Latest / The Breakfast Club / IDKMYDE: The African Soldiers Who Helped Win WWII

Transcript

IDKMYDE: The African Soldiers Who Helped Win WWII · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The African soldiers who helped win World War Two.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: A freaka I welcome back.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Now it alls to another episode of the most anticipated
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: podcast on the Black Effect podcast network, especially in February,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: entitled I didn't know, Maybe you didn't either. I'm your charismatic,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: very attractive six foot two one and eighty pound cut
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: up like a bag of dope.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Host s Bee.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Dies and yes I look like a Greek god in
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the nude. But that's neither here nor there. We've got
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: two more destinations this week, So grab that digital passport,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: because today we headed to the mother Lane, Africa. Ah. Yeah,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you getting stamps this week because if your World War
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: two history only includes Europe and America, well that's not history,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: that's editing. But before we get into that, I have
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to give you three of the most useless facts you'll
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: never need.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Never ever, not a day in life.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Up first, over one million African soldiers fought in World
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: War Two. Your second useless fact. They served in Europe,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the Middle East, and Asia, not just Africa. And your
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: third useless fact, most of them came home to colonial
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: rule anyways.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, let's talk about that. I didn't know, Maybe
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't know.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't know. Maybe you didn't I didn't know.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't know.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Look, when World War Two broke out, Europe needed help bad.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: They were looking like Jake Paul in the Rain where
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Anthony Joshua last year? You remember that, and they'd have
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: got they white asses knocked out, just like Jake Paul
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: if they didn't do what colonial powers always do when
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: they're in trouble.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: They turned to Africa.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Need bodies, Call Africa, need labor, Call Africa, need us
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to fight your war.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Same man.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Britain, France and others recruited millions of African men to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: fight fascism, Nazism and imperial aggression. The King's African Rifles,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the Royal West African Frontier Force, and these weren't just units,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: they were entire military traditions with decorated service histories. African
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: soldiers fought in North Africa. They helped liberate Italy. They
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: battled in Burma, They guarded supply lines, they carried equipment
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: through the terrain. The Europeans couldn't survive Man. They wasn't assistance.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: They were soldiers. Man the Burma campaign alone had ninety
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: thousand African soldiers fighting Japanese forces in jungle warfare. The
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: eighty first and eighty second West African Divisions were critical
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to the Allied victory there. But here's the contradiction that
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: broke everything wide open. Man. African troops were fighting for
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: freedom abroad while they was living under colonial rule at home.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: They saw Europeans panic, white soldiers, bleed, empire weakened, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that's when they realized something that was powerful. These people
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: ain't invincible. Man. When that war ended them, African soldiers
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: returned home with military training, global awareness, and zero patients
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: for colonial nonsense.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: That ain't a coincidence.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Many of those posts World War two independence movements across
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Africa were led by veterans who had already fought and
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: won wars for other people. Kwamin the Krumer, Jomo Kenyata,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Leopold singor all independence leaders across Africa who drew directly
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: from veteran networks and the political awakening that came from
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: World War Two. They just decided it was time to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fight for themselves. And here's the part that gets erased.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: World War two is often framed as the war that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: saved democracy, but democracy leaned heavily on African bodies to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: survive without them, That.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: War looks pretty damn different.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: A century after Cartigie Woodson warned that Black history would
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: be minimized or erased, African soldiers became proof they helped
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: save the world and were written out of the story.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: CGBNW.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: If we don't document global black sacrifice, freedom starts looking
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: like it was one by only a few, and it
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was not. If you learn something on today's episode, please
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: share it because I promise you I didn't know.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't either.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Congratulations, your passport has been stabbed.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Next up, Spain,