One would be hard-pressed to name a city in America without a Holocaust memorial, though it’s difficult to understand why this entirely European tragedy must be constantly mentioned in the United States.

One would be equally hard-pressed to name a city in America without a street named after the Tuskegee Airmen, or an airport, Air Force base, or military installation deprived of a huge exhibit honoring the Red Tails.

At the National Air and Space Museum outside Washington, DC, the Spirit of Tuskegee—this holiest of planes—overshadows the other exhibits not for being the plane that broke the sound barrier, but for being the vehicle that propelled black people to break the infinitely more important color barrier.

Schoolchildren across America watch HBO’s 1995 The Tuskegee Airmen movie as the source material for this courageous story of black people proving they could fly planes just as well as whitey. (Never mind that less than two percent of pilots in the US military today are black and that major commercial airlines show similarly low quotients of black pilots.)

Does it matter that the 1995 movie is largely a Hollywood production based on now-discredited lies such as the “never losing a bomber” myth? Not really. Only a Tuskegee Airmen Denier—basically the equivalent of a Nazi sympathizer—would dare question the legitimacy of the “Red Tails” story. America has racially progressed to such a point that the mere thought of questioning the official Tuskegee Airmen story would be on par with a European asking if “six million Jews” really died in the concentration camps.

Today, George Lucas has decided to one-up Tyler Perry’s determination to be the lone filmmaker who makes movies targeted primarily to black people by releasing Red Tails. The film purports to tell the true story of those black fighter pilots who trained at Morton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, ultimately defeating the twin evils of Jim Crow and Nazi Germany in the process.

Much of the glory surrounding the Tuskegee Airmen’s success was situated around the superlative, almost unbelievable tale that not one of the bombers they escorted was ever lost. For 62 years this story went unchallenged, largely because of the reverence and esteem that had been built up toward these black aviators who were so pivotal in the integration of not only the armed forces, but America as a whole.

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It wasn’t until a dreaded Tuskegee Airmen Denier by the name of Dr. Daniel Haulman came along in 2007 and actually researched this story—started by black journalist Roi Ottley and quickly picked up by black newspaper The Chicago Defender in 1945—that the truth came to the surface.

Why not one of the members of the white bomber crew whose plane was shot down during escort by the 332d fighter group (the Red Tails) ever stepped forward and told the truth about the “never having a lost a bomber” myth is a testament to this fable’s relatively recent proliferation.

Though you couldn’t be thrown in jail for such an impolite inquiry to the veracity of the claims around the Red Tails as in Europe, Dr. Haulman did find intense pressure from entrenched academics, and the Tuskegee Airmen themselves, for daring to expose the truth behind the myth.

How dare Dr. Haulman question the legitimacy of the Tuskegee Airmen story and position himself as a Denier? Doesn’t he know the great victory over racism at home and fascism abroad these brave Nubian fighter pilots achieved?

No matter, for the National Park Service website entry on The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site still proudly lists this unfortunate falsehood:

Awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for the mission, the Tuskegee Airmen did not lose a single bomber despite the superior German planes.

Haulman says they actually lost 25 bombers in 1944 and 1945 to those German planes, flown by young Luftwaffe pilots barely into puberty. But that doesn’t jibe with the narrative of being superior pilots—both with their aeronautical dexterity and moral compass—to inferior white pilots.

More than 1,200 white Army Air Force pilots were considered “aces” in World War II (meaning they had five or more confirmed kills); not one Tuskegee Airman earned the honor of being an “ace” unless you consider Detroit, a city that Mayor Coleman Young—yes, he was a Tuskegee Airman—helped destroy to be an “honorary” kill.

After all, 2012 Detroit looks like it was leveled by a couple thousand sorties.

Not to be quieted by accusations of Tuskegee Airmen Denialism, Haulman would author the small tract Nine Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen that pretty much shoots down all the lies sold as truth to keep the Red Tails story flying.

That the glorification of the black pilots is almost entirely based on lies—it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that 1986’s Iron Eagle is based on more truth—doesn’t matter. Only a Tuskegee Airmen Denier would think such unthinkable thoughts.

Tim Tebow

In the short-lived television show Firefly, the term “Browncoat” described those who fought for independence against the Alliance. Protagonist Malcolm Reynolds was a Browncoat who tried to survive as a smuggler aboard his spaceship Serenity.

His side lost the war, but Reynolds still believed his cause was right, though all he could do was try and survive by not running afoul of the Alliance.

Rabid Firefly fans who protested its cancellation after one season are also called Browncoats. So vocal were these Browncoats that the 2005 film Serenity was green-lit.

Firefly’s world sprung from creator Joss Whedon’s imagination, but the story of the heroic lone warrior from a war’s losing side is playing out for real during the 2011 National Football League season.

His name is Tim Tebow, whose battle is the cultural war that so many conservatives claimed to have fought during the 1980s, 90s, and even to this day.

Just as the Alliance crushed the rebellion in Firefly, the radical left (cultural Marxism, whatever you want to call it) seems to have won the cultural wars. In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle could voice opposition to the eponymous character of Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock.

In 2011, the show Glee—with scant opposition—broadcast an episode with a gay sex scene. Few examples illustrate the left’s victory better than watching 10 minutes of a random Glee episode.

Only twice during the cultural wars has the left really slipped up. Once was during 2004’s disastrous attack on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, when the fury coming from the punditry class mobilized a remnant of what Sam Francis dubbed Middle American Radicals (MARs) to rally behind the film and help make Mad Max a mega-millionaire.

The other leftist slip-up has been Tim Tebow. (In his book Through My Eyes he lets it slip that his favorite film is Gibson’s Braveheart.) Quarterbacking the Denver Broncos from the AFC West cellar to a playoff bid, Tebow has been a catalyst for the same type of vitriolic attacks that Gibson’s depiction of the crucifixion endured.

By being a public face for the side that so thoroughly lost the cultural wars, the son of Christian missionaries—whose mother was told by a doctor he should be aborted because of complications during her pregnancy—has been attacked with extreme prejudice by the victorious side.

Bill Maher recently tweeted this after Tebow tossed four interceptions in the Broncos’ second consecutive loss:

“Wow, Jesus just f**ked #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere … Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them.”

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“Tebowing” is a derogatory term for when Tim gets on one knee and prays after a big play or victory during a game. Would the NFL allow players to mock Tebow if he was a Muslim? Would the media mock him?

But because Christianity—especially public displays of it—is viewed as an anachronism in the world the left controls, Tebow is fair game.

Maher understands that occasionally poking and prodding the cultural war’s losers is good for business, but he doesn’t realize how much Tebow has connected with your typical MARs who don’t follow football but bought ten tickets to see The Passion of the Christ.

As with Gibson, companies that invested in Tebow are seeing a huge return on investment.

Borrowing a page out of the primarily Jewish attacks on Gibson for producing a reputedly anti-Semitic film, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman wrote in The Jewish Week:

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Though the rabbi later removed this statement from his online post, this the type of attack launched on Gibson before his Passion of the Christ.

One should ask Rabbi Hammerman what type of worldview he envisions without pesky types such as Tebow. Is it one where white, heterosexual Christians are bashed without fear of reprisal?

Malcolm Reynolds merely tried to survive in Firefly after his side lost the cultural war. In the movie Serenity, Reynolds actively decided to battle the Alliance again by trying to expose a vast conspiracy.

Unwittingly, by wearing his Christian religion on his sleeve, Tebow is doing much the same thing in 2011 America. By his mere existence, and seeing the huge reaction he receives (and the merchandise he is moving all across the country), Tim Tebow’s polarizing popularity shows that the cultural wars are perhaps not over after all.

Some football purists scoff at the idea of a quarterback with Tebow’s skill set (Tim runs the ball more than your normal drop-back passing QB) succeeding in the NFL, but since he replaced Kyle Orton the Broncos are 7-4 with their Bible-thumping Puritan at the helm.

Tebow’s magical run has been chronicled each Sunday on The Drudge Report, with Matt Drudge realizing that his conservative readership is becoming vested in the Broncos signal-caller’s story.

In a league where the 2010 Comeback Player of the Year was a sociopathic canine-killer, Tebow’s character on and off the field seems better suited for some Norman Rockwell painting.

This could be the last year where Tebow is a starting NFL quarterback (the Broncos leadership has been noncommittal about sticking with him), but like the one season of Firefly, millions of fans are now behind him.

Though the cultural war ended in a rout, those MARs have a new champion in Tebow.

In Hammerman’s eyes, they represent a different type of Browncoat. Much like the attacks on Gibson, those who won the cultural war will always believe the people they defeated are Brownshirts in waiting.

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson

Ann Coulter recently found herself in hot water by asserting that the Republicans’ blacks are better than the Democrats’ blacks. NBA Commissioner David Stern is probably sighing to himself about how basketball’s 80s and mid-90s blacks were better than today’s blacks.

Stern canceled all NBA games through November, a move that means the entire 2011-2012 season is almost sure to be called off due to contractual disputes between the owners and players. Pity, too: The 2010-2011 season’s cable ratings were producing record numbers. (Few games are broadcast on network TV anymore; the demand isn’t there.) Last season’s NBA Finals, featuring the Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks v. the Miami Heat’s three-headed monster, reminded some longtime fans of the titanic battles between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson from the 1980s.

Stern will fondly recall those Boston teams—the whitest in a league that has been consistently 70% or more black since 1980—that had Bird, Danny Ainge, and Kevin McHale taking the NBA to unprecedented business heights with their classic struggles against Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Los Angeles Lakers.

It could be argued that the NBA’s run of success was fueled not by Michael Jordan, but by a reigniting of interest in basketball among white fans that began to taper off when the length of the player’s shorts began to increase. (The 2003 retirement of Utah Jazz white point guard John Stockton signified the official end of that era.)

The 1992 book The Selling of the Green: The Financial Rise and Moral Decline of the Boston Celtics argues that the Celtics’ cultivation of a majority-white roster in a league dominated by black players was a disgusting and amoral move. Two decades later, it’s obvious that a league that has now dropped to fourth in per-game attendance among professional sports (NFL, MLB, then…Major League Soccer) is in serious trouble.

Even into the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 90s that produced six NBA championships, Chicago implemented the Celtics’ strategy by sporting a roster much whiter than the overall league percentage.

Complaining about this is similar to arguing that America was founded by racist Indian-killers. So what? For 20 years running, the league’s black players have had the opportunity to earn unprecedentedly lavish contracts that have made them fabulously wealthy (for a few years, that is), yet one is hard-pressed to identify other forms of labor they could perform that would pad their bank accounts like shooting a ball through a hoop does.

In 2008, ESPN’s Michael Wilbon wrote a Washington Post column noting that the Celtics were no longer the majority-white team of the past; they were now a team that reflected the league’s racial makeup.

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Perhaps it was when Allen Iverson entered the league in 1996 that the unofficial shift to the hip-hop, tattoo, gangsta-rap generation began, one that slowly drove away casual fans.

An 2004 ESPN article bragged about how hip-hop had transformed the game and the NBA’s culture but failed to consider the long-term problems of going all-in on this version of the game and how it would turn off fans.

Corporate America was already weary of the NBA’s shift into the hip-hop mentality as early as 2001 (save Nike, McDonald’s, Gatorade, and Sprite, which have gone 365Black in their corporate strategies) with concerns of how middle America would embrace the league’s new tattooed-and-braided thuggish hoopsters. Writing last year around the time of the All Star break, Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger started a mini-controversy by asserting that white people no longer cared about the game. Judging by poor attendance numbers (NBA teams have long relied on the white middle class to purchase tickets), Bissinger isn’t far from the truth.

The bulk of NBA revenue is derived from an outlandish and completely unjustifiable television contract the league has with ESPN and TNT. Seventeen of the league’s 30 teams are losing serious money.

In 2009, as the league was hemorrhaging sponsors and posting poor attendance numbers, an emergency $200-million loan was distributed to 15 teams, with Stern admitting the league’s balance sheet wasn’t healthy. Though some dispute the owners’ claims of financial problems, one thing is certain: The NBA’s teams are overvalued, and the silence surrounding the lockout only confirms this.

Another deadline passed Wednesday, as the owners and players were unable to come to terms on revenue-sharing and the initiation of a salary ceiling. Sources cannot confirm that the removal of the Jerry West silhouette from the NBA logo is part of the deal, since he represents an NBA that is long extinct.

As Stern continues to lock horns with the NBA Players Association Union Director Billy Hunter over the revenue split, you know that he longs for the days of Bird v. Magic. But the league hedged its investment by going full hip-hop, a move that turned away fans who also longed for those days.

It turned away fans to the point that most people don’t care about the NBA at all. They’d rather watch soccer.