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.