Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Idris Elba helps uncover the WWII soldiers of color who never got their due
NEW YORK | One of Idris Elba’s grandfathers fought in World War II, but he doesn’t know what he endured. No pictures or stories survive. “That part of my family’s history has been erased somewhat,” says Elba.
That helped fuel the actor’s push to narrate and executive produce the four-part National Geographic docuseries “Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color,” which premieres Monday, days ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies landed on the coast of France, on June 6. Episodes will also later be available on Disney+ and Hulu.
More than 8 million people of color served with the Allies, and the series digs deep to focus on how some fared at D-Day, Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge.
It tells the story of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, the only all-Black combat unit to fight on the D-Day beaches, and Force K6, a little-known Indian regiment of mule handlers from the British army trying to evacuate at Dunkirk.
The series uses archival footage, descendant interviews, soldier journals and actor portrayals — a mix that Elba says he found visceral and moving.
“It really did actually impact me just in the narration booth, watching the imagery, looking at the faces, wondering about my own personal connect. Could my grandfather be one of the people in one of the pieces? That was what I thought about. So, it did definitely resonate with me.”
The series also highlights stories like that of Doris Miller, a mess attendant aboard the USS West Virginia who after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor raced to an unattended anti-aircraft gun and fired at the planes until forced to abandon ship.
He had never been trained to use the gun because Black sailors serving in the segregated steward’s branch of the Navy were not given the gunnery training received by white sailors. Miller’s bravery earned him the Navy Cross.
“It just feels like a privilege and an honor to be able to shed some light on their stories,” says director Shianne Brown, who helmed the D-Day episode.
Her episode highlighted Waverly Woodson, Jr., a medic who was wounded by shrapnel during the landing but nevertheless spent the next 30 hours treating the wounded and the dying on Omaha Beach. He would note: “There’s no such thing as a color barrier in action.”
Brown says that observation proved so powerful. “If your leg has just been blown off, you need a medic to help you. At that moment, you’re not going to say to Waverly, ‘No, I don’t want you to treat me.’”
Woodson is being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The announcement was made Monday by Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Woodson died in 2005.
The series points out that many soldiers of color who fought the Nazis in Europe went home — the Indians back to British colonization and Black Americans to bitter racism — and began agitating for change because of what they’d witnessed and earned. Civil rights icon Medgar Evers, after all, was at D-Day.
“A lot of these men and women never felt like they were human before going to Europe and then being treated like a normal human being by the white population,” says Brown. “I can’t even imagine how that would have felt for them. You’ve been fighting against Hitler and the Nazis and against fascism and hate, and you go home and you experience racial terror.”
The filmmakers found very little footage of non-white soldiers in the archives and so were moved when they finally came across images of a Black unit marching in central England before D-Day or Black soldiers cheering the fall of the Nazis. “It was just very odd to see a Black man in Nazi Germany,” says Elba.
Elba urged the directors and editors to try to put the audience into the action, like the films “Saving Private Ryan” or “Dunkirk.” That meant filming recreations of bombings in villages in France, wading into the ocean with heavy gear and soldiers enduring beach strafing.
“I was really encouraging of the filmmakers to really go for it,” he says. “Giving you a little glimpse of, from a fictional perspective, what it might have looked like and how heroic these soldiers were.”
At the same time, the filmmakers wanted to show how horrible and frightening combat can be, the randomness of casualties and the agonizing wait before deployment.
“We don’t want to glorify what’s going on, but we actually wanted to paint the heroism in a way that was relatable to the way we’ve seen films of this nature,” Elba says.
Rapper Sean Kingston booked into Florida jail
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. | Rapper and singer Sean Kingston is back in South Florida, where he and his mother are charged with committing more than a million dollars’ worth of fraud.
Kingston, 34, was booked into the Broward County jail on Sunday, according to jail records. He was arrested May 23 at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in California’s Mojave Desert where he was performing. Last week, he waived his right to fight extradition in a California court and agreed to be turned over to authorities in Florida.
Kingston’s mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, was arrested the same day as her son, when a SWAT team raided his rented mansion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Kingston and Turner have been charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft and related crimes, according to arrest warrants released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The warrants allege they stole money, jewelry, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture.
The Jamaican American performer had a No. 1 hit with “Beautiful Girls” in 2007 and collaborated with Justin Bieber on the song “Eenie Meenie.”
Robert Rosenblatt, an attorney for Kingston and his mother, previously said they looked forward to addressing the charges in a Florida court and “are confident of a successful resolution.”
The warrants in the case say that from October to March they stole almost $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from the Escalade dealer, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank and $86,000 from the maker of customized beds. Specifics were not given.
Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Anderson, was already serving a two-year probation sentence for trafficking stolen property.
His mother pleaded guilty in 2006 to bank fraud for stealing over $160,000 and served nearly 1.5 years in prison, according to federal court records.
Chicago Sports Network set to air Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games
CHICAGO | A new network is launching to carry games from three Chicago pro teams, the Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox.
The Chicago Sports Network (CHSN) announced Monday that it will launch in October across multiple platforms. The network said it will air more than 300 live Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games annually and include pre- and postgame coverage while showing 24-hour-a-day multisport programming.
A joint venture among the three teams and Standard Media, CHSN will broadcast from studios located in both Chicago’s United Center and Guaranteed Rate Field.
CHSN will start with airing Blackhawks and Bulls preseason games in October, showing White Sox games beginning in 2025. The rest of the White Sox games in 2024 will remain on NBC Sports Chicago.
Pending league approvals, CHSN will reach most of Illinois, as well as parts of Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The network said it will launch with agreements in place with traditional cable providers, streaming services and be available via free, over-the-air broadcast.
“As we set out to design the network, we began and ended every discussion with the simple question: What is best for our fans?” said Jason Coyle, who has been named president of the network after serving in Chicago-based sports media leadership roles for more than 20 years. “What is the best approach to distribution? How can we push the limits of both in-game and studio production? We plan to serve our fans on as many platforms and in as many markets as our rights allow.”
The teams’ partner, Nashville, Tennessee-based Standard Media, owns four media stations from Rhode Island to Nebraska.
Michael Douglas pays solidarity visit to southern Israel
JERUSALEM | Actor Michael Douglas on Sunday paid a solidarity visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was hit hard in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group.
Douglas met with members of Kibbutz Be’eri and visited burnt-out homes destroyed in the Oct. 7 attack. Be’eri was among the hardest hit communities, with roughly 100 people killed and 30 others taken hostage.
Douglas said he met families of hostages and visited the scene of a music party where over 300 people were killed.
He also met with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who presented the actor with an Israeli dog tag necklace and small pin of a yellow ribbon — symbols of solidarity with the dozens of hostages who remain in Hamas captivity.
“It’s a very difficult time. You sense the deep shock of this whole experience,” Douglas said, expressing hope that the hostages would be released soon.
Douglas also lashed out at pro-Palestinian protesters on American campuses — claiming that many have been subject to “brainwashing.”
“When you try to talk to many of them, there is no education. There’s no knowledge,” he said.
Douglas is the latest in a line of American celebrities and politicians who have visited Israel and toured the southern area near the Gaza border since Oct. 7.
—From AP reports
