08 March 2005

Blacks and the Army

Apparently blacks and women are staying away from the Army because of Iraq. Bane has more comments on the issue; I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what he has to say, but it's worth reading.

Anyway, the whole issue reminds me of election season. I was channel surfing down at work during some slow time, and happened to land on BET (Black Entertainment Television). Now, I'm not black, and I don't generally identify with the music or television they have on the station, so I pretty much never watch it, but they had an advert on against President Bush, so I watched it.

This advert claimed that "The way the war is going, our fourteen year olds will be fighting in Iraq by the end of the year." One of the assertions of right wingers is that black leaders and democratic leaders have a well documented history of leading blacks in a way that's not always as beneficial to the black populace as it is to the "civil rights" leaders and the democratic politicians. While I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this, I have to admit a great deal of skepticism when an advert targeted directly at blacks (I only ever saw it on the BET, and I watch more television than I probably should) feeds them such obviously false information.

Anyway, you make of these things what you will. As far as I'm concerned, though, if race doesn't matter, then race doesn't matter. I care far more about raw recruiting numbers than I do about how those numbers break down along racial lines.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Race matters, anyone who tells you different is a lier. I KNOW that I have racest thoughts sometimes, I KNOW that I have homophobic thoughts sometimes, as far as women, I know that I am stronger, so we will just leave it at that...(smile it could be funny...) Do I think that adverts are targeted, hell yes. The bigger question is how are YOU looking at life? How are YOU dealing with everyday life and still trying to "love your neighbor" Honnestly, sometimes I just want to hit many neighbors with lots of sticks, but than again, I guess I am not all that "loving" of a guy...

M@

3:13 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home