The Boundaries of Blackness
Chapter 5 examines struggles over inductees’ “proper” racial classification and placement in the segregated World War II–era US military. In millions of cases, classification was routine and uncontroversial. But in hundreds of cases—involving people who identified as everything from American Indian to Moorish American to white—men challenged their official race classification, or their placement in the segregated military, or both. The most heated and consequential of these challenges revolved around the meaning and membership of “colored” (a synonym for “Negro” or black)—not white. “Colored” people were by far the most thoroughly segregated and subjugated descent group in the US military, which meant that their race classification involved not just classification itself, but also assignment to “colored” outfits. Since membership in these outfits carried so many acute disadvantages, the stakes related to the “colored” category were unquestionably highest.