Karl Marx…poet?

Everybody knows about Karl Marx’s sociological and political writings, The Communist Manifesto, Capital, etc.

Did you know he also wrote poetry?

228 Massacre: Part 1

(Note: This is the first part of a three part series on the 228 Massacre.  Part I will cover the events leading up to the massacre, part 2 will cover the massacre itself, and part III will discuss the aftermath.  I originally intended this to be one post, but I realized I wanted to go into more detail, so it would be better to split this up.)

Coming up soon is the 63rd anniversary of the 228 Massacre, also known as the 228 Incident.  It is so named for the violent crackdown that started on February 28th, 1947 in Taiwan.  As with any historical tragedy where there has been a government coverup, the exact number of deaths is unknown, but estimates range 10k on the low end, all the way up to 30k.

In addition to being a singular tragedy, it also marked the beginning of Taiwan’s White Terror period, which lasted for nearly 40 years, and involved the disappearance, imprisonment, or outright murder of thousands more.

For those of you unfamiliar with the above, you’re probably wondering why these events happened?

Expatriation

…at least three African American prisoners of war refused repatriation.  Unlike several of the eighteen white soldiers who chose to remain in North Korea, none of the three African American detainees possessed a background of familiarity with Marxism.  None was even said by the army to have known the location of Korea before the outbreak of war.  Thus the effort to survive America, rather than any affinity with either scientific socialism or East Asian life, explained the decisions of the three….Private Clarence Adams…refused to return to the United States….A Memphis native, Adams had been assigned to an all-black artillery unit ordered to advance even as white soldiers retreated past them.  Convinced that his unit had been sacrificed in order to save white lives, Adams was incensed by what he saw as pervasive racism among white prisoners.  Openly critical of American society, Adams was seen as a “progressive” prisoner by the Chinese and placed in charge of a prison library.  Choosing to remain, Adams earned a university degree, married a Chinese academic, and started a family.  During the early years of open American involvement in Vietnam (1963-1966), Adams was involved in making radio broadcasts aimed at American troops.  Adams and his wife left for the United States in 1966, pushed by political criticisms launched at them as the Cultural Revolution began.  Despite death threats and a federal investigation, Adams remained in the United States, where in Memphis he and his family operated a restaurant until his death in 1999.

An endnote elaborates on the criticisms Adams and his wife faced during the Cultural Revolution:

Adams’s wife, a professor of Russian at Wuhan University, was suspended after being criticized for having a suspect background (large landowner) and for marrying a foreigner, while Adams was criticized for spending too much time at the Ghanaian and Cuban embassies.

Above taken from “Seoul City Sue and the Bugout Blues: Black American Narratives of the Forgotten War” by Daniel Widener, found in the anthology Afro Asia, edited by Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen.