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Between WW2 and the Korean War my grandpa was in the army. He was assigned to transcribe intercepted Soviet telegraphs on a typewriter which would then be passe
by HideousKojima 3y ago
Between WW2 and the Korean War my grandpa was in the army. He was assigned to transcribe intercepted Soviet telegraphs on a typewriter which would then be passed on to the actual codebreakers. His work was probably useful and helpful to our efforts to oppose the USSR, but he never considered his work more important than that of the actual codebreakers, which he thought was much more difficult and required much more talent/ability. And he didn't consider himself more important than all the other guys in his unit doing the same transcription work as him.
I've noticed that for almost every example of "important historical female/minority/whatever" that gets promoted as being forgotten or overlooked there are dozens if not hundreds of straight white men with the same achievements if not greater. The ones that did standout things that actually make them memorable tend to be, y'know, remembered. The outright lies that get shared (like traffic lights being invented by a black man) just make it even more insulting.
- noah_buddy 3y agoI think that it can be easy to take these stories with a note of cynicism and I understand the place your sentiment comes from. I imagine that if you were to talk to the people from these stories, they would feel much the same as your grandfather did, that they were one amongst many. News these days is based in clicks and the story of the “real” XXX ignored by history for their trait of YYY is tantalizing because the unrecognized underdog is such a compelling motive. I would not ascribe malice to what is in essence profiteering. Still, these stories can be interesting, in the same way your grandfather’s story is interesting, if for no other reason than to hear about the ordinary people that composed a great effort.
- HideousKojima 3y agoThe most interesting detail my grandpa shared was that they all had English/Latin typewriters but the messages were all in Cyrillic, so they taped Cyrillic letters onto all the keys and used numbers and/or special characters (can't recall which) for some of the letters since Cyrillic has 7 extra letters.
- mock-possum 3y agoYeah I think the point is not to pretend that white men werent involved - it’s that by default when people picture that corps all they see is white men. The point is to highlight the actual diversity of the corps, rather than defaulting to “a bunch of white guys did stuff”
- weebull 3y agoSorry, but I think a lot of people see it differently. Whilst I think the most wholesome message would be one of "everyone of all types working together to advance humanity", a lot of people seem to see it as a scorecard. +1 on your side means a -1 in the "opposition's". Hence somebody who was one of one thousand doesn't get described "one of the army of people who helped defeat evil", but have their role inflated to an individual responsible for some key aspect. That way you don't have to acknowledge the contribution of others who, in truth, did the same as they did.
- dudul 3y agoI think you're supposed to say "cis straight body abled white men". The simple "white men" includes too many protected groups of victims now.