WEEK 10: Salon speaks out on Lavena Johnson and Michelle Obama

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/06/27/lavena_johnson/

Salon is a blog website dedicated to discussing issues of the treatment of women in this country, and Lavena Johnson's story wasn't the first time they had to deal with discrimination against a woman in the military. It seems like its up to internet blogs to do something about the discrimination we face in America because the media very often decides to stray away from these cases. Coincidence...I think not. The Lavena Johnson article written by Salon basically discusses the fact that all the evidence that they have found points away from what they ruled it: a suicide. All evidence points towards the fact that it was a rape, but no talk of that by media has yet to rise up. After this case surfaced, many more families of women in the military came out with similar stories. So the military not only lets their male soldiers rape and murder their female soldiers, but also provides cover up for them when they do it.


http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/12/michelle_obama/index.html

In this article, the author talks about the "momification" of Michelle Obama, and how is she is not getting a lot of credit where a lot of credit is due. A lot of people do not know that she is a very prominent lawyer, but throughout the campaign, she was just getting looked at as "Barack's wife," and when he won the race, focus went to things like "how she's going to be dressing," and "how she is going to raise the kids" in the White House. Never has the issue been brought up about her profession, or where she is going to start working now that they had to move into the White House from Illinois. Their family has to make a huge adjustment, not just her husband. While Barack is busy getting his team together and figuring out his plan of action, Michelle has to worry about finding herself a new place to work, putting the kids in schools, and all these other "motherly" responsibilities. She might even be able to serve on her own husband's team somehow, but people are ruling that out just because they are married. This is another excuse to hold back a woman in making advancements. Even though her husband is the President, what's to say she don't want to make some bread too?

WEEK 9: Government Sets Racial Trends

So throughout the extent of this blog, it is obvious that there is something fishy going on within the ranks of the armed forces; the thing is, I don't think it was created through themselves. I think this trend of racism going on amongst our soldiers stems from a trend our own government has set from the beginning of our country. If you look at the trends in racial issues in our country and compare them to those of the military, they are moving in the same direction, and are mighty similar.

If you take a look at the history of our country as it pertains to the issue of race, the U.S. has been on a very, very slow moving train towards racial justice. The military has been on this same train. If you look back when our country was first established, one of the first wars we had besides the Revolutionary War was the Civil War. At this time, slavery was coming to an end, but blacks still had no rights and were seen as less than human. The war was fought to free the slaves, but slaves were not allowed to fight alongside whites. Slaves made up their own regimes, and although they fought on the same side as whites, they were not allowed in the same company.

It is like the military was copying exactly what the government was doing, because blacks and whites didn't fight in the same companies until segregation was ended. As soon as the government abolished segregation, the military all of a sudden started to become integrated. Whites and blacks fought alongside each other, but a lot of white boys in the military could not come to rest with the fact that they would have to fight alongside a black man. Whites were taught that blacks were less than human which in turn brought about the belief that the life of a black man was worth less than theirs.

Since the beginning of the country, the government has been teaching our institutions racism. Although now it may not be as overt as it was before, it is still there. Racism was the law until they instituted the Civil Rights Act, so up until than, racism was the norm in our society. This means that since it was the law, every institution was going along with it, and the military was one of these institutions.

The military is one of those institutions that contains a lot of family ties. There are generations of families in the military, because it kind of becomes a culture in itself to be apart of it. When it becomes a culture in families to be a soldier, the culture of the older generations get passed down. So if a man who served in say World War I, when the country was still overtly a racist country, was taught by a racist government and military, he is going to pass these teachings down to his son, who will pass it down to his son, and so on. Next thing you know, you have a bunch of racist, 3rd or 4th generation soldiers serving our country now. They have a racist backing, and their beliefs are passed down through 3 generations, so they are probably really strong. This backing causes cases like Lavena Johnson's to happen. These racists have a belief that blacks don't belong in the same company or even fighting at all with them, and it causes them to committ heinous acts like those that were committed against Lavena Johnson.

Once the government starts changing this trend of racism towards a more equal society, all of the institutions that it controls will follow, and I think the military will be one of the first to follow. Make moves Obama, start the trend to a more equal America.

WEEK 8: RACISM TAKING OVER OUR TROOPS

The stories that Aiden Delgado tells are disturbing, horrific stories about what our military is actually doing over in Iraq. It seems that racism has taken over our armed forces overseas. Not just anyone, but men who were supposedly devout Christians are over in Iraq committing heinous acts you would only see a monster act out.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/133/133_think_racism_military.html

Delgado is a converted Buddhist who was a member of the 320th Military Police Company that helped to serve our country detaining POW's at the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. He wrote a bunch of articles called "The Sutras of Abu Ghraib" about what actually went on in the prison and all the atrocities that the government was hiding from the American public. When I say that this is an instance where it was evident that racism was taking over our military I meant it not in the exact sense as the Lavena Johnson story, but in a similar sense. The Johnson story is an example of how racism exists within our armed forces, and Aidan Delgado's stories are, to me, those same evils of racism that exist in our armed forces let out on our enemies. Chris Hedges who is the war correspondent for the New York Times said it best when talking about war saying "War forms its own culture...it also promotes killers and racists."

From the beginning of the invasion, it went from being a war on terror to being an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim war. Since the beginning of the time there has always had to be a good and an evil, and the war went from being a war against terrorists, to the U.S. vs. Iraq, to our "Christian" country vs. their Muslim country. Troops were and still are killing innocent civilians in Iraq, and degrading an entire country's population, just because they have this preconceived notion that all Muslims have the potential to be these "terrorists" that did damages to our country. The term "Hajjis" is a word commonly used among our troops to refer to any Muslim or someone of Middle Eastern descent. The term is used by Muslims to refer to someone who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, according to Delgado, but our troops have turned it into the new ethnic slur, with the same connotations as the n-word has. It seems to me that this "War on Terror" is just giving a lot of racist bigots a chance to unleash their racism on some people of color in a way that society makes feasible.

In Abu Ghraib, they housed civilians who were unarmed that just happened to be around the area when it was attacked by enemy forces. Not only did they house innocent civilians, but when they got unruly, the soldiers were allowed to use lethal force. Lethal force on civilians just because they were getting "unruly." So a little yelling is enough reason to murder someone in cold blood? Not only did they do this but they saw it as a macho thing on who could kill the most people? According to Delgago they saw it as a "macho" thing when they killed these people, and they posted pictures up of the murders they committed.

The idea that from the beginning of training, basic training, soldiers are already being taught anti-Arab chants...racist chants...is a testament to what really drives our soldiers in Iraq. Not the idea that we need to get revenge on those who committed those acts on that heinous day in September or anyone involved, but that ALL Muslims and ALL Iraqis are evil and had a part in what happened on 9/11. The hatred of a whole ethnicity because of something a few men did, sounds like racism to me.