Isaiah Bradley’s narrative in TFATWS simultaneously demonstrates the necessity of teaching critical race theory and explains why there are people in your state who want to make that illegal
1. Unequal outcomes
Isaiah and Steve took on nearly identical unauthorized rescue missions. Both returned successfully with men written off as dead. Steve received acclaim, medals, and a promotion. Isaiah received secret torture prison.
Bucky and Isaiah are victims of human experimentation and decades of torture and imprisonment. Bucky’s special torture included being used as the Winter Soldier. Today a judge allows Bucky to walk free (with conditions). Isaiah, who never assassinated anybody, has never seen his day in court, and lives in hiding in constant fear for his family.
The unfairness is obvious. Some people praised Steve and others locked up Isaiah. Some people showed mercy to Bucky and others keep Isaiah living in fear. These people are all a bunch of racists, right?
Sure, maybe so. But more to the point, that doesn’t actually explain anything.
2. Origin stories
Steve got juiced by the US Army. He competed to be chosen for the serum test, and he was fully briefed on known side effects. This was fine.
Bucky was taken as a POW and dosed against his will by Nazis. This was a war crime, illegal even in Nazi Germany.
Isaiah was selected as a test subject without his knowledge or consent by the US Army. Given the time period (1950 or 51), this was probably legal. Informed consent laws didn’t exist yet. The Army had no formal guidelines on human experimentation until 1953.
Regardless, it was still scientifically unethical and definitely racist. The Army was mostly integrated by this time, which means Isaiah’s all-Black unit was singled out on purpose.
3. Everything builds on what came before
The same Army that abused Isaiah and his fellow soldiers knew perfectly well they were wrong to do so. This is evident in the way they immediately went into cover-up mode.
The super-soldier POWs Isaiah rescued: the Army wanted them dead. The other 28 soldiers Isaiah brought back, who had nothing to do with any of it: the Army intended to make them collateral damage.
So when Isaiah triumphantly marched into camp with living evidence of the Army’s special crime, they locked him away. They reported Isaiah’s death but in fact they were too greedy to murder him. With Isaiah imprisoned the “experiment” could continue in secret.
Isaiah escaped by faking his own death, but he can’t ever let down his guard. He’d be locked up again and probably his family too.
4. Color-blind policies perpetuate anti-blackness
We meet Isaiah after 30 years of unjust imprisonment and 40 years more of living as a ghost. At no point during this time did any individual involved necessarily have to make any decision rooted in racially discriminatory law or personal racial bias.
They made institutional decisions to hide the crimes of the past while continuing to profit from them.
That’s it. That’s all that’s needed. Isaiah’s body is evidence of a crime that can never be allowed to come to light, and every single thing that happens to him and to his family in the aftermath is done for that reason.
This is why Steve was called a hero. It’s not because Steve’s C.O. loved to praise White guys who go AWOL. It’s because Steve saved people who the Army actually wanted saved.
This is why Bucky is allowed to walk free. Bucky’s body is evidence of crimes committed by Nazi Germany and the USSR. The government has nothing to lose from allowing Bucky’s story to be told and in fact it’s a total propaganda win because they can say look how bad America’s enemies are, America would never do a thing like that.
5. Nobody has to feel bad and no one learns anything
Sam Wilson does the absolute best he can by Isaiah with the museum exhibit, and we see how moved Isaiah is. However, it is so important to understand that the story that made it into the museum is a lie.
“Fearful of the ramifications of a Black super soldier,” it says, “some individuals within the government tried to erase Isaiah's story from history.”
Oh really? Some individuals, with explicitly racist motivations, tried to erase Isaiah’s story? Those individuals must have been really bad people. I guess it’s just a coincidence that this explanation exonerates the entire US Army, CIA, SHIELD, and every other organization that continues to make Isaiah’s existence a living hell to the present day.
I guess it’s just a coincidence that the average White museum visitor is going to read that story and think: wow this is so sad but you know what i’m really happy that we’ve progressed so far as a country it’s such a relief to know that would never happen today.
6. If the US Govt had an amends notebook, what would it take to cross a name off the list
Meanwhile, Isaiah Bradley can’t collect a pension, or social security, or qualify for medicare, or get a driver’s license, or open a bank account, or do anything else that requires a human to provide proof that they exist in the world.
When Eli gets big and moves out, Isaiah won’t be able to co-sign his lease or fill in the FAFSA he needs for a college loan.
And that’s how color-blind, equal-before-the-law America allows one explicitly racist decision, made 70 years ago, to limit the future opportunities of a Black child growing up in 2020s.
Don’t forget to call it equality! Eli will be denied that car loan the same as any other White kid whose primary caregiver is the legally-dead victim of racist state-sponsored torture.
