Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 202 - Herman Perry, The Jungle King Part 1: Hell Gate

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Joe is joined by Jordan Holmes of the Knowledge Fight Podcast to talk about one of the coolest soldiers to ever serve in the US Army. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: Koerner, Brendan. 'Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/african-americans-world-war-ii https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-was-black-americas-double-war/

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities

like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the Legion of the Old Crow by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me this time is Jordan Holmes, co-host of Knowledge Fight, stand-up comedian. I'm a huge fan. I can't honestly believe I got you on the show. Hello, Jordan. Hello! It is lovely to be on the show. I can honestly tell you that I am far more available

than people think. I'm a little confused whenever people are like, oh, I'll never get Jordan on. I am not hard to book. I think what it comes down to is deep down inside, I don't want to be the guy that's like, hey, I'd really like you on my show. I'm just like, absolutely not.

No. Oh, no. I totally get it. I 100% get it. And that's the thing. That's part of why it always feels weird whenever people react that way towards me is because i used to be that guy i was that guy for sure you know so ask me i used to be the guy i'm i'm not the guy let's do it all right perfect um you know and honestly we we generally don't talk about things

that are uh are are funny well actually it's not true we don't talk about things that are kind of like cool or happy on the show and i do have to tell you well while this show is kind of like a two hour long uh guitar solo it ends incredibly depressingly uh because it is military history so it's it's like if you uh played the the solo from november rain and then drove off of a cliff i kind of expect that i have yet to hear a military story that ended with, and everyone was fine. Yeah, it's unfortunately, when the military gets involved,

I can tell you from personal experience that it's never fine. But that does bring me to a guy that honestly might be one of my favorite American soldiers of all time, whether it be willingly or not. And that's a guy named Herman Perry. He is the opium smoking officer killing king of the jungle of World War Two. All right. All right. I'm writing. I'm writing right now. And I have a call with somebody from CAA. We're going to get this sold. Good God. Tell me more about this story.

Unfortunately, I think someone beat you to it. The book that I used for the source, or as the source material, I think got sold recently to Spike Lee. Perfect. It's more about the story getting out to the people. That's what I'm about

here. I think he's going to fucking kill it. That's going to be a solid movie. 26th hour. I love it. Now, Herman Perry was born on May 16th, 1922 to a black sharecropping family in North Carolina.

His mother was Flanny Perry, and his father was a guy named Fraudius Ellsbrook. I'm sorry? Fraudius Ellsbrook. I'm sorry. Fraudius Ellsbrook. Wow. Which is unfortunately not a name we get to repeat several more times because he pretty much vanishes from Herman's life. As soon as his mom finds out that she's pregnant.

That's no good. Yeah. Fraudius sounds like the latin name version of the word fraught like it's like actually the word fraud comes from this guy named fraudiest that existed during in athens um now the the entire family lived with his grandparents in a small dilapidated shack that lacked either electricity or running water it actually didn't even have a floor it was just like a dirt floor shack. And most of the family's money came from working the land with his grandfather, Edward,

who was picking cotton for the princely sum of nine cents per day. Because, you know, sharecropping is just slavery with extra steps. Right, right. I mean, in today's money, though, that's almost 13 cents per day. So there's a lot to be said about that. And many people don't talk about the inflation of subsistence farming. Yes, it's all about

cost of living adjustments. He might even be able to afford a floor now. Yeah, that'll be great. Eventually, his mom got sick of this for obvious reasons and moved to Durham, which was apparently like a textile mill hub at the time and processing tobacco and left all of the kids with her with her mother, their grandmother, Henrietta. And it turns out they got out of that pretty, pretty good a good time because the agricultural sector was nose diving um even before the oncoming great depression like cotton prices fell 80 percent um it's the 1920s no attempt was made at sustainable farming so the land so the landowners end up ravaging their own

land attempting to squeeze profit out of it. Something that thankfully never happens anymore. Like so odd to think of a time when that was just allowed, you know, it's just crazy to just suck life from the very, it's a good thing that the nineties movie Fern Gully really changed it for all of us. Once we saw that, we were like, well,

this can't happen anymore. The treaties on mother's milk truly changed my mind and uh this actually meant like the the weird farm math going on here uh that every time cotton cotton farmers uh like sold a pound of cotton they are actually losing money um which of course fucked over people like the perry's who were working that land so they stopped getting paid right um and now and then the Herman was the middle kid of the Perry family, which for a lack of a better term was a hard ass family. His brother,

Aaron was the youngest. He's a boxing prodigy with two nicknames, the anvil and the bad news. I have moved away from my brother by several cities very quickly. Holy shit. And his oldest brother, Roscoe, was also a pro boxer. Who was known for famously fighting a guy named Lou Handberry. He fought him to a sandstill, despite the fact Lou Handberry's fight before that, he had killed a guy.

Wait, this was old 1920s style boxing right right so that was the time whenever they would just literally stand and then punch each other in the face like back and forth for 130 rounds until one of them fell right yeah correct yeah defense is actually some beta shit yeah and it was like it was frown you were a dishonorable if you protected your face so these people are insane they're not just boxers they're absolute lunatics all right every single one of them is using the homer defense of getting punched in the face until the enemy gets tired yeah only 120 rounds to go. Herman was the only non-fighter in the entire family.

He was described as too stocky, not fast enough, and had, quote, awkwardly large feet, which I guess makes you bad at boxing. I don't know. That is exactly how I became the catcher on my baseball team. You there with the big feet sir you were bad at everything but squatting and catching get in there i'm giving you your honorary slav badge today now unlike his brothers he he like it wasn't that he wasn't good at boxing he didn't even want to fight he didn't't like getting hit. Of course, that's a human response. But his main reason is he was known for being very attractive. And Herman loved him some women, which will become a common thread throughout this.

Because, you know, what straight young man doesn't? Hey, I mean, I do appreciate. Again, this is before Muhammad Ali taught everybody that you could not get hit in the face while boxing. So this guy doesn't even know that someday somebody will be too pretty to lose. That's important. Life hack. This one trick makes old timey boxers hate him. Yes, he moved his head.

I have a revolutionary idea. What if I moved my head out of the way? All right, sir. Excuse me. i have two eyes how about we continue with that he he was more uh a fan of hitting on women and getting punched in the face which yeah of course and this wasn't just him puffing himself uh up either like he was like i don't want to get punched in the face then the women won't like me like he was well known for being incredibly charming to anybody who talked to him.

His brother noted that he had a different girlfriend for every day of the week, which just seems excessive. There are like 15 people alive at the time. How do you even handle that? The entire population of North Carolina is dating Herman Perry. It does seem like that has to be the case. However, he was always a bit of a smug bastard. This frequently got him in trouble, probably for stealing other people's girlfriends from the sound of it.

Tends to be the case. People don't like that. Yeah, it makes you unpopular. And unfortunately for everybody involved in the story so far. This is deep Jim Crow territory. And the Perry kids attended segregated schools where their teachers earned 44% less money than their white counterparts. And the schools themselves,

like the state spent 73% less per black student than white student. Oh man, that's crazy to imagine it would be above 70 i mean now we've got it at 68 this is the future man we're killing it in chicago incremental progress jordan hillary hillary okay here we go as a former public school teacher in Hawaii, I could say, thankfully, this doesn't happen anymore. I have a gun to my head. Right? My now wife is a CPS teacher,

and it's like, man, you guys are fucked. So good luck. Yeah, there's a reason why when I got laid off, they're like, we can find you another job. I was like, no, I'm good. I'm fine. You've accidentally freed me from my torture. They gave me the guts to write and podcast full time because I was never going to make that decision on my own.

Totally. Totally. I was the same way. Now, there was no illusion of the bullshit of the separate but equal thing, which of course, anybody listening, we've talked about this ad nauseum on the show, but I can't explain enough how much bullshit it was. And their grandmother knew as well, Henrietta. And Henrietta was functionally illiterate. She didn't go to school. So she impressed upon her grandchildren how important it was to attend school, even if the

school sucked by design. This is something that these kids learned pretty quickly growing up. Nobody was lying to them. If you work really hard that you can rise of like, no, we're going to suck, but you can make it suck less by going to school. Right, right, right. The only space they

can't steal from you is inside your head. Yeah. Eventually Flani, who was Herman's mother, left her husband and her textile job for the promise of the New Deal in the Washington, D.C. area. Now, I'm not going to do an exhaustive history on the New Deal. That's probably some other person's podcast. But FDR opened a massive pipeline of decent paying government jobs, which would end up leading to nearly 50% of the city's population increasing over the next decade. Like 200,000 people moved into the greater D.C. area, which probably explains D.C. to this day. Yeah, yeah, that's such an interesting thing. There are so many people who are like on the whole new deal a good thing and then there are so many people that are like man that was just a band-aid on the fucking wound that is capitalism and we gotta you know it's like i man i don't know here we go let's this

is where i get to tell you this is where i get to say that the part on the show where it gets worse. These jobs are all for white people, Jordan. Yeah! Alright. I saw Cradle Will Rock. Now, FDR, for all of his kind of cool ideas, he was still a politician in the 1930s, and therefore, as a baseline, was racist as fuck.

Yeah, sure. His wife was the slightly non-racist one of the two and even she was pretty fucking racist right yeah it's it's awful when incremental change is like woodrow wilson only 20 years earlier not even that wouldn't allow black people to be seen in the white house so they had to hide from him not Not only that, he resegregated the White House. Yeah, totally. Totally.

They put his name on things. Crazy. I think when Robert Evans is on the show, we agree that Woodrow Wilson is the most racist president that had never owned black people as property. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100% true. And even that, it's kind of like he would have done that

if he was legally allowed to. Oh, it is. It is one of those things where he was he was almost like, oh, I just it's physically impossible for me to be as racist as my forebears. He was the return to tradition constitutionalist of the 1900s, but mostly just the owning people as property part. Yeah. What a piece of shit he was. Rest in piss, motherfucker. Now, this meant Flanney and thousands of other black people would have to settle

for the trickle-down jobs the New Deal created, because trickle-down only works in the negative. Never stops. This was mostly low-paid service sector work for bosses who were like the president insanely racist but the pay was much better than working in the fields or the factories and it wasn't back breaking labor so people were willing to put up with it yeah man isn't that the story yeah i mean the fucking story i completely understand i would i would

i wouldn't last 10 fucking hours in a goddamn field picking cotton. I would keel over and die. Oh, totally. Now, after exchanging letters with his mother, Herman dropped out of middle school in either 1937 or 1938. His early life is kind of hazy. And he moved to the D.C. area with his brother, Roscoe. Despite the fact he was only 15, he looked a bit older, so he simply lied,

saying he was 18 to make getting a job easier. I mean, it was the 1930s. It's not like someone could look up your records. They just had to take you at face value. Absolutely.

Now, he was hardly the only black kid moving into the area for work, which created a competitive field that bordered on the inhumane. Okay, it didn't border on the inhumane. Okay, it didn't border on the inhumane. It was 100% inhumane. It was that way by design. It was the definition

of inhumane because they didn't believe the people were human. Yeah. And we don't have a lot like I said, we don't have a lot of details from his early life, but we do have a comparative case in Thurgood Marshall, you know, famously eventual Supreme Court justice. He moved into the

area for work around the same time and Marshall was about six foot tall, which is pretty big. For the day, I'm six foot three and whenever I had jobs that required me to wear a uniform, nothing ever fucking fit me. So this isn't a problem that people have fixed yet. Right.

Right. And when he was issued a uniform, the pants reached up to his mid-calf when he was a bellhop, and he asked for a longer pair of pants. And the manager told him, quote, it's more trouble to find a new pair of pants than it is to find a new N-word to do your job.

Oh. Yeah. Whoa, man. So this is the kind of environment that 15-year-old permit periods have. What he could have said is, actually, you've invented culottes. How about that? There are two ways to go, man. So this is the kind of environment that 15-year-old You've invented culottes. How about that?

There are two ways to go, man. Good news. If DC floods, you're good to go. He couldn't even give the baseline middle management a shitty answer. He said to be racist. Try and put a different spin on it. You had to be a racist?

Come on. Now, dropped into this world herman began to get arrested for uh for the first couple times in his life and these were mostly shit that uh that black kids get arrested for because cops are eternally the same sure sure sure being while black yeah existing in dc while black yeah yeah he like he got arrested for smoking in public which was not illegal in the in the u.s until like like he got arrested for smoking in public, which was not illegal in the in the US until like I don't like 2012

in a lot of places and loitering, which is like, you know, they're the hammer that they love to use on people of color. Now he ended up in a boys reformatory

in Maryland on more than one occasion. And after this, he moved into a shitty row house on Florida Avenue that had no drinkable water. The electricity was spotty, and he shared with dozens of people had tuberculosis. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not good.

In like the late 30s, I think the tuberculosis is kind of load bearing in most tenement housing. Right? tuberculosis as kind of load-bearing in most tenement housing. Right? It was like the disease that just everybody accepted. They called it consumption. You can just watch your mom

get eaten by a disease, and they were like, what are you going to do? Yeah, and even today, in a lot of developing countries, it's still endemic. Ugh, it's crazy. I'm moving to Armenia quite soon, and's still endemic oh it's crazy i'm moving to armenia quite uh soon and they have endemic tuberculosis and i actually i already have uh like you know you get the tb skin test sure um and it comes up positive if you've been exposed to tb but i'd

spent two years in afghanistan so mine's always positive um i have become tuberculosis the consumer of worlds that's a superhero origin story it's like the worst superhero ever come in real close i'm gonna cough blood on you and die right right right that's there's situations where that's useful send TB man. He won't fix the problem, but we won't have a tuberculosis carrier nearby anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, remember in old-fashioned siege warfare, they used to shoot those diseased corpses over the castle walls.

You're like, oh, diseased corpse that you can reuse. That's amazing. Hell yeah. They call that an entrepreneur, Jordan. Yep, that's what it is. Now, because of segregation laws in D.C. at the time, thousands of black people were forced to live in neighborhoods like this, which which have rightfully been compared to slums because they were. And I should remind you, this is like with an eye shot of the White House. This is only a couple of streets over, man.

Right, right, right. But back then it used to be a swamp, so it looked like you had to cross the goddamn River Nile, so I get it. It's still a swamp. Well, that's fair. I guess I'm... Fuck, I'm gonna have to go on Steven Crowder's show now. You blew it! Fuck.

Perry fell directly into the traps that exist when you kind of live in a slum. He gambled. He ran up debt. He got in constant fights over that gambling and debt. And police were fine to allow all of this to happen. As a lot of these gambling dens devolved into knife fights and murder pits. Because cops stayed out of these areas.

A dead black guy simply wasn't a dead guy to the cops at all. Again, thankfully, this is something that doesn't happen anymore. Right, right, right, right. But wait, everybody took a knee at the state capital that one or the nation capital that one time. He also got in trouble for smoking weed for the first time, which was hilariously in the day called a muggle what yeah it's we'd call that a joint today like a marijuana cigarette if you will

right right right sure but the news was a muggle oh well now i have to recontextualize all of harry potter once again i think i thought muggle was a slur towards the non-magic people but now i guess we're just fucking dope that herman managed to make to find a job and make enough money they began wearing almost only pinstripe suits outside of work everywhere which fuck yeah dude all right i i do always like the turn whenever whenever somebody just starts wearing suits all the time you're like alright well what happens next is gonna be interesting this of course

got him more girlfriends because he's rocking a pinstripe suit everywhere he eventually knocked one of these women up though he did break up with her and settle down with another girlfriend he did stay in his child's life he would take like one of the few surviving pictures of him out of the military up with her and settle down with another girlfriend uh he did stay in his child's life um like he

would take like one of the few surviving pictures of him out of the military uniform is him with his child so like at least he was better than his dad oh that's cool as shit yeah man yeah and uh somehow despite everything around him uh his life was looking up granted things kind of have to look up when you're born on a dirt floor shack making nine cents a day picking cotton. Like, you have nowhere to go but up. That's some motivational speaker type shit right there. Yeah. What does the bottom mean?

It just means that there's nowhere to go but up. Come on now. Herman Perry grind set. Honestly, I support that for the rest of this two-part series. This is the Herman Perry Grine said, he ends up shooting an officer doing a fuckload of opium and starting a farm in the jungle. I cannot think of better role models, honestly. Now, while Perry's life was slowly forming, World War II had broken out, and the U.S. at this point had managed to stay out of the war thus far. And the U.S. at this point had managed to stay out of the war thus far.

But the Nazis marching through Paris in record time forced the government to accept that we might need an army. Because this is the point of American history where we really don't have one of those. We drafted a whole bunch of people for World War I, then immediately kicked them out. And then by the time the first draft lot of World War II was going to training, we're training with sticks. They didn't have enough guns to go around. Yeah. Weird time, right? Yeah, that is weird. Enter the Burke-Wadsworth

Act, which is more commonly known as the Selective Training and Services Act of 1940. We are currently dealing with the great-great-grandfather of this bill. I'm sure you had to do it. If you didn't, please don't say because it's a crime. But if you're in the United States and you're a male, you still have to register for the Selective Service. I'm sorry, I have to do what? When did I do this? Did I do this? How dare you they normally mail you something when you're like 17 or 18 uh which is even dumber because i enlisted in the army when i was 17 and i still had the register for the draft i'm like get the fuck out yeah i was like motherfucker i'm already here you can't draft me any harder

now uh this uh this bill required all men from the ages of 21 and 35 it's actually a little bit better than the system we have now like you shouldn't be drafting 18-year-olds. At least 21-year-olds are moderately adults. I mean, unreal. Unreal. Yeah. To go and register with their local draft boards, and then you'd get a number,

and you'd possibly be called to be a lottery to serve in the military for a whopping one year. Okay. Now, this system was a draft, but it was almost entirely voluntary. It was the 40s. There was no way for anyone to really be tracked down for avoiding this system. Okay, that is what I have wondered my entire fucking life. Who's following you?

Who's coming to get you? Why are people just accepting that the draft happened that's amazing to me a lot of it was like social pressure um and like assuming that you're like a military age male say you're like you're 19 or 20 and you're going to your job your boss is like weird that you know jordan hasn't gotten drafted yet well all of it like the rest of my staff is gone and they might report you yeah they might report oh my god i'd be like fuck you dude i totally went to the draft office i can't i i was ruled ineligible for military service because i have backwards feet honestly they wanted to draft me

so hard but then they saw oh shit I'm too valuable to your company how about that asshole that's right now the journalists and politicians of the day were also worried that there'd be like wide scale draft dodging because to dodge it all you had to do was not go

and register impossible yeah which shockingly just didn't happen um like remember this is you know arguably the good war we shot nazis and stuff right so so like people flooded the draft office uh so many people showed up at one of i think three draft offices in dc where herman perry went that,000 people were in line and riot cops had to be called in to keep them and manage crowds.

What is it with human beings? What do we got to do to fix us? This is madness. I mean, a lot can be blamed at the heroic ideas of getting to go and fight in some war. It hadn't quite been broken in

the american brain because we hardly fought in world war one right right right but you know modern history has completely disproven that uh fighting and horribly long grinding pointless wars breaks that of anybody so who fucking knows man i don't know you know what's important is that like if you get paid by the state, you're not a mercenary. Right. Legally. Yeah. Now, the thing was, as easy as it was to dodge the draft at first, once you were enrolled, that stopped being the case.

Now, Herman went and filed his paperwork, despite the fact he was only 18 or 19 at the time, meaning that he didn't actually need to. Oh, my God. But the thing was, he was telling his current employer that he was 22. Oh, shit. So he was like, oh, fuck. Oh, what tangled webs we weave. Me sewing. Hell yes.

Me reaping. Yeah, this is like uncut gems. Yeah, so he's like, well, I have to go file my paperwork so my boss doesn't catch on that I lied to him. I got to stay one step ahead. Yeah. But once he was enrolled, he couldn't dodge it anymore. You had to give an address, a point of contact, your place of employment. If you weren't employed, what school you

were going to. If you weren't doing either of those things, you'd give a reason. Now, whenever you... I don't know when the last time you tried to get a normal job was. You weren't employed between the years of this day and this day. What were you doing during that time? No comment.

I mean, what am I supposed to say? I was I talked the end. Yeah. Like, please, someone tell me what it's like to put podcast on your resume and actually get a job out of it. I'd be fascinated. Whenever this whole podcast thing falls apart, I'm hoping some morning zoo crew had lost a guy to the, I don't know, maybe the draft. And then I'll have a job. Yeah.

Phil the penis from the local zoo crew got killed by an IED. Jordan, you're up. Totally. Absolutely. I'm in. So Herman was enrolled now he gave his address uh because if you gave a fake address and they went to the address you would get a warrant put out for your arrest right for one right like it was in your best interest that if you were gonna show up to be honest but then he was giving

an appointment to go to the draft uh board physical to make sure you had all your fingers and toes or whatever because pretty much as far as it went. And he just didn't show up for it, mostly because he was probably working 12 to 16 hours a day and living in a tuberculosis-haunted slum. So he slept in. Right, right, right. So when he missed his appointment, the MPs or military police showed up at his address and arrested him.

Now, this happened a few times to people for missing appointments, not showing up on time, whatever, and nobody was ever really charged for it. This was a message to draftees to go to their fucking appointments, and more importantly, bolster the draft system as a legitimate arm of the state. This is

fear tactics. Right, right, right. I mean, it's not terrorism if the state does it. It's completely different if the state does it it's completely different that's right uh it's 100 different yeah it's not kidnapping if they put you in a military uniform afterwards no no because uh like brought to you by joseph coney no and i get it but what a lot of people don't know is that because only uh let's call it less than a thousand people decide that uh out of 300 million, all men need to go to war.

You have to go. That makes perfect sense, right? Yeah, that's how democracy works. Yes, I voted to go die. It makes perfect sense. Let's do this. Hell yeah. Now, this didn't happen with Herman, though.

He got brought in and got charged with something that he didn't actually do. He did miss his appointment, but that's not what he was charged with. He was charged with lying on his draft paperwork. Because he was too young? No. That would have been amazing if they were like, oh, we tracked down your birth certificate. We put in a FOIA.

Yeah, exactly. We did a lot of work to get to you buddy the federal magistrate instead charged him with lying about not having a felony conviction which he did not have interesting nobody has any idea to this day what the fuck happened obviously there's racism i'm not discounting that but if the judge really wanted to fuck herman perry up he could have been like you're going into the army immediately you're skipping into the head of the line sure sure but you know have you ever been filling out some paperwork right and then that drop down menu hits and you're scrolling with your mouse and you accidentally click on the wrong one same situation

same situation but nobody is sure how the fuck this happened uh he at this time he did not have a felony conviction he would eventually get one but he didn't have one yet so the only thing people can figure out is herman perry accidentally fucked himself over by using the name herman perry and changing his birth date he very easily could have accidentally given himself a new identity that did have a felony record come on don't know god damn it what are we doing what is what kind of sitcom ass i accidentally took two dates to the same restaurant bullshit is this which to be fair also sounds like something herman perry would do well i mean hey it's a kill two birds

with one stone you can't afford two different i i get it i could only afford one stone jordan now confused as hell herman was shipped off to the dc jail where he stayed for two months while the federal prosecutors figured out what the fuck they were going to do with him and then eventually dropped the case because it wasn't that important. Right, right, right. There's that world thing, conflict. Yeah, one of those. Yeah, there's like a whole world tiff going on.

They released him with orders to show up at his next draft physical, which he did and passed. Now, most people who went to the draft board assumed that they were going to get drafted within the next couple months or at least a year, but Herman Perry wasn't. Nobody was sure why it was taking so long to draft any black people. Of the three Perry brothers,

all of them are legal to register for the draft. They registered for the draft and none of them had been called up. Turned out that was on purpose. Now, this is like we're going to get into some... Wait, so are you telling me that there's a possibility that we're talking now as this is like we're gonna get into some so are you are you telling me that there's a possibility that we're talking about right now is that white dudes were so fucking racist they were like clearly white dudes fight better than black dudes so we're not going

to that's a huge win for being uh uh oppressed i'm saying that there's there's not many bright spots you know oh boy hey if that works yeah it's like losing it's winning by losing at the system right it's the worst way to win i get it and jordan this is where we get to talk a little bit about military racial science wait what scienceitarized eugenics, I guess. Now, we've talked before on the show about how the U.S. Army during World War II was ruled by Jim Crow. It was segregated. There's different racial quotas. Black people kind of have certain jobs.

Like, for starters, the Army was really worried about accidentally creating some kind of rainbow nation within its ranks um and and accidentally creating racial harmony as people realize that wow you're exactly the same oh my god you cannot get more like aware of your own evil than just like hey man if these poor people figure out that we've made all this shit up we're hosed yeah exactly like the government capped the share of black manpower within the entire military at 10 now i need to remind you at the time the navy was still off limits so this is specifically the army because the air force didn't exist yet the air force is still part of the army right right okay so so they're just like, no, no black people on boats? Yeah, pretty much. It's the rule?

Yeah. That would eventually be relaxed. They'd allow to be like cooks and stewards and things like that. I mean, racism is just so fucking arbitrary. Nah, not near the water. Fine, fine, whatever. What are you talking about? Now, the dumbest thing was is for that 10%,

remember the whole separate but equal bullshit of the Jim Crow era, they needed segregated training facilities for this 10% just to train them. And they didn't even have those, meaning they couldn't even abide by the own laws that they required or regulations rather. So by 1943, around 300,000 black men had been caught in a kind of draft limbo. In 1943, around 300,000 black men had been caught in a kind of draft limbo. They knew they were eventually going to get drafted, but they weren't sure when, while tens of thousands more wanted to serve, but were rejected because they were black and the army was over their quota. I want to scream. What?

I mean, I don't even know where to fall here. Don't worry. We're going to get into how dumb this was. So you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said that they believe that racially black men couldn't have combat jobs within the military. They didn't want black men within the ranks because of race science, eugenics. They didn't want black men within the ranks because of race science, you know, eugenics. They believed black, the black race was subhuman to the white one, though.

They wouldn't use that exact term. Sure. They were unable to carry out combat missions. This weird, uh, they like thought of physical traits to match that. And this is right. This included elongated heel bones,

shallow chest cavity, and a one-piece nose cartilage, which meant they would not be good at jobs or at quite a large amount of stamina, which is insane because all of these guys would find themselves dumped into physical labor battalions. Right, right, right, right. It's almost like racism doesn't really make any sense at all. No, of course not. I'm really starting to sour on it, frankly, as a philosophy. Owned racism with facts and logic. Now, also, for some reason, there was a weird line of belief that believe black people had night vision, which if you believe this, this is a benefit. Obviously, this is a benefit. Like, obviously this isn't true,

but if I could form an all infantry corps of black men that could see in the night, you'd immediately win World War II. If you had an entire army of fucking the Fantastic Four, but you're like, ah, they're black. I don't even know. The Fantastic Four, but with eugenics. Like, wow, look at the brain pan of Mr. Fantastic. Oh, really?

You're going to let that guy who can turn himself into flame fight? What good would that do for us? We're white! And not to mention, again, we're going back into you can't rationalize racism, but this could very easily be solved

by flicking off a light switch and be like, hey, can you see? No. Oh, okay, I guess they can't rationalize racism, but like this could very easily be solved by like flicking off a light switch. Like, hey, can you see? No. Oh, OK. I guess they can't see in the dark. Race science isn't about science. Of course not. Now, of course, on top of all this, they already believe that black people had innately lower intelligence than white people and were predisposed to cowardice and sloth amongst other made up shit.

And this is why, like I said, a lot of black draftees in world war two would end up being manual labor. Right. Isn't that fucking, isn't how awful is it that you can trace a direct line from that to being like, well,

okay. Like people can do any job that white people can do, but I think white people would be better quarterbacks. Like, isn't that a fucking dumb expression of racism? Well, even in like their the NFL's CTE standard

was based on eugenics, too. Yeah, totally. Just fucking incredible. Though, to be fair, credit where credit's due to the NFL. When that came out, because I know about the NFL,

I was not surprised. That sounds like something they would do. Well, I mean, you stop and you think about it and you're like, oh, everybody who owns the team, their grandfather was the guy who said that black people shouldn't be able to fight in World War II. So it makes sense. Right. And it all folds back onto this really stupid concept of uh of critical race theory in schools despite the fact that's not being taught in schools unless you're like a graduate legal study is that all these people all the modern day psycho white people are really

worried about their kids finding out that their grandparents were pieces of shit yeah totally totally 100 now uh, Herman Perry was officially drafted on July 29th, 1942 and brought to the D.C. area reception area and given the Army General Classification Test, which was a 150 question test, they used to determine what job you

ended up with. Now, ironically, white men who scored the lowest became infantry. Black men who scored the highest could not be infantry. I mean, they're too valuable, I guess. What? What are we doing? To break this down even more and make it sound even dumber,

generally speaking, black men did score worse than white men. However, this has nothing to do with eugenics. Of course it doesn't, but it did reinforce that idea. But rather due to most black men in the united states had worse education than their white counterparts due to white uh due to jim crow segregation and their purposely bad schools they were forced to attend right right it wasn't like all def jam comedy questions where it's like all right so white people do things like this and then yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I would like to see that test.

Now, to break it down even further, northern black men did better than southern black men, adding in the additional discrimination factors of rural poverty. Of course, the eugenicists and the government did not mention the fact that northern black men also did better than southern white men. Hey, leave that one out. Oh, yeah, you definitely want to let that one alone. Yeah.

I mean, look, that's not apples to apples. I just hear a paper shredder in the background. It's like some recruiters just feeding in pile after pile of test scores. Oh, totally. Yeah. Normally, if a white man bombed the test they were given a rifle and be like go win glory son uh but the nearly half of black men that bombed the test were not this was used to reinforce the idea they were intellectually

inferior to white men and therefore cannot become decent soldiers despite the fact they met all the qualifications that their white counterparts did sure sure i mean let's let's be real though like there's no doubt in my mind that some of the calculus from the people making those larger decisions is just like listen we have really fucked up and maybe we shouldn't give them guns I don't know I'm just saying somebody had that conversation oh yeah and I mean there is more than one fucking around and finding out

moment of racism within the US military during World War II where black people were like we can shoot back at them now there's more than one race especially in places like the uh england australia places where there was no jim crow laws because they would go and not not saying that england and australia isn't racist i would never fucking say that but like they could go into

any shop a white person couldn't spend their money uh they didn't have they didn't have to go on a separate train they didn't have to go through a separate entrance to a building and then they'd have to go back to their bases, their military bases, which were segregated. And they're like, this is fucking bullshit. Okay. Are you telling me that outside these walls is paradise and inside of them is white hell? Okay. Goodbye.

Yeah. More than once it led to gunfights between soldiers and the mps which again i support totally i i can't i cannot be uh more surprised that uh white fucking officers woke up like that blows my mind yeah oh we're gonna get to talk more about white officers later it's gonna be fun oh boy fDR did eventually cave into NAACP pressure and force who eventually formed the black combat units that became famous, like the Tuskegee Airmen and the 764th Tank Battalion, which famously became known as the Black Panthers. Right, right, right, right, right. Now, these units cannot absorb the literally hundreds of thousands of men who are very qualified to go fight. And, you know, so following down this pipeline, college graduates were eventually forced into labor units alongside dudes who were barely literate.

Because there were some black officers, which you need a college education for, but there was very, very few. So most of the men who also qualified to become officers were like, here's a shovel. The only thing we have to fear is equality amongst our ranks. Now, Herman's test scores did not survive to be included in his remaining personnel file, but we can assume as a man who dropped down 8th grade, he probably didn't do great. He was assigned to the 849th Engineer

Aviation Battalion, which was a labor unit made to build airstrips and stuff like that for basic training. He was eventually sent to Myrtle Beach, of all places, for training. I'm from the Midwest. I'm originally from Michigan, so I know of Myrtle Beach as the place

where we could afford to go for vacation. Like it was like affordable Florida for us. Yeah. Yeah, I think we, here's what I would say. I would say that if you were a ladies man, Myrtle Beach, the standards are low. So I think you've got a good shot, buddy.

He was at the bombing and gunnery range where they were given explicit orders not to so much as look at white soldiers. The only white people the black soldiers were allowed to interact with were their officers who were all white as a matter of policy. So you can imagine what those interactions were like.

Oh, they were great. I'm sure that they were filled with respect. Oh, deep, deep, deep respect. Yeah. Now, white soldiers were given the same warnings and signs were posted alongside the camp that said, quote, All men are cautioned to treat Negroes with respect, but do not cultivate friendships with them. For it is the best interest of everyone to stay completely away from them. This is a sign hanging up in a military installation.

I don't understand people. I mean, that is one of those things that makes me feel like a complete alien because if i see a sign like that i'm like well obviously if i become friends with black people it's a good thing how insane is it to look at a sign like that and be like good call sign yeah this is this is what's called a military regulation i don't even trust the hang in there kitty sign what am i it. It's actually inherently racist. Right? I'm sure it is. Now, the white officers within Herman's unit were used as strict disciplinarians, normally of

the beat the shit out of them variety. Sure. It did not help matters. These people graduated from a 90-day accelerated officer's candidate school, earning them the nickname 90-day wonders, which meant their education was not great. And afterwards, they were handed a book

titled, quote, The Command of Negro Troops, which warned officers that, quote, there is no place in the army for attitude. These men are so limited in their ability that there's no use trying to make good soldiers out of them. World War II fucking Jordan Peterson

in a way oh god jesus christ wait wait the command of negro troops well done now somebody's gonna clip that bit and i'm fucked that's for the rest of your life buddy that's the rest of your life, buddy. That's the rest of your life. So you had officers who were barely given officers training and then given a book that said, don't bother trying to mentor or lead these soldiers. They will never be good soldiers. Simply hit them. Leadership. What for? Yeah.

What is this concept of leadership? Now, Herman and his other trainees were supposed to be learning about airstrip construction, but instead were used as janitors by their officers who did not give a shit about training them for reasons seen above. Why would they? After all, they were already told that they'll never learn. I mean, you know, you would think at least war, at least the necessity of war would get people to look beyond that and be like, at least we have another human being to die in front of us right right it still doesn't work it still doesn't fucking work and like time immoral like they've been uh like a lot of uh black community leaders have thought that as well they're like no you need to go enlist to show white people that we are equal Americans.

Just like they've been saying this since like the Civil War. It's like, fuck. Well, maybe this time they'll work. Goddamn white people. White people are just wrong. Now, black soldiers stationed at the base noted that the space was also a German POW camp. And those POWs were treated better than they were. They were not even forced to segregate. Get the fuck away from me.

What a... What a... Oh, my God. Oh, my God. There has to... Here's the thing about history. And this is the thing that I hate about it, right? Is as much as we talk about all the horrific people,

there are absolutely assholes like me who worked there who were like, what are we fucking doing, guys? And then just die and history never remembers them. You know, like there's the asshole me who's standing right next to this guy going like, we've got, what, the people are going to die! And then they're gone. And that's it.

It's infuriating. Some Nazi POW is like, man, this is a bit much, isn't it? Totally. I have no doubt that fucking Klaus motherfucker is like, Jesus, these fuckers are crazy. Now, the real punishment for black soldiers were saved for what Avelio Grillo, who was a black sergeant in Herman's unit, called, quote, smart and words like me who became involved in discussions with officers about injustices and discrimination rather than insubordination. Insubordination is super common. As you can imagine from a draft army full of racism, people were very comfortable being like, man, fuck you. I'm not doing that.

Yeah, for sure. But when someone like this sergeant was like, you know, this is really unfair, right? Like, what are we doing here? So they would be punished really hard. He assumed this is because white leadership was worried about, you know, people like him might start educating and organizing his fellow soldiers, leading to mutinies, which I mean, yeah. Yeah. You know, it is it is one of those things where I do I do accept their argument so long as they're honest about it. You know, like if in 1912 they were like, listen, if Elizabeth Cady Stanton gets the right to vote, pretty soon Hillary Clinton's going to become president. I would be like, yeah, no, I totally get it.

Jesus. But that's just an honest argument. Like, it's wrong. And more, you know, in all ways. But like, it's honest. At least it's honest. Yeah, you can be a piece of shit, but at least you're an honest piece of shit. Exactly. That's all I'm asking for.

Now, these men like Grillo found themselves facing charges where acquittal was virtually impossible. facing charges where acquittal was virtually impossible. And all this is out without legal representation, which was even against the fucked up rules of the military justice system. In one year, the unit conducted 103 court marshals despite the fact they only had

700 men. What are you fucking bored? Now, in May of 1943, the unit was finally ordered overseas but they were but where they were going was not told to them this is not super uncommon um yeah herman assumed they'd be going to the pacific or to europe where the needs of building airstrips would be pretty important for the war effort which despite all the bullshit he was going through in this racist ass army at this point he still believed in it like you know white people are bad. Nazis are white people.

Fuck them. That's kind of like how his mind worked at the time. Not a hard argument to make. So they are ordered aboard the USS West Point, which is a former luxury liner converted into a painfully overcrowded troop transport.

Locked below deck for the length of the journey, the enlisted men were soon transformed into a writhing mass of vomit and seasickness throughout the entire ordeal. Sure. Due to the constant worry of race riots, which had become a problem within the military for reasons I'm sure are very obvious,

these soldiers are forced to be locked below deck and kept under armed guard throughout the entire trip sure sure i mean you know it's classic pirate rules i get it now if that wasn't bad enough you know what their first first port of call was uh i i hope new orleans and nicholas cage was there cape town south africa where the white officers were allowed off the boat but the government refused

to allow black men into the country I mean what do we what do we gotta do allies folks they're great Jesus Christ now 32 days and 14,000 miles later the USS West Point finally

completed its journey and the men were allowed out of their cargo holds for the first time to find out that they were in India for some reason. You've got double scurvy! Most of these guys had like, what the fuck is India? Where are we? They didn't know what the fuck.

These guys may as well have been transported onto a different planet to them. Totally! Crazy! They were packed into trains, which brought These guys may as well have been Transported onto a different planet to them Totally crazy They were packed into trains which brought them 125 miles northeast To a British camp which the US Uses as a place to quote acclimatize Its troops to Indian weather

Sure well I mean if you want to Acclimatize people to racism it's not a bad Idea to go to a British camp in India Well they did just stop in South Africa Sure exactly It's a a bad idea to go to a British camp in India. Well, they did just stop in South Africa. Exactly. It's a world tour of fun. Yeah.

On your way back, we'll stop in Rhodesia. Yeah, that's great. Now, this is a place infested with vultures that would occasionally swoop down and peck this shit out of soldiers while they were eating. This led to multiple man versus vultures matches over their own lunches, which I think was actually a Spike TV show at one point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man v. Nature, man v. man. It's a classic conflict, you know,

man v. vulture. It's the same thing. So, like Johnny Knoxville fighting a vulture at WrestleMania. There was a vulture bit in the Jackass Forever, wasn't there? Yes, there was.

Jesus. History rhymes. Hell yeah. Now, the unit spent two weeks at this camp where the commander forced them to march for hours a day through monsoon downpours

through a tactic that he called, quote, toughening up. And it devastated the ranks. This might surprise you, but there's a whole lot of diseases that these men toughening up. And it devastated the ranks. This might surprise you, but there's a whole lot of diseases that these men were not prepared for that exist in the jungle. Sure.

Dysentery swept through the men as did various foodborne illnesses. This is because the black soldiers were forced to live next to a landfill. Hence, all the vultures. Hey! And not even like a landfill today. This is like a 1940s British Imperial landfill in Northeast India. Oh, man. It's got to be way worse than normal.

I want to organize a fucking strike party to overthrow the government. Lines led by donkeys. It's not approved. This message. All right, fine. I said there's a knock on my door. My move to Armenia is being accelerated. Much like Jordan's politics.

What are you going to do? Now, when the two weeks was up, they were shoved into unventilated boxcars and sent through central India in a trip that lasted over a month, eventually arriving near Leto or Lido. I think it might be Lido in the middle of the jungle. It was there that Herman,

the rest of the unit finally learned why the hell they went to India. Now they were formed of their commander that despite training to build air strips, they would actually be working on a road, which I guess is close to the same thing. Um, now this road was used to connect India to China, so the Allies could continue to pour war supplies

into the hands of the nationalist Chinese forces, which were locked in combat against the Japanese, sometimes the communists led by Mao, and occasionally themselves. Right, right, right. Silk Road replaced by Murder Road. I get it. Or Thunder Road.

How about that? Bruce Springsteen is on the case. Hell yeah. Give it a soundtrack. This became known as the Lido Road. And good God, was it a dumb undertaking. Now, at this point, Japan had been making a lot of headway conquering China, as well as invading Burma. Of course, they wanted Burma for its natural resources, but they also would want to use it to tighten the noose around Chiang Kai-shek's dying

Chinese Republic. In 1937, he had established a new capital in Chongqing after, you know, that whole thing in Nanking happened. Yeah, they use a word for it. Real rough. Yeah. Don't mention it in Japan. I honestly

didn't know that Japan wound up all the way taking over Burma, too. That's fun. I mean, it's a healthy amount of headway. But it is interesting to learn. Yeah. Now, from there, Shuck controlled various swaths of land smack up

against the Japanese, but as well as Mao's communist forces, which were in a pretty shaky truce at the time that would occasionally be broken. Sure. Now, by this point, all the nationalist ports were under Japanese control, and their new capital was a full 200 miles away from the nearest railroad junction.

This led to the construction of the Burma Road, which was 715 miles long and led to the Burmese town of Lai Shao and to the Chinese town of Kunming, which was then ran by a one-eyed, opium-addicted warlord under the loyalty of Sheck.

There's a lot of that that happens in Nationalist Forces. One-eyed is the best start to any name. This road was a cavalcade of human misery, clawed out of the earth with simple hand tools by hundreds of thousands of Chinese peasants, of which an untold number of thousands died in the effort.

Now, this road... I mean, it's weird to laugh at that. I think the reason I laugh at that is because, you know, we don't build things anymore, and they reference a road or something like that. And it's like, the way those things were built was just by throwing human lives at them until they were exhausted, you know?

Pretty much. Chiang Kai-shek did not see a problem he could not solve by killing thousands of his own people. Totally! Now, this road did save Chiang in the short term, but if Japan was successful in Burma, they would close it off and destroy the nationalist government and army as a result. As you can imagine, this is bad news for the U.S., who really, really wanted hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops bogged down in China.

Yeah, they didn't want them to own it. Yeah, the Leto Road or Leto Road would be their plan B. It turned out it was a terrible fucking plan B. Lido Road would be their plan B. It turned out it was a terrible fucking plan B. The British called Lido the end of the world, remote and nearly close to absolutely nothing and populated by a native

tribe known as the Naga, who were not the friendliest to outsiders. And by that, I mean they were actual headhunters. Ooh, now I'm listening. However, it did have one thing going for it, a rail link to Calcutta, India. But even then, there was a pain in the ass.

The trip was 1,800 miles long and required a total switch to a different trade midway due to a change in the rail gauge. Logistics, how do I do them? That seems like a bad idea. Whose idea is that? Oh, the British. I do like somehow somebody looked at that plan

and was like, yep, 1, yep 1800 miles no big deal we got this cutting a road through this mess require major construction through terrain at best suited for being left the hell alone it was a malaria infested jungle uncharted mountains and valleys full of elephant grass that received around 200 inches of rain per year it was terrain so rough that even native tribes outside of the naga stayed the fuck away from it and through here the plan was to cut 465 miles of road yeah no okay at the beginning this is fully a chen kai shek idea he's like it's it i have an idea give me a hundred thousand peasants i'll make this possible yeah which is which is what his plan was but he lacked the money to actually do it so he went to the u.s the u.s had been bankrolling the nationalist government for about as long as the

japanese had been wanting to take over china which is all the time yeah yeah from the from the jump whenever they were like oh shit look at all those people yeah look at all that land that we want oh man by 1942 over a billion dollars in various different forms were showered on check which he did use to fight the japanese but then he also stole even more of it which is a trend i mean you know one eventually here's I'm going to throw this out at you. Well, I think we should learn to not give the billionaire thief warlords more money. But I'm going to throw that out there. Hear me out, Jordan.

How else is he going to pay his one eyed LPM addicted warlords? Oh, you know, that is a really good point. I don't have much beyond that. I mean, we could give it to people. Ooh, bold. Just throwing that out. Yeah. Now, once the US got involved in the war, no longer funding it, but actually fighting it after Pearl Harbor,

Shaq had a foolproof way to continuously bilk money out of the Americans. Whenever the US looked like they might be like, okay, but where the fuck is all the money going? He would say that, well, maybe the nationalist government is going to make peace with Japan. So the US is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. And they just fire the money cannon at him some more. No, no, keep fighting the war as he rides

away at a golden-crusted Rolls Royce. Man, you know what's fun about blackmail? They don't usually stop when they say they're gonna stop this lido road project of his was another one of these situations he brought up the idea to the americans who kind of shrugged and decided to give sheck what he wanted rather than risk pissing him off they didn't trust him because nobody did however when he said that the road could be built within a few months they're like all right we'll send our own engineer to check it

out so they did their train was so bad that the guy that they sent couldn't even make it to lido where the road was supposed to start to conduct the wood to conduct a full survey he said there's no fucking way any road should be built to this area and now then let's give him a billion more dollars weirdly enough another guy who thought this idea was stupid was Winston Churchill, normally a champion of the dumbest fucking ideas on Earth. He was a huge fan. Yeah, he called the road quote an immense, laborious task, unlikely to be finished until the need for it has passed.

Which, like, yeah. For once on this show, I'll say Winston Churchill nailed this one. There's a chance that the US would have listened to all of these warnings if it wasn't for the war in Burma going very, very bad. The capital fell in March of 1942, and Czech became such a whiny dick about the situation that FDR dispatched a guy named Joseph Stilwell to fix their relationship. And I don't know why, but Stilwell's nickname was Vinegar Joe. to fix their relationship. And I don't know why, but Stillwell's nickname was Vinegar Joe.

He's one of those weird woo-woo people that thought that drinking apple cider vinegar would fix all of his problems. Hey, I'm Vinegar Joe! That's also possible. Yeah, he's just an asshole. I think he's just an asshole. Now, Stillwell fucking hated Shaq, and Shaq hated him.

Shaq was used to dudes who he could play, and Stillwell was immediately into his bullshit and still well spoke passable chinese so he couldn't even get one over on him no good no you can't have you can't have a diplomat that you can't lie straight to their face right different language but there is one thing the two of them agreed on the need for this road uh now with stillwell's vote of confidence for the project it was greenlit hence herman perry and thousands of men just like him being stuffed out into the middle of nowhere to carve a road out of what was pretty much solid malaria now when herman got to

the work site now at this point herman actually already caught malaria once uh and he was he was in a hospital for a month yeah yeah and then back out there yep uh he was back a hospital for a month. Yeah. Yeah. And then back out there. Yep. He was back to work. Once he recovered enough to go shovel some stuff, he was packed into a truck and drove out to the work site, which is already in progress. And while he was on his way,

he saw a sign that simply said Hellgate. He asked the driver of the truck why that sign said Hellgate is because so many men were dying on the road that your odds of coming back alive were only about 50-50. Jesus Christ. And that is where we're going to pick up next time, Jordan. Is there any gates that are like, hey, man, get some more hope, all you who enter here. Hope is great. Even if it's like, oh oh these are the gates of hope hope you've been praying for salvation

this is good it's a good day now everybody thank you for listening to part one of our two part series and we will see you next week unless you're Jordan who is trapped in this digital prison with me for the next hour