Blacks: Too Much of the Burden?

By Julie Johnson/ Washington

Simple arithmetic, if nothing else, gives African Americans a special stake in Operation Desert Storm: they make up 12% of the U.S. population, but represent nearly 25% of the fighting forces in the Persian Gulf. When the air war finally shifts to a grinding ground confrontation, therefore, they are likely to spill a disproportionate amount of blood onto the desert sands. That has only fueled uneasiness among those blacks who feel that their friends and loved ones are being asked to do more than their fair share of dying for a nation that gives them less than their share of economic and social opportunities. According to last week's TIME/CNN poll taken by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 49% of all blacks supported involvement in the war, compared with 77% of whites.

Pentagon officials deny that the military is exploiting blacks and insist that the disproportionate numbers are the random result of America's decision in 1973 to replace the draft with an all-volunteer force. They also point to the example of Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, whose rise to the top ranks of the U.S. military stands as a striking illustration of the career opportunities that have long attracted African Americans into the armed forces. Nor is Powell alone at the top: 26 of the Army's 407 generals are black.

While they take pride in the accomplishments of soldiers like Powell, many black activists are openly voicing their opposition to Desert Storm. "It is not anybody's war to fight, but most definitely it's not African America's war to fight," says Representative Maxine Waters of California, who warns black soldiers that they may return to a country where the President is unwilling to "take some affirmative steps to make sure you have a job or an education." Waters joined the majority of black Democrats in Congress in voting against the Jan. 12 resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

Blacks leading the antiwar effort argue that the armed services have benefited from an inadvertent "poverty draft." Says Damu Smith, of the National African-American Network Against U.S. Intervention in the Gulf: "Young African Americans have been compelled to go into the military because of the lack of opportunity in the civilian sector." Moreover, says civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry, blacks keenly sense the irony of being asked to defend freedom in Kuwait by the same President who vetoed the 1990 civil rights bill.

African-American ambivalence about military service dates back to the Revolutionary War, when blacks enthusiastically fought for independence in the hope that their patriotic fervor would prove them worthy of freedom and citizenship. In this century, while blacks were generally supportive of both world wars, their discontent erupted publicly during Vietnam, when Martin Luther King Jr. and others opposed an unfair draft that conscripted the disadvantaged while allowing many sons of the middle class to escape military service. Those divided loyalties continue to tug at blacks today and will add to the burden of unfinished business awaiting the homecoming soldiers.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 1,000 American adults taken for TIME/CNN on Jan. 24 by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Sampling error is plus or minus 3%. "Not sures" omitted.

An additional sampling of blacks was taken to bring the total to 200

CAPTION: Do you think the U.S. was right to have become involved in this conflict with Iraq?

Do you have a family member who is in the military forces stationed in the Middle East?