2025.
New deal doesn’t specify any topics for Burns, but PBS said the filmmaker is developing projects revolving around Prohibition and the history of U.S. national parks. His next film, the 7-part WWII-themed “The War,” premieres Sep 16.
They are parodying themselves again, Jeff, they don’t seem to even realize it however.
Well,mara, because the government doesn’t hold PBS out as a government propaganda channel, but rather as Public Broadcasting.
So advertising the funding, and any inteference with the content, corrects the supposed first amendment violation? Like by going to media? Is this something you just feel icky about in terms of free expression, or do you really think that this is a first amendment issue for our courts here? Its ok if its the first. Lots of things are icky without being illegal.
That 1/3 of non-citizens serving?
I said 1/3 of the non-citizens that are serving are mexican and central american. Not that 1/3 of people serving are non-citizens. My numbers had two sources. One is from texas, the other Washington.
Let me say that, as a German-American, I am offended at the suggestion that Germans were somehow to be demonized at “enemies” of America to be “defeated” in battle. I hereby demand that my Senators threaten to withhold funds from Ken Burns if he persists in smearing the Teutonic peoples in this fashion. All unpleasant references to the Third Reich and Germans must be scrubbed from this “documentary” at once.
Don’t forget the KATUSAs…
You made me google, Major – I found this cheering…
Mara,
I know what you wrote. My point was that before you try to inflate the importance of that particular set of people to the armed forces, that you look at the numbers. And it goes without saying that 2/3 of the non-citizens in the armed forces are from somewhere else. I do not, and never will, minimize the contributions of ALL U.S. service members, but that designation “U.S.” is the most important–not some secondary identity marker.
And good luck on convincing a Mexican that they belong in the same “category” as a Salvadoran (and vice versa).
Puerto Ricans, too, they loooove being lumped in with Mexicans.
My Lord, don’t even let a Mexican invite a Columbian to a party. It’s a total hatefest. Guatamalans? They get treated like Mexicans by the Mexicans.
First off, whoever was responsible for casting the movie and the extras, didn’t they have some sort of “diversity” roster they had to hit quota for?
Second off, in the same vein as the comment made by Dan, are we going to see another movie in the style of “Brokeback Mountain”, except serving in a war? (Rainbow Rangers brigade? I won’t lie, I’d see it.) I thought that we lived in a melting pot, but it’s obviously more of a chunky stew to these people.
Personally, I don’t think Burns’ story should have gotten a dime from the public, but then I am not too keen on public television. If he paid for the story himself, then I wouldn’t really care who he included or not, but Jeff’s point, respectfully, misses the point in my view.
Its not only that Latinos see themselves tribalisitically, but that the US saw Latinos tribalistically when they created Mexican units in the Army, just as they created Black units. Can’t segregate the folks and then get all pissy when they look back on their contribution to the war in a bi-tonal way. If we look at the war in the same segregated context that the US fought the war in (at least initially), by ignoring the Latino contribution, national pride has indeed been denied.
Just as there were Black regiments in the Civil War, to ignore them would be to deny their contribution, because their contribution was not integrated by society, but one seperated by it.
I may be a little biased since I am Latino and my grandfather fought in WWII. Initially put into a Mexican unit whose motto was “Cuidado”. But when he came home after the war, with a bit of his hip missing and an entire year of his existence wiped from his memory, he still had family and friends who had to deal with segregated schools and other battles in which he fought to be a part of the “national pride that came with his achievement”.
“Somewhere north of 12 million served int eh armed forces in World War II. If all your 140,000 were in that number (you didn’t separate WWI), that’s a whopping 1.2% (rounding up).”
This is a big underestimate itself. The number’s over at least 16 million.
That kinda does sound like a documentary unto itself. But I think the spirit of the thing is that the documentary would have had quite a different ending if America hadn’t prevailed in the war.
Sheesh. Anybody watch Ken Burns’ Baseball series? There was a bunch of stuff about white guys, some stuff about black players, but hardly anything about these guys.
RACIST!!!
I gotta wonder what the reaction would have been if, four years ago, a similar outrage had been raised by Republicans decrying the lack of attention paid to the “evangelical experience in WWII”.
Jeff, isn’t this what they’re doing with the GWOT?
And another thing! Where are the transvestites in this “historical” series? Where’s Ed Wood in red velvet ladies undies holding off the Japanese on Guadalcanal. They’re tired of being invisible, I tell you!
Mara, Friend,
You raise some interesting points. One thing that does come to mind, however, is that it would seem that continuing to focus on individual an race or ethnicity or what have you is that it can come at the risk of the whole. Sorry for the terribly rough analogy, it is something like zooming in on a mosaic or stained glass window to focus on one bit and losing the entire picture in the process, both in terms of ethnic makeup and historical context.
For instance, the examples cited by friend about his grandfather, or of the 442nd RCT mentioned earlier are, I think, provide a fascinating background behind Truman’s order to desegregate the military. Particularly if it is framed by the notion that at the time everything was segregated, and it is entirely arguable that the many folks who fought in WWII fought as Americans and were no less brave or reliable than their white counterparts, and that this helped pave the way for desegregation. And, heck, to cap this off, you might even note the role of 101st Airborne when it was sent by Eisenhower to Little Rock, AK, during the civil rights struggle.
Or, maybe just to look at this a little bit cock-eyed, when I think of the contributions of the Japanese-Americans or Latinos or African-Americans, I get a little surge of pride from being able to call those folks American, and that I might (on my better days) be able to say that I’m American just like them. But if I end up listening to the entirety of their contribution in WWII reduced to a morality play about diversity or an exercise about checking off a list on my Inclusion Worksheet, then it leaves me a bit cold.
BRD
Gah.
Apologies for the crap writing. That’ll show me about pre-coffee communications.
Well, there WAS a kinder, gntler, more politically correct version of ”The 300”.
It was called “Brokeback Mount Olympus”
My sister in law is Colombian – don’t even get her started on that!
hell73 yes, that’s what it’ll be.
Because by separating yourselves out as “Latinos†who fought in WWII, you have distanced yourselves from the pluralistic “Americans†who fought and won the thingâ€â€and in doing so, you have denied yourselves the national pride that comes with such an achievement, hoping instead for the tribal pride that comes with separation.
Best nutshell description of melting pot vs. quilt I’ve ever read.
I think you missed this, Mara:
So I guess it makes me feel icky—particularly in that it violates the spirit of the first amendment without having the balls to just censor and get it over with.
Friend —
I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think it speaks to my point—namely, that Ken Burns simply cannot be responsible for detailing the contributions of every single identity group, nor should Senators be putting pressure on him to make his movie in their image.
Because by that calculus, everyone who pays taxes should get a say in editorial decisions. And then you’d likely not have many filmmakers penning deals with PBS.
Which, now that I think about it, maybe this is all for the best.
Just ironic that it’s happening to PBS. Congressmen likely wouldn’t intervene were it done privately.
However, it isn’t as if Ken Burns was attempting to distort or fabricate history to deny such facts…nor do I suspect he was attempting to produce the end-all be-all WWII documentary. What he seems guilty of is not producing the story Salazar wanted.
Jeff- shouldn’t you be asleep in your comfy mountain time zone?
America lost World War Two, you dead-ender.
The FDRies blunders in tactics and vision cost us 400,000 of our best and brightest Americans, with at least that many coming back maimed. Japan attacked us, so we went to war with… Germany? We sent men into battle in foreign lands without enough armor to keep them safe. We lost our moral high ground by subverting the Bill of Rights through internment of US citizens in concentration camps based on the color of their skin.
And for what? Sure, we deposed evil men who wished harm on the US, but the power vacuum we created in Europe gained the US almost nothing, but led to the bloody spread of Communism (staining American hands with the blood of Hungarians, Czechs, etc.), which we then had to spend trillions of our national treasure to defeat. And there is still violence in European streets today!
So, as you can see, we didn’t win WWII. The Soviets won WWII. And the ancestors of Halliburton in the mil/ind-complex.
Damn, I love this place. The original post by Jeff was great, to the point, and thought provoking. I found myself, per usual, agreeing with everything in it and wishing I could articulate it as well as Jeff. Then Friend comes in and posts a poignant and personal comment that illuminates the differences between the reality of segregated Latino units during WW2 and now. So, I start thinking that he made a great point and that maybe these Latino units should be given some more acknowledgement because it was by the United States, afterall, that they were segregated in the first place. But, then Jeff comes back again and steers me back to the whole point of the post, that that may indeed be true, but it isn’t right that a congress critter comes in and makes a filmmaker change HIS film because of how that congress critter “feels”. All said with respect and civility.
Any chance that PBS will reject govt funding?
After all, they claim that the funding is insignificant when the “defund” folk point out that PBS pushes leftist politics with govt money.
Hmmmm.
Sounds like the average Chinese porn.
I think a scene where a latino soldier helps the indian code talker escape across the wire and to his
unit would work. Sort of Steve Mcqueen, a motor cycle and a fence at the border. Well maybe thats insensitive. Never mind already been done.
If Burns is to conservative for PBS to air without editorial intrusions, this puts the lie to their claim that they are objective, non-partisan, and not liberally biased.
When do we throw partisans off the public teat and onto the street where they belong?
Perhaps Mr. Burns should run some blinking text at the bottom of the screen while his new and improved segments are being shown. May I recommend, “This section added merely to appease proponents of identity politics such as Senators Salazar and Menendez.” Of course, if even Ken Burns isn’t politically correct enough, what possible hope is there for the rest of us?
Excellent.
ThePolishNizel…I have nothing but respect for Jeff and agree with him 95% of the time. However, to address his later point, I do agree with him and BRD and Chicago. I guess this could all be taken care of if the movie wasn’t being funded by the government. However, if the government is going to spend money on these things, then I think seperate contributions should be given their due, since these groups were seen by the government as deserving seperate paths to service, distinguishable from the rest. The government had a compelling reason, for whatever reasons, to view Mexicans and blacks as seperate during (initially) the war. A documentary highlighting the “human story” in WWII shouldn’t then consider every contribution as just another drop in the otherwise indistinguishable pot of ethnicities or identities, when it explicitly was not the case as a matter of official policy, which by the way was the result of a not entirely friendly-we’re-all-Americans-like-you process. Latinos view their contribution to the war in “tribalistic” terms because those were the terms of their contribution dictated by the government and society, whether they liked it or not, and for the most part Latinos accepted those terms with honor and distinction. To go back in time and overlook that socio/political distinction because we all would like to believe they do not (or wish they do not) exist now is a affront to the WWII experience in the eyes of Latinos.
I should also point out that I am not offended by Burn’s editorial choices. I just wish to explain that this feeling by some Latinos isn’t entirely about some identities gone wild phenomenon. I abhor identity politics, but I would have abhorred it moreso in the 1940’s, when my grandfather served. Nonetheless, he saw nothing ironic about going off to fight for the US in a seperate unit. Its just the way it was. His Mexican identity was imposed on him as a matter of policy even though he saw himself back then as American. The US, however, differed with that opinion not only when it came to his service, but also with <a href=”I should also point out that I am not offended by Burn’s editorial choices. I just wish to explain that this feeling by some Latinos isn’t entirely about some identities gone wild phenomenon. I abhor identity politics, but I would have abhorred it moreso in the 1940’s, when my grandfather served. Nonetheless, he saw nothing ironic about going off to fight for the US in a seperate unit. Its just the way it was. His Mexican identity was imposed on him as a matter of policy even though he saw himself back then as American. The US, however, differed with that opinion not only when it came to his service, but also with the schools his family and friends sought to enroll their kids into after the war. “ target=”_blank”>the schools his family and friends sought to enroll their kids into after the war.
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