Summary Of A Soldier's Play By Charles Fuller

An Analysis of Military Segregation and the Status Quo of the White Establishment in A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller

This racial study will define the validity of racial segregation of World war II era African American soldiers and the effects of the status quo of the white establishment in A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller. The legacy of Jim Crow laws denied an equal identity for African Americans to white soldiers during the First World War and into the Second World War. The leadership of president Woodrow Wilson defined the institutional racism aimed at black soldiers, as they were often forced to fight in the most dangerous battles of the war. Fuller’s evaluation of white racism is accurate in that it portrays the subservience of Sergeant Vernon Waters to white …show more content…
In the increased use of African Americans during World War II, Waters defines the epitome of the black officer that serves the white establishment so that black soldiers can prove themselves worthy of combat: “Colored folks always runnin’ at the mouth ‘bout what y’all gonna do if the white man gives you a chance—and you get it, and what do you do with it? You wind up drunk on guard duty” (Fuller 25). This perception defines Fuller’s accuracy in depicting the challenges that black men faced in the predominantly white American military, but Waters takes this too far by abusing his own men because of their black identity as a victim stereotype. Waters becomes the embodiment of whit racism by misunderstanding the stereotypical behaviors of black soldiers as being the barrier to racial equality (Richardson 10). These racial misunderstanding led to Waters’ enactment of white racism as only being related to achieving the same cultural and racial values of the white