(ThyBlackMan.com) It is an old story, a wild free-wheeling Top Gun, his wingman and their staid commander fighting the top brass on their behalf. We have seen this before, but this time the heroes’ faces are all Black. Red Tails is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, WWII fighter pilots who fought discrimination at home to get into the air so that they could put their lives on the line to protect white men in lumbering bombers who otherwise would not have survived.
The special effects were gripping, and their exploits were astounding. They shot down enemy jet fighters with their propeller planes, and one of them sank a destroyer without a bomb, only using machine gun fire, both of which really happened. As for the performances, the young pilots were all new faces, and 
it was certainly refreshing to see them doing their earnest best. Cuba Gooding and Terence Howard were the older heads, but they were, if you ask me, a bit too subdued and laid back.
Like Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Ana’s, this film gives a side of the war, Black men in heavy combat, that Hollywood has largely skirted. And like Miracle at St. Ana’s there was an Italian girl as a love interest, but at least in Spike’s film she was pretty. (I did not understand why the Black hero kept saying, “You are so beautiful!”) And one of them had a picture of Jesus in his cockpit which they repeatedly referred to as “Black Jesus.” (When whites in films display a picture of a white Jesus they never say, “White Jesus.”)
Take a look at some of the other symbols. A number of times a Black and white chess set is shown in the background, a subtle reference to the conflict between the races. Before one deadly encounter, the clock in the background reads 4:45, which just happens to add up to the unlucky number 13. And when one of them dies, and his partner pours out his whisky in a sign of giving up his deadly habit, it could also be interpreted as a libation to his spirit.
Their planes were streaked with red, so that they could be identified and not get struck by friendly fire from the bomber crews they shepherded. Here are a few facts not mentioned in the film. They never lost a single bomber they were escorting to attacks from enemy fighters. One time when they were to accompany bombers deep into Germany, they would have had to turn back before they reached the target because their fuel tanks were not big enough. And so they took matters into their own hands and located suitable gas tanks on a freight train, but the white train crew said, “They are not for you people.” They had to pull guns on those white men to get the tanks so that they could risk their lives to protect the white bomber crews all the way to Berlin and back.
And after the war when they came home, Nazis prisoners were allowed to use facilities on base that were strictly off limits to them. And none of them, not one, could get jobs with the airlines like white pilots with half their experience were snapping up.
One reason they were so good was, that such a large number applied for the few slots available, thanks to the quota on Black pilots, that those who made it were truly top notch. And after their training was finished, they were kept stateside for an extra year as the army hesitated to send them to the front, and so they just kept on training.
Note, that in order to become an Ace pilot you had to shoot down five enemy planes. None of them became Aces because, once they drove off attacking German fighters they did not pursue them to rack up kills, so focused were they on protecting the bombers. Nonetheless, one of them, Lee Archer, shot down three German planes in one encounter bringing his total to five. But the authorities lied and said that he had help with one and, so he was only credited with shooting down four and a half in total.
They were trained at Tuskegee Institute established by George Washington Carver, who as a young boy in bondage had been horrifically treated, but who went on to invent peanut butter, instant coffee and scores of other agricultural innovations that took Southern agriculture to undreamt of heights. Nonetheless, the county in which Tuskegee Institute is located became the site of the infamous Tuskegee Experiment, in which hundreds of Black men for decades were purposely given useless drugs by the US government when they came for treatment for syphilis.
We mention these things, not to be bitter, but to put things in their proper historical context and to duly recognize the monumental struggles that our ancestors endured to bring us into this world. So, yes, go out and see this film, and support the fine work of those who toiled to make it.
However, though I am happy and grateful that George Lucas produced this film, I must point out that his recent remarks were really over the top. He said, “I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that [lower-budget] mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”
Say what? Tyler Perry made it, and continues to make it, on his own, as did, and does, Spike Lee and others. Thank you for your help, George Lucas, but it is not crucial. We have always been able to make it on our own despite any and all the barriers put before us. In fact, is that not the ultimate lesson of the glorious Tuskegee Airmen?
