African-Americans are 12 percent of the general population but make up 21 percent of military personnel and 30 percent of Army enlistees. Blacks made up 23 percent of the troops sent to the 1991 Gulf War. The Department of Defense attempted to downplay those disproportionate percentages, reporting that African-Americans were more likely to be in administrative and support jobs and therefore were less likely than white soldiers to be killed on the front lines. White soldiers made up 71 percent of the troops in the 1991 Gulf War but suffered 76 percent of the deaths. That ignores why African-Americans go into the service in the first place. Many of them are refugees from a job and collegiate environment that is disproportionately hostile to them. President Bush during the Iraq War stoked the hostility by filing a brief to the Supreme Court opposing the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. That alone is enough to make African-Americans wonder whether they are about to relive bad history. Time after time, war after war, African-Americans fought and died for the nation's agenda only to see the nation ignore or reject their issues. Black folks fought in the Revolution and slavery lasted nearly another century. Black soldiers were promised land after the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 and never got it.
In the Civil War, African-Americans, then 14 percent of the population, were 20 percent of the Union casualties. Yet segregation and second-class opportunities were the rule for almost another century. Black folks fought in World War I in the hopes of winning full citizenship. They were rewarded with white race riots and pure hatred from the government. Participation in World War II and Korea further emboldened African-Americans to protest for desegregation in the military, public accommodations, school desegregation, and voting rights.
But Americans took so long to become disgusted with the lynching's and disenfranchisement of the '40s, '50s, and early '60s that the hypocrisy could not be contained. There was Martin Luther King Jr's 1968 lament ''for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam.'' There was Muhammad Ali's ''I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong'' because, as he said, ''no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.'' There were the protest from blacks that resulted in nothing but more hatred from the white establishment. Today during two wars blacks are still last hire first fire ( black unemployment at 16.5% in some area 22%) while fighting and dying in two wars! Arizona Governor past a bill that help to further disrespect minority and enforce "Racial Profiling"! Texas is changing history to reflect a more conservative past and other words LIE ABOUT AMERICAN PAST! Black children as young as 7 are being burn and shot to death by white police officer. Black children in New York walking home from school are subject to 'stop&frisk made to take off their shoes and some are made to drop their trousers in view of the public. Black senior citizen as old as 92 shot to death in a raid of the wrong house handcuff and allowed to died! 41 bullet murder a unarmed innocent black man Mr. Diallo!UNARMED and innocent Sean Bell murder by cops in a hail of 50 bullets. Four black American in Philly beaten like dogs on video and the white cop after finding they where the wrong black. Where back to work found NOT GUILTY! White cops shot a two year old black child's hand off and killed the mother while the mother's hands where up in the air as order!The white cop just started firing after hearing other cops shooting in the backyard (they where killing the dog)!The person the cops where looking for was not there! Cops found NOT GUILTY!Arresting's cops disrespect of American citizen have evolve from "Stop put your in the air to " get on the ground then a two hundred plus pound cop would put their knee on the American citizen head,back or neck! Sometime holding a conversation with the American citizen or other cops present! They do this so if the American citizen try's to adjust to breath they can justify beating or kicking or tasering or murdering! So while black are fighting and dying in two wars. Our country is telling them their life here in America is WORTHLESS!
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