Army Black recruitment is down by 41%

I do not think it is any secret that poverty is what has been the driven force behind Black men and women joining the Military. Very few Black folk join the Military to defend this country. Black folk have joined the Military specifically the Army in numbers greater than our population percentage for a couple of decades now. This trend has begun to change and a recent report shows that Black folk joining the army has declined since 2000 by 41%. The Marine Corps has seen a drop in Black recruits as well. The Military overall is hindered in their effort to keep track of the racial make up of its recruits based on a government policy that took affect Jan 1, 2003 that gave recruits and all federal workers the option to not identify their race, but the Army has still found a way to track the race of those who enlist. I am not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing but it should definitely be something we think about.

Black folk are the least likely to be in support of Bush war in Iraq in comparison to Whites and Latino’s. MSNBC is reporting that a July 2004 study of parents influence on young people of recruiting age found that “Black parents have more say in their child’s career decisions than is the case with white parents.” Also “Black Parents trust the Military less and have more moral objections to military service”. This I find interesting being that Black folk and Black parents in particular are accused of not being involved or guiding our children in the right direction but in this instance we appear to be more involved than white parents which has always been my argument against the bogus argument made by the haters of Black people in regards to personal responsibility and its affect on us versus its affect on others.

Army officials in an effort to make sense of the drop in Black folk joining the Army are saying that an improved economy is the reason behind the drop in Black folk joining the army. This is by far the most bogus explanation given as to why we are not joining the Army as we have in the past. Clearly if the economy was the reason why we are not joining the Army this would have been more obvious under the Clinton Administration that over saw a booming economy more so than Bush have as of yet.

To understand how many of us were actually joining the Army we need to only look at the fact that our recruitment has dropped by 41% and now the percentage at which we are joining the Army is closer to our population percentage of eligible Black folk for military service. The saddest point in all of this is that the poverty that drives so many of us to join the Military has not decreased, but escaping it by joining the Military has been taken off the table as an option by Bush and his war machine, thus Black unemployment will rise and all the things that go along with unemployment will rise. We can thank Bush once more for doing such a fine job.