African Americans in the military
The struggle against racism & war
By Pat Chin
What is the potential for a Black GI resistance movement if
the Bush administration goes ahead with its criminal war
against Iraq?
Racism in the U.S. armed forces has long reflected
institutionalized racism in society at large, which views
people of African descent as inferior. Despite this stigma,
however, Blacks in the military have insisted on their
democratic right to be treated equally, rather than being
forced to serve in segregated units.
In Vietnam, thousands of Black soldiers rebelled against
what they saw as an unjust war by a government that wielded
racism like a club against their communities at home. Many
agreed with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, "The greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today is the U.S.
government."
Black people have always been an important part of the
anti-war movement in the United States. Many African Americans
and others of African descent staunchly oppose U.S. wars of
aggression around the world and reject the notion that Black
people should fight on behalf of a system that's responsible
for slavery, Jim Crow and racist profiling.
Many also hold the view, shared by internationalists of all
nationalities, that the U.S. military represents the interests
of greedy, super-rich bosses and bankers, not of poor and
working people.
Racism deeply rooted
The history of African Americans in the U.S. armed forces
stretches back to the Civil War. Many believed that their
participation in the war would win them basic democratic rights
and respect. But despite the Emancipation Proclamation and
later efforts to desegregate the armed forces, racism still
remains deeply rooted.
During the Civil War, more than 180,000 joined the Union
Army. Another 30,000 served in the Navy, and 200,000 worked on
military support projects. Some 33,000 perished in the
conflict. (See www.louisdiggs.com/buffalo/history.html)
Historian Howard Zinn writes, "When the Emancipation
Proclamation was issued Jan. 1, 1863, it declared slaves free
in those areas still fighting against the Union (which it
listed very carefully), and said nothing about slaves behind
Union lines." ("A People's History of the United States")
The Emancipation Proclamation, and the huge numbers of
Blacks who joined the Union Army, gave the erroneous impression
that the Civil War was being fought principally for Black
freedom rather than the domination of the capitalist mode of
production over the system of chattel slavery.
"The more whites had to sacrifice," explains Zinn, "the more
resentment there was, particularly among poor whites in the
North, who were drafted by a law that allowed the rich to buy
their way out of the draft for $300. And so the draft riots of
1863 took place, uprisings of angry whites in northern cities,
their targets not the rich, far away, but the Blacks, near at
hand."
From WWII to Vietnam
Although Blacks participated in every U.S. war since, they
still were subjected to the worst kind of racism.
Some 200,000 fought in World War I. They faced racist death
squads like the Ku Klux Klan upon their return home. They also
went into combat in large numbers in World War II, even though
the military continued to deny them access to adequate
equipment and training.
This exposed the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, which was
willing to let Black soldiers fight and die overseas while
denying them full equality and reparations for hundreds of
years of unpaid slave labor.
The armed forces were legally desegregated in 1948 by the
Truman administration. But Black soldiers and commanders
received little or no respect from white officers and they
remained poorly trained and ill equipped. Black units were, in
fact, expected to fail, and Truman's desegregation orders did
little to change this racist mind-set.
Reform was forced, however, during the Korean War, when huge
battlefield casualties exposed the unsound nature of a
segregated army. The post-World-War-II vigor of the civil
rights movement also brought about concessions.
Washington's bloody war against Vietnam--a heroic nation
that successfully resisted U.S. colonial domination--coincided
during the 1960s with a big upsurge in the civil rights
movement and rebellions in the inner cities. There were also
frequent acts of war resistance. Muhammad Ali's refusal to
serve in the military had a big influence on Black, Latino and
white youths.
The Black Panther Party influenced many drafted African
American youths. Not only did the BPP oppose the war; its
leadership offered to organize military units to fight
alongside the Vietcong against the Pentagon. Some Black troops
even defected to the side of the Vietnamese liberation
forces.
The American Servicemen's Union defended 43 Black Marines
from Fort Hood, Texas, who refused orders to go and repress
anti-war protests at the 1968 Democratic National
Convention.
There were huge numbers of conscientious objectors, some of
whom left the country to avoid service. In the United States,
Blacks were among the hundreds of thousands who took to the
streets in numerous protests until the war was ended.
After the Vietnam War, anti-militarist sentiment was still
so strong that the draft was ended.
Choice for youths: military or jail
An "economic draft" became widespread with the technological
revolution of the late 1970s and 1980s, which led to widespread
layoffs. This, coupled with deep cuts in social programs,
forced many Black and Latino youths into the military, which
promised a lot, including free education.
Meanwhile, the prison-industrial complex, with its captive
workforce toiling for slave wages, began to mushroom.
For many Black and Latino youths, it's been either join the
military or face prison. Blacks and Latinos, in fact, "make up
62 percent of the incarcerated population, though comprising
only 25 percent of the national population." (Human Rights
Watch Report, Feb. 27, 2002)
Most youths don't join the military for "patriotic" reasons.
This is even truer for oppressed youths, who have fewer
opportunities than whites.
With the deepening instability of the capitalist economy,
many young people of color feel even greater pressure to enlist
in the military, where racism still exists and where they're
trained to kill other poor people and/or be killed
themselves.
History has shown that it's been mainly poor and
working-class people--disproportionately Black and Latino
youths--who become the casualties of war. Their role, in the
long run, is to be killers or cannon fodder.
A whopping 75 percent of all African Americans and other
military personnel of color "complain that they have
experienced racially offensive behavior, and less than half
expressed confidence that complaints of discrimination are
thoroughly investigated, according to the largest survey of
racial attitudes ever conducted within the armed forces,"
reported the Washington Post of Nov. 23, 1999.
Furthermore: "Nearly 20 percent of Blacks and 13 percent of
Hispanics in uniform reported that they had been given inferior
assignments or evaluations because of racial bias. Only 4
percent of whites reported such treatment."
This remains true despite Secretary of State Gen. Colin
Powell's ascendancy to the higher echelons of power, from
whence "he would be put out to pasture," to quote Harry
Belafonte, should he not submit to the program of war and
exploitation being foisted on the world by the racist and
sexist capitalist class. Powell, along with National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, serves them dutifully.
The anti-war movement, in alliance with supporters abroad,
is uniquely positioned to stop George W. Bush's Pentagon war
machine in the insane rush to dominate the world for super
profits.
Linking the anti-war movement with the struggle against
racism is a powerful way to forge the unity that's needed to
resist and disarm the military brass.
Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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