Working on another research project this afternoon, I stumbled across this image. I immediately recognize the stereotyping of an African American man as a jovial waiter happily ready to serve a cold beer. This type of imagery was common in print and media through the early part of the twentieth century. So why did this image stand out, this ad was in the Southern Israelite a newspaper for the southern Jewish population. This issue was from the World War II period, so on the pages near this ad, were the discussion of the perecusion of the Chinese by the Japanese, issues for European Jews, and more about the war. On one page, there’s a concern for the victims of war and on the other is casual racism. Sometimes how things intersect in history are surprising.
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