"I wrote: If I was a young black man today I would simply be living in a world of rage and hatred against this "great nation" founded on genocide and slavery."

iwarrior wrote: Because that sort of thing can be counterproductive and most people in general see that. Riots don't really do much except fuel fear and racism.

My response: I was not recommending violence. I meant to convey the idea that rage and hatred against this country's institutionalized racism is understandable.

iwarrior wrote: People on the right demonize black people. Yet people on the left put them on some sort of pedestal. I've never been able to understand that.

My response: I do not demonize any other race or put any other race on a pedestal. Every country and situation is unique. Anyone who would deny that racism is institutionalized in this country (you did not imply this or state this) is in denial.

iwarrior wrote: They just shuffle along and go about their business and are kept busy and distracted.

My response: Just like all the rest of us in America at the lower end of the wealth spectrum."

Ok, thanks for clarifying all that. I apologize if I misinterpreted you. I have no problem with your above comments.

I can't speculate on what's in your head. I should've wrote that policy in this country is made by wealthy white males. But I still believe in the american ideal that anyone can become president or get into politics. That's probably a naive belief nowadays. If you're considered white then the first step towards understanding racism is acknowledging that there is a profound difference between the way white and non-whites think and are treated in this country. One privilege is that white people don't have to think about race if they don't want to. If you want to know more about hidden white privilege then read:

http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

I agree that talking about class is a social taboo in this country. And its no "coincidence" that we are indoctrinated to believe that. So we talk more about racism than about class. how do we bring up the issue of class disparity more?

"I disagree that white males can feel disenfranchised in the United States. Policy in this country has always been made by white males. Being considered white in this country has "hidden" privilege. Go ask a white guy what the white experience is for himself in America. And then go ask a black guy what the black experience is for himself in America. I am sure that you will hear two different stories that are drastically different when it comes to racism."

Well then you must have money. I've never had money and have felt disenfranchised my whole life. It must be all in my head.

"But if white middle class people feel disenfranchised, then this brings up the question of wealthy elite versus middle class/poor. Racism is a ploy to keep middle class/poor people from working together for progressive change. MLK Jr. wasn't assassinated until he started working to help alleviate poverty for all people."

There ya go. And it's one part of MLK's legacy that many people don't seem to like to talk about. Discussing class has become akin to talking about beastiality.

"I have observed that African Americans are less deluded about this system than their White fellow citizens."

I think that in this case, it has more to do with who's in office and how he got there more than anything.

People keep acting as if whites are all following Dubbya like sheep or something. Maybe it's just in my circles, but I'm not seeing it. Even the right-wingers are lambasting the guy now.

No other group is really more enlightened than anyone else. It's silly to think that. Bush screwed the black community. That's how he got into power. Of course most black people aren't going to trust him. I even remember when he first got elected. Most everyone including most whites saw him as a buffoon at best.

"If I was a young black man today I would simply be living in a world of rage and hatred against this "great nation" founded on genocide and slavery."

Because that sort of thing can be counterproductive and most people in general see that. Riots don't really do much except fuel fear and racism.

I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, but I get the impression that so many of you really don't know a lot of black people. It's one problem I have with race relations today. People on the right demonize black people. Yet people on the left put them on some sort of pedestal. I've never been able to understand that.

"I am just amazed at their docility."

I don't think black people are really that different than anyone else despite having a unique experience. They go to school, work, Wal-Mart, the bar, etc. Just like most other working and poor people. They just shuffle along and go about their business and are kept busy and distracted.

Militarism like this falls most heavily on the working class that want to be upwardly mobile. It's not a strict race thing. Get Marx. Get class.

I have observed that African Americans are less deluded about this system than their White fellow citizens

... It just takes longer for more easily deluded Whites to catch on.

Whoa, Jaded Prole, you suggested directly in no uncertain terms that white people may not be the clearest thinking best understanding people around! That's a little much for any white-centered liberal/progressive context to bear, you know?

And of course the very next comment is a defense of white people's understanding.

Sigh.

Speaking directly and critically about white people is kind of not in line with the whole commondreams.org tone, I've noticed. Especially saying anything that would question the default assumption of white people's supposedly unquestioned superior understanding of reality. Because without that assumption, it seems to me that a lot of the essays and comments here on this site (not all, thank goodness, but a lot) would actually not be able to exist.

I disagree that white males can feel disenfranchised in the United States. Policy in this country has always been made by white males. Being considered white in this country has "hidden" privilege. Go ask a white guy what the white experience is for himself in America. And then go ask a black guy what the black experience is for himself in America. I am sure that you will hear two different stories that are drastically different when it comes to racism.

But if white middle class people feel disenfranchised, then this brings up the question of wealthy elite versus middle class/poor. Racism is a ploy to keep middle class/poor people from working together for progressive change. MLK Jr. wasn't assassinated until he started working to help alleviate poverty for all people.

What's up with BlackMilitaryWorld.com selling Colin Powell's books? CP is a major player for both Bush I and Bush II in going to war illegally with Iraq. We cannot have it both ways; to be against the war and then to support an African American who was always for war (although in the first Gulf War he was more of a soldier but could always resign if he saw war was NOT necessary). Even if you are in the military, you can still take a principal.

I don't mind the "sound bites". It provides a chsnce for a succinct exploration of specific words. Like the sound bite on occupation vs. war.

I totally agree with occupation. Calling it a war was part of the conspiracy of fraud.

Is it a smell of racism or another scent? "Ethnenticism"? How do you talk about ethnic groups without invoking racism?

"In general" "whites" have more trust funds and stock portfolios or are dependent in some fashion on a "white" with one, more so "in general" than "blacks". With the geopolitical rape artists
sky rocketing the stock market with their ill gotten investments, "whites", "in general" are slower to "question" the validity of the US Military occupation.

Of course blacks aren't going to support this war. They're not going to support anything Bush does due to the racial hanky panky and election fraud that got him elected.

I'm surprised at those polls. I've seen other polls where the dissent amongst whites was much higher. I don't talk to many people in general, whites included that support anything this administration does.

I think that most of the recruits are coming from the heartland which is mostly white and is where most of Bush's support comes from. Those people are largely disenfranchised also. Does anyone think the the neo-cons see them as anything but white trash? They hate us all.

I don't think people can ignore the partisanship also. Was there this much dissent among blacks when Clinton was bombing Iraq? Among Democrats?

"Most people who have never been oppressed (straight white males in this country) have a much harder time recognizing it or understanding what it is like to be treated as a disposable piece of garbage that is not part of "us"."

I think most of those straight white guys are oppressed also whether they or others see it or not. The Right isn't really on my side either as a working class white guy.

Suburban white radicals? If they're so "radical" why do they live in the suburbs?

Check this site out: http://www.militaryfreeschools.org/

In Los Angeles, we have the highest rate in the nation of African-American and Latin youths who enter the military, as well as die in the wars.

The sad state of affairs is that these kids don't think there is any other option, i.e. becoming lawyers, doctors, etc. A youngster in juvenile detention stated that he wanted to join the military. When asked, "you would rather kill or be killed?" His reply, "what else do I have left for me?"

"Everybody kind of knows the truth behind this war. It's a cash cow for the military defense industry, when you look at the money these contractors are making."

The defense industry is pretty much the only industry we have left in this country after Congress developed laws that gave tax breaks to corporations to set up shop in another country, while simultaneously taking jobs away from Americans.

Eisenhower warned us, but FORTY YEARS later we're still not listening! WTF is wrong with the people in this country? How did so many people become comatose?

ScottinSF,

Maybe you generalize a bit much about "straight white males" with respect to experiences with discrimination and capacity to empathize with others. Maybe "good-looking, healthy, straight white males of Northern or Western European heritage from an upper-middle class to wealthy background" would more accurately describe the insulated group you have in mind, but still there would be exceptions to that. My father ran for political office long ago after being politically active for a number of years and his opponent ran a campaign based solely on attacking my father for his ethnicity (Eastern European) and the opponent, who was Anglo-American, won. It broke my father's heart and he was never active in politics again. That of course was not comparable to the discrimination that African-American faced, but it did provide my father, and his children, a much greater capacity for empathy for those who did suffer from far worse forms of discrimination.

I think our best chance to move forward is to accept all people as possible partners in creating a better future for the entire human race.

I was struck by the difference in reaction even in the week after 9-11. I work in a white suburban professional office. So, the week after 9-11, flags were everywhere, everyone was talking about 9-11, and everyone seemed to agree that we needed to go kill people. (I spend a lot of time with headphones on my ears those days).

But, it happened that in that week my car had broken down. So I was riding the Atlanta bus system to go back and forth to work. Of course, those busses are not filled with white surburbanites. :) And it struck me that I didn't see any American flags on people, I didn't hear any of the super patriot talk, I didn't hear many people talking about how we had to go kill people.

My thought then was that these people knew exactly who's community would pay the price for the war that was being drummed up in those days. Both in terms of casualties and in the hundreds of billions of dollars that was going to go somewhere else.

Statistics show it is not so much black or white. Most soldiers come from homes with a total income of under $60,000 per year. That's an income that does not leave much to pay for a college educaton, simple as that. One NEVER hears about Ireland's educational system. FREE, up to one's first college degree. Silly for us to lay claim to being the best country in the world. Able to blow up everyone else, sure.

It's not just people of color. I think anyone who has been on the wrong end of "othering" is just appalled at the kind of racism/nationalism that mourns the deaths of almost 4000 US soldiers while dismissing the lives of over half a million innocent Iraqi citizens as worthless or at best "collateral damage". Most people who have never been oppressed (straight white males in this country) have a much harder time recognizing it or understanding what it is like to be treated as a disposable piece of garbage that is not part of "us".

Just as African-Americans know how this administration treats them and can see the comparison of their worth as an "other" to the worth of these Iraqi citizens, a lot of women and gay people can see it too. As a gay man I am appalled at the racism directed against Muslims and Arabs and Persians by this administration's war/occupation, even while acknowledging that culturally most of the people living in that region disapprove of my sexual orientation and a significant number would have me put to death for it. For me it's no different than having empathy for a homophobic/racist redneck in the US whose house and family have been lost to a hurricane or tornado.

Can we stop calling the situation in Iraq a war? Let's try calling it by its rightful name, an occupation.

And I apologize to all african-americans for the stupidity of even the term "white."

Soundbites serve no one Smurfy. If you have a point please make it. If you have an arguement let's put it to the test.

I think this is nothing more than a reflection of the US response to Katrrina's devastation to New Orleans.

First of all African-Americans were quite understandably disgusted and sickened by how little their state and federal government cared for or about them.

Next they decided (like the Oakies in the 30's dust bowl days) that there was no future for them on that plantation and they fled elsewhere.

Finally their permanent disappearance led "Massa" to go looking south of the border for some people more desperate than they to restock their slave breeding stock on the plantation that was and is New Orleans.

Now, as has been alluded to in other comments we see more and more Central and South American "Hessians" being recruited as raw meat to be fed into the grinder that is Iraq (and subsequently show up listed on the "roll of honor" of fatalities in the war).

After Latinos wise up where will the Fascist class go next for their rent-a-slaves? Any guesses?

Ah, smell the racism..

S.

On a positive note, I am glad to see from this article that fewer African-Americans are signing up to be bullet-stoppers and IED-catchers.
Here near Camp Pendleton (largest Marine base on West Coast), the majority of out-of-state plates I see are from the South, and the young people in fatigues I see are overwhelmingly White (with a few Hispanics).

I have observed that African Americans are less deluded about this system than their White fellow citizens. They have not has as much of an option to buy into this system as representing their interests and a history of lies and less room for self-delusion has had an effect as well. True this is not a Black man's war. This is not a working person's war (few if any are). It just takes longer for more easily deluded Whites to catch on.

It should come as little surprise that Black enlistment is down. The history of the U.S Military is but a microcosm of the long and storied past of American apartheid. Blacks have volunteered and fought with distinction in wars from as far back as King Williams War in 1689 to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In countless works of military history, the black contribution to America's armed forces has been ignored, diminished or denied. In a 1786 painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a black soldier stands with a group of white rebels. Copies of the painting made two decades later erase him from the scene.

More than 200,000 Black soldiers fought and died in the Civil War. During the Civil War, blacks fighting with Union forces were paid less than whites and charged for clothing, while whites received a stipend for new uniforms, then often used as cannon fodder in the field, sent ahead to soften enemy resistance. In segregated ranks, they lived in separate, vastly inferior quarters. They received separate, often vastly inferior training, and were given vastly inferior weapons and equipment. In some military camps they were ordered to sit behind prisoners of war while movies or other entertainments were being presented. Blacks were told to prove their bravery and they did, from the Revolutionary War to the current conflicts.

From 1941-1945, over 900,000 black enlistees participated in WWII to end Facism and yet the official fear of "racial contamination'' lingered. In 1941, the military ordered ''white blood only'' for white troops. Plasma supplies were carefully labeled and dispensed. Segregation was the rule, even among the dying. Gen. Daniel James Jr., who, though named the first black commander of an integrated fighter squadron in the United States, was refused housing by a racist landlord near his Cape Cod base in 1953. Twenty years later, the insults continued to come. By then James was a four-star general (the first black four-star general) and the commander of the North American Air Defense Command. At West Point today, cadets who show unusual leadership and perseverance are given the Henry O. Flipper Award. It is an honor named after the first black graduate of West Point, an Atlanta native who stood proudly with his class (though not in its group photograph) at graduation in 1877. Four years later he was kicked out of the Army on false charges of embezzlement. He fought to clear his name until he died. He failed. Victory would come only posthumously, in 1999, with a presidential pardon and a solemn reburial with full military honors.

I, as well as my 4 older brothers all have served in the military since WWII. Iserved in Tripoli Libya and in Viet Nam in 1968, a war in which we were told was to be a victory over Communism; where we were told that if Viet Nam falls, all of Southeast Asia would go Communist (the Domino Principle). We were told to be afraid then as now of some intangible menace that puppy dog like would "follow us home." The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident was served up as a pretense for war. Now, the current President has served up another pretense for war, one that has metastasized from WMD to "we are fighting them over there to keep from fighting them over here," a ridiculous, non-sensical bit of logic whether you are for or against the war. In any case, wars should be fought only if we are faced with eminent danger; that it is winable; that it should be fought for all the right reasons and lastly, it should be backed by the majority of its citizens. It took many years for me to come to the realization that the Viet Nam War was based on a lie. It has taken much less time to conclude that the current war is equally based on a series of lies and misinformation and is therefore equally immoral. I think that all Black people have fortunately inherited a built-in B---S--- detector that enables them to sniff it out and dismiss it for what it is. Therefore, it is not in the best interest of African American men and women to participate in a war that is at best immoral but is also illegal based on a pre-emptive attack of a nation that did not attack us or threaten to attack us. After all, most Iraqis are faced with the same issues that affect African Americans on a daily basis. Before we send our soldiers into harms way, we would serve them and ourselves well to do due diligence and question the need for war over diplomacy and dialogue. African Americans, given their experince with the incongruities of the American system of justice and sense of fair play understand probably more than most the utter futility of war; wars, which for them, have no redemptive quality and have left the nation morally and fiscally bankrupt at home and abroad. I have been witness to the "ugly American" concept where we, as guests in foreign countries, refer to their citizens as "gooks, "sand niggers," "dot heads" and "rag heads." I take exception with those who blindly accept empty slogans such as "support the troops" while castigating anyone who disagrees with the innane policies of the Bush misadministration as being somehow unpatriotic. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public"... Theodore Roosevelt(1918).

I am sure that once the nation regains its moral high ground and repairs the damage done to its collective credibility, Black men and women will once again gladly take up arms to defend the nation when it's in theirs and the nations best interests, in spite of the indignities of the past, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Edwin Johnson

Seems the Roman military had a problem with recuting it's citizens to serve in the Roman legons. Remember how it solved that problem?

A war - win or lose will not change the flawed character of George Bush. Neither the father nor the son have what it takes to be decent men. Avarice, cupidity and mental derangement will mark them and theirs for generations to come.

Black said, "It's basically about oil, basically about money. It's an economic war."

That was the rationale for the corporations and those geo-strategists who think on the level of a game of Risk.
For the religious it was a crusade to protect Israel and to open a Muslim country to christian proselitizing.
And on the personal level, it was a 'slam dunk' chance: for military glory, to retaliate against 'the guy who tried to kill my father', and to show that father that the son was not a complete loser at everything he attempted.

The military seems to have recognized that African-Americans may be less willing to kill brown people half a world away. Look through the photos of dead soldiers. Not many black faces. Not so many Jewish names or Italian names or Polish names as in the days of involuntary conscription, either. Definitely not your father's army.