Michael Kelly: African-American Casualties
Thanks Connie, and Roger that on not stopping with "Bloods."
The 1% difference between Blacks as casualties and Blacks as a part of
society is very small by any measure. And, much of it can be attributed to
something Wallace Terry and others never seem to acknowledge, and that
is the fact that many Blacks were very patriotic and voluntarily enlisted in
the military specifically for the Infantry.
That was particularly true at the start of the war when Army infantry (and
particularly airborne) units where comprised of Black enlistees far above their
% of the population, though less so toward it's end, I would say.
But given the nature of society at the time; that the long term effects of
racism and other factors had condemned a very disproportionate number
of Blacks to the lower economic rungs of society with the military being
one of the few perceived escape routes from that lower shelf, the amazing
thing to me is that the disparity between those percentages isn't much
greater!
If in fact at one point Blacks were 23% of the dead, yet in the end were
only 12.5% of the dead, then that raises some interesting questions and
observations.
For one thing, our society and the war should be viewed in the long term,
I think, and it speaks volumes about a society's health and its compassion
if it was true a minority was dying disproportionately during part of a war,
and that society acted to correct the imbalance and succeeded by its end.
Can we ignore that noble act?
On the other hand, how was that imbalance corrected (or should it have
been corrected if the playing field was otherwise level)? For a minority's
casualty rate to have been reduced by more than half over an 8 year period,
that could only have been accomplished if troops other than Black
Americans were pushed to the fore of combat in disproportion to their
own numbers! In other words, for at least part of the war, the scales
must have been dramatically tilted to ensure Black Americans from
combat. It is otherwise a mathematical impossibility, I think.
If you look at the war only as a slice of one of those years when Non-Blacks
were dying at disproportionate rates, then it would appear that it was the
majority that was being discriminated against! Ain't that a bitch?
The really surprising thing to me in the data I compiled was that Black
Draftees only made up 13.5% of all Draftee deaths. That one blows my
mind and throws the long accepted myth that Blacks were drafted
inordinately during our war into some disarray. Not sure how that can
be explained...
I'm puzzled by the stat you cite putting the total participation of Blacks in
the active duty military at 9.9 percent. I have official DOD stats that put it
at 15% in 1971, a point in time when Black participation was likely at its
lowest.
My experience and other things I've read have told me that Blacks were
nearly 20% of the military during the early years of the war. It's also true
that only a few years ago, Blacks were 33% of the all volunteer Army and
yet today are near 30% of it!
What would would historians be saying today if the Gulf War had been a
blood bath for Americans? 30% of the dead would have been Black
Americans and imagine how that would be interpreted? On its face, one
could conclude that the US was more racist in the 90's that during the 60's,
but I think it's fair to say that was not at all the case.
Something else was going on in the period of the Gulf war, and that
something else, whatever it was, was also at work during the Vietnam War
to one degree or another; which is my way of saying one has to be very
careful about attributing very small statistical variances to racism alone.
In any case, the 9.9 % participation figure you cite really seems odd given
the fact it was apparently much higher in 1971, a time when one would have
to otherwise surmise that Black participation would be approaching its
lowest point. Wallace Terry even says 14% of the military was Black during
the War years. So, I'd say something is wrong with that figure or my
understanding of it.