first African American president, Barack Obama, said around the time of the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown that “America still has a problem with race.” Former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, echoed those sentiments in the following comments on August 4, 2016, at the National Urban League Conference.
I learned when I started to practice civil rights that anybody who is a person of color, frankly anybody who has been a religious minority, you kind of have to learn the ways of the majority as a survival instinct. You have to learn our kind in order to survive the ways of the majority. So often those of us in the majority, we are not forced to learn the ways of anybody else. And we can insulate or wall ourselves off, even without intending to. We have to force ourselves out of our comfort zone to learn about the realities of all the beautiful parts of this wonderful American tapestry (4).
Tim Kaine acknowledges the racial inequalities that African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities experience in America. He acknowledges the need to assimilate into the culture of the dominate majority in order to have a measure of success in the United States. Tim Kaine also acknowledges the superiority subculture thinking of the dominate majority group. This is often referred to as white privilege.
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To further illustrate the plight of black America, Civil rights activist and former school teacher Jane Elliot reported during an interview that “we [whites] have been taught and conditioned that we are superior (7).” Her comments do not, by any means, represent the entire Caucasian community anymore than former extremist, African American leader, Malcolm X, represented the entire black community. However, with the increased racial tension between the Caucasian and African American communities, she makes a valid point relating to the growing tension between the two groups.
G.I. Bill
The history of violence and oppression toward African Americans is vast and exhaustive. The topic is far too great to expound upon in a single book. However, considering the relative nature of the current plight of black America, it is worth noting a few highlights. Planet Earth’s greatest war to date, known as World War II, resulted in approximately thirty-four million deaths among forty-eight nations that were directly involved. The United States accounts for approximately four hundred and fifteen thousand of those deaths. World War II forever affected the Earth’s demographic make-up. After the war, the Soviet Union broke ranks with several nations such as Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and more.
America now has multiple, robust military installations in Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Belgium, and other nations. The Japanese Empire, on the other hand, was once a robust and feared world power. At one point, the Japanese empire conquered the entire Asian peninsula, brutally occupying countries such as Korea and China. Since World War II, it has not engaged in a single military conflict. Nevertheless, despite the glorious and multiple acts of immense honor and valor by American servicemen and women, an equally dishonorable culture was present in America’s military forces.
African Americans have fought in nearly every war and/or conflict in American history since their arrival to North America. The greatest of these conflicts were the Civil War and World War I and II. Up to World War II, African Americans were forced to fight in racially separate units. Unfortunately, even after fighting bravely in most of these great wars, black soldiers came home to face repulsive treatments from white American citizens, for whom they had just served in combat to protect.
Former University of California Los Angeles professor and historian Dr. Karen Brodkin reported that “during and after the war, there was an upsurge in white ←26 | 27→racist violence against black servicemen, in public schools, and by the Ku Klux Klan. It spread to California and New York. The number of lynchings rose during the war, and in 1943 there were anti-Black race riots in several large northern cities (2).”
Despite the dire circumstances related to the last epic world war, African Americans faced subsequent post-war challenges related to racism. Not only did they have to engage in dangerous combat situations, but they also faced them with less supplies and leadership support due to racial prejudice and intense discrimination. African Americans fought in combat arms against both the Germans and Japanese forces while also fighting for freedom in their own nation of birth. “Black GIs who served in the thoroughly segregated armed forces during World War II served under white officers. African American soldiers were given a disproportionate share of dishonorable discharges, which denied them veterans’ rights under the GI Bill (2).”
In addition, other minority groups such as Native American and Hispanic soldiers were permitted to serve in white units but not African Americans. In retrospect, one could clearly see that it was units of color that made inevitable contributions toward allied success and America’s ultimate victory. Many argue that without the aid of the Navajo language message encryption service in regard to communication lines, along with the aggressive and effective fighting of black units, victory would not have been attained so quickly. German forces were able to decode American messages of every language except the Navajo language. Likewise, African American units such as the Tuskegee Airmen, fought valiantly contributing to major air combat victories, including the thwarting of a close defeat of British forces by the Germans.
Despite the African Americans’ aid in America’s victory, they were still treated unfairly after the war. Naturally, social and economic adjustments occurred in post-war America as hundreds of thousands of service men returned home from combat and started to seek to reenter the labor force. Jobs once held by women and minorities were now being demanded back by the dominate white male majority. “Although there was a wartime labor shortage, black people were discriminated against when it came to well-paid defense industry jobs and housing. In 1946, white riots against African Americans occurred across the South and in Chicago and Philadelphia (2).”
President Roosevelt initiated several legislative acts to boost the U.S. economy during this transition. One of the more notable acts was the Service Members Reenlistment and Readjustment Act, which became known as the G.I. Bill. In recent years, after the 9-11 attacks, this act was changed to the Post 9-11 G.I. Bill.
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The G.I. Bill, initiated by President Roosevelt, provided low interest rates, zero-down home loans, tuition subsidies for higher education, vocational training and more, for active-duty personnel and veterans. These opportunities are often the necessary ingredients needed for upward economic advancement. Hundreds of thousands of Caucasian veterans took advantage of the program, which was unavailable for African Americans. It was this bill that African Americans needed to advance their communities out of poverty after decades of brutal oppression, as expressed in the following statements:
“Employment has the potential to improve health by providing income, increasing access to insurance, providing contact with coworkers that could increase social support, and providing opportunities for feeling a sense of accomplishment or control (5),” says social worker Dr. Flavio Marsiglia and sociologist Dr. Stephen Kulis. Unfortunately, African Americans were denied the riches of the G.I. Bill and their communities suffered greatly from it, still to this day. Anthropologist Dr. Karen Brodkin, stated that “theoretically they (G.I. Bill benefits), were available to all veterans; in practice women and black veterans did not get anywhere near their share (2).”
Altogether, both the economic and social
