By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | May 9, 2007
MILITARY SOCIOLOGIST David R. Segal was asked Monday over the telephone what he hears in his surveys of soldiers. He quoted an African-American veteran of the Iraq invasion and occupation: "This is not a black people's war. This is not a poor people's war. This is an oilman's war."
Gregory Black, a retired Navy diver who last year started the website BlackMilitaryWorld.com, said that quote sums up what he too hears from African-American veterans of Iraq.
"African-Americans detest this war," Black said yesterday in a phone interview. "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. African-Americans saw this at the beginning of the war and now the rest of the country has figured it out. It's not benefiting us in the least."(more)
1 comment:
Yes, just like most other American demographic groups, many of us get that the Iraq war is not our war. The war is a distraction from things we should be discussing in the black community: Katrina (still a mess), the education/income gap, boycotting gangster rap, exorcising homophobia from the black church, environmental racism, not falling prey to poorly disguised racism cloaked as anti-immigration sentiments, allowing civility rather than shrewish political polarity to guide the public discourse.
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