Tim Blair

What the Guardian column doesn't say is that a higher proportion of combat troops are white, while a higher proportion of support and administrative personnel are black. We Americans respect and honor all of our armed forces, but people who try to smear America with this tired old race card should know that we're onto them now.

According to what Gary Younge actually wrote, he never made either of those two points...

Keep making them up, Tim!

"The group most overrepresented in the military is... black women"

Hang on - given that there are roughly equal numbers of black women and black men in the population at large (probably slightly more women), this would have to mean that there are more black women than black men in the military! I find this hard to believe.

Hey Soldierboy,

I just read Younge's stupid, inane anti-intellectual tripe of an article in the Grauniad and it says exactly what Tim's post claimed it said.

It is a truth now universally acknowledged by any but a few silly lefties that anyone who tars anyone with the epithet "racist" has already lost the argument. Mr Younge is one of those silly lefties.

1) The US military integrated a decade before the forced integration of public education in the American South.

2) Poor minorities often join the US military because it is perceived as an equal-opportunity vehicle to obtain an education and move from a stagnant environment.

To establish some ethos, here, I actually _am_ a young minority in the US military.

Toryhere provides us with a gentle oxymoron with his term "silly lefties".

On the other hand Mr. Younge provides us with a perfect example of leftist criticism where you are damned if you do OR don't if you are American, English or Australian. Naturally you are beyond reproach if you are an Al-Quaeda loving Saddamite Arab living in France who spends his time drug dealing, raping anything female without a veil and pillaging the bourgoisie establishment.

Less than a fifth of the ethnic minorities in Britain are proportionally represented in the armed forces.

That's OK, the rest have all the guns.

Wait just a cotton picking minute! "Silly lefty" is not an oxymoron, is it? At least not as you're using it.

Long time since I studied grammar, but isn't an oxymoron meant to be an expression which contains apparently contradictory ideas?

Like frinstance "American Intelligence" and "smart bomb" and stuff like that.

Any grammarians out there who'd like to cast some light on this?

"Pedantic Blog Comment"?

Tautology, redundancy or pleonasm.

Take your pick.

When you don't like it, it's "pedantry". When the shit's flying the other way, it's "inaccuracy" or "illiteracy" or "ignorance". Scholar is correct.

pooh has it.

This site still seems to be having trouble with its tauts and oxys.

"This site seems to be having trouble ... " Any rhetoricians out there got a name for the figure "toto pro pars"?

Sorry, "The", I quoted you inaccurately. Last post should have read "This site [...] seems to be having trouble ..."

Where does Younge say the US Army is racist ?

He claims the british are : "The British army has a history of racism that would make the Metropolitan police blush"

But though he often mentions race and the US army he never slanders them on racial grounds. As Tim quoted the US military is over-reliant on minorities and the poor but thats been a long standing situation with the army offering those who are down (and see no help from government) a way up.
Thats not racism. Not against whites, not against anybody.

But thats less fun, keeping to the truth eh tim ?

And yes "Silly left" isnt an oxymoron, but these days "honest right" is becoming one...

well, with minorities making up some 30% of the us population (hispanics roughly 12.6, blacks 12.3, asians 4-ish) i don't think that the military being 37% minority is any big deal. it is, in fact , a model of integration.

DrShrink,

I don't believe Tim's point is about the state of race affairs in the US or British military but rather about Gary Younge's blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy.

Younge tells two egregious lies in his first column. The first being that blacks were systematically denied their right to vote in Florida in the 2000 election, the other that blacks were not allowed to vote in the US until twenty years after Harry Truman's civil rights report. These statements are untrue. So, no, he doesn't libel the US military; instead he libels the citizens of the state of Florida and citizens of the US.

And the only terror that black people really have to worry about in the United States today is black crime; no matter what hyperbole Maya Angelou spews.

Oh, and another thing, if you do not want to be sent overseas to fight in a war it is not a good idea to join the professional military. Just a thought.

Younge never said that the US military is racist just like Rush Limbaugh never said Bill Clinton was the worst president ever.

They just hinted at it really, really strongly.

D2D
"I don't believe Tim's point is about the state of race affairs in the US or British military"

Then why are tims only words about race and the military. Why are the only examples he cites about race and the military. Why is his post titled "Guardian Paradox" if its NOT about a claimed contradiction.

Come on tim, get your jounalism in gear and start worrying about the truth again. Seems to have gone sadly missing from your site.

But then honesty's not a useful word for the right wing anymore is it ?

"poor, and therefore non-white"

Wow. Want to play Spot the Racist?

The NBA is also overreliant on minorities. Those racist bastards. Hey LaBron! Forget about those endorsement contracts, we're gonna get a white boy for that spot on the roster. How about the military? There still looking for a few good (black) men.

DrShrink,

The contradiction is the point. Younge's articles are about race and the military. Even Younge's subhead in the first article reads,

"Most African-Americans didn't support the war on Iraq - with good reason. But they ended up fighting it"

I have a news flash for Younge, most African-Americans experienced the war from the television set in the comfort of their living room. Sheesh.

and then there's this bit of Youngeian sophistry,

" But while they were the least likely to support these wars, since Korea they have been the most likely to end up fighting them. In fact, the American military is more reliant on the poor, and therefore non-whites, than ever before - pushed by poverty and pulled by the promise of learning a trade. In 1973 23% of the military was from racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%. The demographic group most overrepresented in the military is the same one that polls show have least enthusiasm for the conflict - black women."

Younge leads us to believe that these folks are all in combat units. It is not so. Also black military casualties have never been greater than the black percentage of the US population. In the Second World War it was miniscule compared to white casualties no matter what Hollywood says, and that was due to racism by a democratic administration and congress.

And I have never really heard of anyone being, especially soldiers, sailors, and anyone sane, being enthusiastic about war. Not opposed to a war, yes, enthusiastic about a war, no, not hardly.

Younge sounds like a leftist Goldilocks who can't decide how many is just right. He can't have it both ways.

And I repeat, if you are opposed to war in general do not join the all-volunteer military. It is not supposed to be a jobs program for anyone, black or white. The military's job is to break things and kill people in defense of the United States and her citizens. Vocational training it is not.

Gary Younge is a moron. The Guardian continues to underwhelm with its grasp of elemental logic. If 37 percent of the US armed forces are minorities, then 63 percent are white.

That means that the vast majority of the people who fought the war were white, regardless of Gary Younge's attempt to present the figures as otherwise.

I don't see anything "dishonest" about Tim's choice to highlight Younge's stupidity and self-contradictory statements. Younge is obviously a big fat hypocrite who looks for a chance to blame the established institutions of the West no matter what, even if he contradicts his own positions.

From 1973 to 2000, the percentage of minorities in the U.S. population increased. In particular, there are many more Hispanics in the total population -- about 13 percent -- and more Hispanics in the military.

Black women make up nearly half of the female ranks; women are about 12 percent of personnel. As others have said, blacks disproportionately serve in support positions. Hispanics disproportionately choose combat units.

I'd suggest that minorities who serve in the military support the miltary, whatever the opinions of those who don't. After all, they enlist. Blacks are considerably more likely to re-enlist. I'm not sure about Hispanics.

Here in San Jose, quite a few Vietnamese-American kids go into the military, though they're more likely to go in as officers. They do very well in getting appointments to the U.S. Air Force Academy.

"Silly lefty" is indeed a tautologous term. In fact I was tempted to point out that fact when in my original post.

The main point I was making however, is that all this focus on "race" by lefties is a complte logical cul de sac. If all the members of the US armed forces were white it wouldn't matter, as long as there is no law preventing non-whites from joining those forces. Just because you are a member of a certain "race" you don't represent that "race". That is why it stupid to try and enforce quotas or affirmative action. You have to let nature take its course. The fact is that blacks are often better at certain types of sport. Yet none of us would like to see a quota set to give whites a better chance at being the top stars in those sports, because we know that the quality of the top stars as a group would be diminished and the sport becaome less interesting. It is the same with any other endeavour. Sometimes that will appear unjust. But such an appearance is only superficial, as on deeper reflection we all realise that nature does not distribute her favours evenly. If she did it would be a very tedious world.

I disagree with the Colon Powell part. The UK has already had a non white as prime minister.

have the least enthusiasm for the conflict - black women

Yeah, they'd rather be back at home beating up the black men.

"It would be almost another 20 years before black Americans would be assured of the right to vote. Tied to a country by geography and nationality, yet denied full allegiance to it by politics and history, African-Americans have developed a habit of looking askance when their leaders reach for their gun in the name of the greater good."

"But while they were the least likely to support these wars, since Korea they have been the most likely to end up fighting them. In fact, the American military is more reliant on the poor, and therefore non-whites, than ever before - pushed by poverty and pulled by the promise of learning a trade. In 1973 23% of the military was from racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%. The demographic group most overrepresented in the military is the same one that polls show have least enthusiasm for the conflict - black women."

Anyone else notice the rhetorical sleight-of-hand here? In the entire essay he is focusing on blacks and then, when he needs to give specific stats to support the crux of his argument, he subtley shifts from speaking of blacks to replacing them with the pronoun "they" and from "they" to "racial minorities"--e.g., in the following statement "racial minorities made up 37% of US military in 1973."

What he wants you to think is that blacks did a disproportionate amount of the fighting and dying in Vietnam. But he only implies it because he can't say it and he can't say it because it isn't true. As infantrymen blacks were under-represnted in the Vietnam war(Ask Charles Rangel--Democratic Representative from NY). Poor and working class whites bore the disproprtionate burden of dying in Vietnam. But this means less fun, of course, for Younge.

Characteristically he fudges the guts and then finishes the paragraph talking about blacks again--this time black women.

This is the kind of crap they throw at you in college with the direction: Critique the author's reasoning.

What I object to is Younge's implicit assumption that all members of an ethnic group must share the same opinions.

"The demographic group most overrepresented in the military is the same one that polls show have least enthusiasm for the conflict - black women."

Does it really not occur to him that some black women might support the war while others be against it? And, if this does occur to him, doesn't he realise that that sentence of his has no significance whatsoever?

"'poor, and therefore non-white'

Wow. Want to play Spot the Racist?"

This is also simply untrue. In absolute numbers, there are more poor whites than poor minorities in the U.S. The rising population of Hispanic Americans may change this, but poor whites have always been more numerous than poor blacks (the main focus of Younge's article).

"In 1973 23% of the military was from racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%."

In 1973 there was a DRAFT imposed on young men. In 2000 the US Military were all volunteers. Apples & oranges, even before taking into account the demographic shifts in the US during those 27 years.

US military academies (training grounds for much of the career-long officer corps) are heavily integrated, both among the cadets and the faculty. The academies (West Point for the Army, etc.) offer a high-caliber, free university education ... West Point grads have a very successful track record in e.g. corporate executive roles when they retire from active military duty.

Similarly, among enlisted service men and women, "learning a trade" doesn't come close to doing justice to the value of the education and training they receive, especially those who stay in for the full 20+ years. Besides military-related training (often in fields that pay well in the civilian economy), they are also eligible for tuition and book reimbursement for studies towards a Bachelor's degree ... many finish their degrees doing parttime work while in uniform. If they stay the 20 years, they have a retirement pension plus retiree medical benefits plus the training they were given, plus in many cases a college degree as well.

"push and pull" indeed. I was "pushed" into my role in high tech because I do like to eat and to have a place to stay & figured my daughter did too ... were the 70 hr weeks I worked in Silicon Valley a form of sexism on those grounds?

The Guardian's article is standard pc pablum. Blair is right to call them on it.