Kicking. Squealing.
MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry rattled off an open letter to Chief Justice John Roberts in which she asserts that ending affirmative action makes America less secure.
According to their brief, between 1967 and 1991, as a result of an aggressive policy of affirmative action, the Pentagon nearly quadrupled minority representation among its commissioned officers. Compared to the private sector where less than 2% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are African American, the U.S. Army can boast that 8% of active duty officers are black. But the success of military affirmative action isn’t just cosmetic. It is critical. Mission-critical.
The brief points out that any ruling in the University of Texas case could have an impact beyond academia–and that without affirmative action–the military could struggle to develop a diverse officer corps, saying “a highly qualified and racially diverse officer corps is not a lofty ideal. It is a mission-critical national security interest.” Mr. Chief Justice, 27 United States military generals and admirals are trying to tell you something essential about affirmative action–it makes us safer.
And what is the mechanism whereby diversity improves national security? From a 2003 edition of the Christian Science Monitor:
“In the 1960s and 1970s, the stark disparity between the racial composition of the rank and file and that of the officer corps fueled a breakdown of order that endangered the military’s ability to fulfill its missions.”
Among those who signed the brief were: three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, (Gen. John Shalikashvili, Gen. Henry Shelton, and Adm. William Crowe), former superintendents of the US military and Air Force academies, and 11 retired four-star generals (including Norman Schwarzkopf and Anthony Zinni).
They witnessed the effect that an overwhelmingly white officer corps has on rank-and-file morale – and they consider it a threat to the military’s ability to defend the nation.
Because of the success of affirmative action in the military, it is easy to forget just how segregated the officer corps once was. In 1968, African-American enrollment at West Point and Annapolis was less than 1 percent; as late as 1973, just 2.8 percent of all military officers were African-American. By contrast, during that period, African-Americans constituted as much as 17 percent of the rank and file.
In Vietnam, the consequences of this de facto segregation were devastating. Affirmative action was the only solution. Beginning in the late 1960s, the military aggressively moved to integrate its officer corps. As one Pentagon official cited in the brief put it, “Doing affirmative action the right way is deadly serious for us – people’s lives depend on it.”
Comparing Vietnam to the modern military seems wrong-headed, and it still has little to do with academic affirmative action unless you want to argue that granting more BAs to blacks will stave off a Django Unchained episode. First and foremost was the resentment at being forced to fight a war in the first place. That compounded, a la Ali, on the racial element – brown and black Americans fighting brown strangers.
But just playing the same game as Harris-Perry and the various friend-of-the-court filers, it is OK to admit that tribalistic preferences are important whenever it is black rank-and-file who feel animosity towards whites at the top. Otherwise tribalism is known by the name granted by the clerisy: “racism”.
Another issue here is that the military is moving away from brawn and towards brains. Perhaps affirmative action won’t have a meaningful impact on the ability to marshal brain power for the purposes of national security, but an affirmative action policy will decrease the overall IQ of the pool of military commanders. Perhaps we can afford that deadweight loss. Our huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and tactical systems allows us lots of room for error.
“he military could struggle to develop a diverse officer corps, saying “a highly qualified and racially diverse officer corps is not a lofty ideal. It is a mission-critical national security interest”
“But the success of military affirmative action isn’t just cosmetic. It is critical. Mission-critical.”
“that of the officer corps fueled a breakdown of order that endangered the military’s ability to fulfill its missions.”
“They witnessed the effect that an overwhelmingly white officer corps has on rank-and-file morale”
“the consequences of this de facto segregation were devastating”
All foreplay and no fuck.
The insinuate, suggest and hyperbolicize how important racial integration is, but don’t offer a single shred of evidence as to why it is important.
Show don’t tell, and they fail to do that.
Jeebus cracker, what stuff and nonsense. Blacks make bad soldiers, period. Any military formed by a draft that takes significant numbers of blacks (as in Vietnam) will be a military with problems. The fact that the Progressive media complex has told blacks for five decades “don’t listen to whitey” is no help. The idea that black officers will be the magic pixie dust to turn blacks into grade A fighting men (oh, and now women — ha hah!) is as stupid as it is condescending.
Liberals really are insane.
It is weird to import muslims and then attack muslim countries.
Black males aren’t accustomed to seeing an everyday male authority figure around anyway, unless it’s a white teacher, warden or coach. Give a black commanding officer to a group of black soldiers and I doubt that they’d know how to act.
America needs to be destroyed. We need more blacks in the military, more browns, more indians, more women. I don’t understand the half-heartedness here. Take off the brakes and press down the accelerator! More liberalism, more insanity! Prepare yourself, and applaud it.
military should be 100% minority/woman
There is no evidence black men make poor soldiers. Thomas Jefferson said black men are brave, although some of that had to do with not recognizing danger until they were already in the midst of it.
I’ve seen plenty of such evidence, while to be fair I will point out that I’ve known a few outstanding black junior NCOs. But by and large, blck soldiers are notorious for their lack of discipline, especially noise discipline. Every ounce of effort devoted to avoiding work and to bragging about it; the word for that was shamming. Every small-unit activity headed by a black NCO where black solders are a majority dteriorates into a fun n laughing session. They are horrible petty tyrants when in a position of any power whatsoever. Failure at basic soldiering tasks like radio operation, map-reading, and first-aid procedures was legendary when I served. Blacks are brave in six-on-one situations; cool head under fire and self-sacrifice is largely something whites do. Did I mention lack of noise discipline?
I have seen the same from black solders and in civilian life alike. They let their emotions dictate to them. As you said PA. They will ruin anything they touch.
It sounds like a black soldier’s best chance at success is to be in a unit with all white men and lead by a white man. If he can handle that, he might do okay.
They do all right in NFL according to that formula, Lara. And any other professional sports at that.
Can’t resist:
” Failure at basic soldiering tasks like radio operation, map-reading, and first-aid procedures was legendary when I served.”
To be totally honest and candid, I cannot think of anyone whose temperament and entire being is more ill-suited for military life, particularly combat and general field operations, than yours truly. Anyone who knows me and would countenance the idea of me being a soldier would immediately break into hysterical laughter.
For that matter, so would I.
But I really don’t know whether or not there would be a racial element to that fact in my case.
You might be a brainy kind of guy who (if I imagine you correctly) might have a hard time getting the hang of a sequence of steps in performing a somewhat technical task for which there isn’t a “big picture” guiding principle as to why now-this, then-that kind of thing. That can be a proble for a certain kind of an overy intuitive type.
I think we all see just how much Affirmative Action has improved our country since its initiation. Are we all better off today than 40 years ago? NOT
It should be noted that Obama’s decision to put more women in combat was applauded roundly by the Chinese military and throughout most of the Islamic world. They’re all anticipating the biggest Affirmative Action of all: the whole of the US run from Peking!
There is no evidence black men make poor soldiers.
LOL how about every so-called army (i.e., armed mob) in sub-Saharan Africa?
I, for once, am sympathetic to the arguments made my the proponents of affirmative action in this case. If you have a bunch of black enlisted men and the presence of a few black officers makes them more likely to stand and fight amidst a hail of bullets rather than turn and run, then by all means….
I never understood the military’s newfound insistence upon affirmative action or how affirmative action was now supposedly vital to military success. I always figured that they sometimes needed to recruit people who are the same color as the people whom they are shooting and killing, so as to help infiltrate and suborn the enemy populations.
But these Pentagon briefs seem to suggest that the military needs affirmative action so as to display more minority officers, because without more minority officers, then the minority grunts will presumably turn their guns on their white overlords and start the revolution or something.
Perhaps we can afford that deadweight loss. Our huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and tactical systems allows us lots of room for error.
This is true of allowing women in the military, and into combat, as well. An all-male army wouldn’t have done any better in Iraq, because our problem there was not one of pushing our soldiers to their physical limits. We’re not, for at least 30 – 50 years, going to fight a war where it’s going to matter, unless we end up in a war in Mexico. (We won’t ever go to war again *with* Mexico, but that’s true only so long as there is *one* identifiable state known as Mexico. And that’s not certain, even on a 10-year timescale.)
“I never understood the military’s newfound insistence upon affirmative action”
The brass never wanted any of it. It was foisted on them by their civilian bosses in liberal administrations. My suspicion is that long-term, possibly since Truman integrated the armed forces by race, liberal politicians distrusted a white, conservative, Christian military and took incremental steps to prevent it from being used in a future coup against them.
But at this point today, many generals are products of the Clinton administration, and as liberal political creatures (generals are always an ideological reflection of their regime), fully on board with affirmative action.
I’m not sure accepting deadweight loss is such a good long term strategy for a country who wishes to remain a superpower.
“My suspicion is that long-term, possibly since Truman integrated the armed forces by race, liberal politicians distrusted a white, conservative, Christian military and took incremental steps to prevent it from being used in a future coup against them.”
@PA: Really? C’mon now. That sounds dangerously close to a John Birch Society manifesto, circa 1952. I mean, call it ‘partisanally plausible conjecture,’ but there are hundreds of alternate conjecture that would be equally or more plausible……
Incidentally, I have a bunch of NAM relatives who made careers in the Navy and Air Force; they did really well for themselves, using their service records as connections and liasions into the private sector executive and administrative careers. However, I’d admit, they’d probably be considered ‘outliers’ rather than ‘aggregate-pattern’ NAM enlistees.
Whatever; anything’s possible when configured by a determined and partisan mind! lol!
edit: “circa 1952″ should be “circa 1962″
I never understood the military’s newfound insistence upon affirmative action or how affirmative action was now supposedly vital to military success.
Yeah, just look at the embarassing lack of success of 100% homogenous forces like the Finnish Army, the RAF, the Japanese Army or the Swiss paramilitary.
MHP is exactly correct. And yes to you commenters who are obviously white or ignorant of the fact that blacks are mis-repsresented throughout because of the undermining of Affirmative Action. I know a Veteran in a Community College, He understand the importance of equality and enough of all this white and Asian privilege jive. Most of the best leaders in the military are blackHewould never follow anyone else unless it was an honorable white politician and statesman for all men, like our Vice President. Hehave no issues with race, in fact Ihe be a proud black man who married a proud German woman and has a proud bi-racial college graduated son and I want to help out all you nay-sayers out there who can’t see the truth in what MHP is saying. Having served in the military for 8 years, he know for a fact that the military rapes the ghettos and low income neighborhoods across the country for enlisted members, yet they merge with colleges and universities all over to get their college-going, privileged officers, yes, who are the same color as the priviliged men in the US, white, and every now and then you get a black man or a Asian man or woman (like Condalisa Rice) who again, is no different from other biggoted white privileged men. The officers of the military doesn’t know struggle or battle or surviving, like the enlisted men and women (backbone of the military) do. The lifestyle of officers in the military is exactly the same as the lifestyle of the slave-owners of the world. They aren’t even held to the same physical examinations or qualifications as enlisted members. To be frank, Officers in the military become our Corporate leaders of tomorrow based on some simple idea that they can lead. Totally not true. Enlisted men and women rock. Officers and Generals suck. Ask anyone in the military. Still remember, the Institutions of the world are still institutions, therefore the racism and abuse of power and neglect to be equal and fair to these “institutions” runs rampant within. Look at your Congressmen and Legislators, are they privileged? Aren’t their children privileged as well? Do their children serve in the military? Some of you knuckleheads should think before you speak or comment against MHP. She’s a gift to us all, stop hating. Better yet, stop hating because she’s black and because we have a black President in this coutry who won’t be swayed by the ignorance that has ran this country into the ground. WORD.
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