[Reader-list] Race War: Why is the Peace Movement so White? Race War: Why is the Peace Movement so White? Race War: Why is the Peace Movement so White?

[VinitaNYC at aol.com]

this article examines the 'new position' of black-americans since 9/11 (as the "new model minority?") 
vinita

Race War: Why is the Peace Movement so White?
By Farai Chideya 
  
<http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/bw20030219war.asp>

It was hiding in plain sight, next to the black and white
pictures of my aunts and uncles, three of the latter four
posed in military uniform. I'd sat in my grandparents' den
hundreds of times, eating barbecue and birthday cake, and never noticed the Bronze Star until a couple of years ago. It
belonged to my oldest uncle. He had made the military a career, and received it for service in Vietnam about the time I was conceived, carried, and born.

Military service twines through my family like a strand of
our DNA. As little more than a child, one of my great-great
grandfathers was a Civil War waterboy. Two great uncles,
brothers, fought in World Wars I and II respectively. And then my own uncles risked their lives in war in South East Asia, and used the military as a path for advancement.

My family's long military history makes us ordinary black
folks. African Americans make up over twenty-five percent of
the U.S. Armed Forces, and are the most likely to enroll of
any racial or ethnic group. And in return, as so many have
said so often, black veterans get the privilege of coming
home to fight for their rights in America.

Now, we're on the cusp of another war. Secretary of State
Colin Powell, himself a paragon of black military success,
has repeatedly tried to make the case that Iraq is a direct
threat to the United States. But our European allies, who lie far closer to the admittedly dangerous regime, say there is no direct threat justifying war. Instead, our government has devised a new standard of "pre-emptive strikes," which most nations view as a violation of international law.

The extraordinary service African Americans have rendered
should embolden our community to speak up when democracy is
threatened and military action unjustified. Instead most of
us are silent. African Americans have a clear stake in Iraq's oil, and not just because Condoleeza Rice, a member of
Chevron's board of directors, has an oil tanker named after her. The focus on the war has allowed the Bush Administration to cut anti-poverty programs and include anti-privacy provisions in the Patriot Act that mirror the 60s-era COINTELPRO. All this is occurring during the worst economy in a decade---and you know who hits the unemployment lines first.

Says Angel Kyodo Williams, author of Being Black "September
11 gave black folks for the first time an opportunity to
step into the `we are one, the we are united' [rhetoric]. To
have to give that up is painful. There is this belief that,
`Wow, we are being seen as Americans for the first time.' 

Who wants to resist, and be relegated to that ostracized place
again? You saw what happened to [Georgia Congresswoman]
Cynthia McKinney," who was defeated after making bold denunciations of the Bush administration.

It's seductive to think that the black struggle for democracy and human rights is over, or that Iraq has nothing to do with it. Yet some African Americans--particularly from the faith, academic, and activist communities--are making the case that neither is true. "Usually black people are in the front of the war lines and the back of the peace lines," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke at the massive October 26
peace rally in the nation's capitol. "It reflects a cultural
split. We engage in high-risk activities to show our love for
our country. But Dr. King opposed the war in Vietnam." Rev.
Jackson says that people of color fare poorly in "the
priorities of the Bush Administration. They did not sign Kyoto
[the environmental accord], or send Colin Powell to the World
Conference Against Racism." At New York City's installment of
the global peace rally on September 15, Black luminaries
and activists from Angela Davis, to Harry Belafonte, to Danny
Glover were present, as was Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

On the opposite side, two of the most strident voices
calling for war belong to black folks. Jill Nelson, whose fourth book, the novel Sexual Healing, will be published in June, argues that the President is using Powell and Condoleezza Rice "to sell the war to people of color, and people in general." In response, she's organizing a group of black women against the proposed war. "You have to take a stand. It's not like only the people who are watching the news are going to be blown up. You can advocate your opinion via email on sites like Move On or Answer. You can hand out leaflets and go to demonstrations. From Vietnam to the Civil Rights Movement, this is how democracy works."

My own conflicts about advocating for peace are closer to
home. I've had to work to separate my disagreements with the
President's policies from my pride in my family's military
service, and my own relief and guilt that I have never had to serve. To center myself, I went to a meditation practice
Williams organized for people of color. Gathered in a spare
white room in Brooklyn, silent except for the faint sound of
breathing, we followed a general zazen (sitting) with a
meditation for peace.

Williams, whose best friend was deployed to the Gulf War
(he joined the Marines when he lacked the money for college), believes that spiritual practice enriches social justice."No matter what faith tradition we belong to, we have to create space for ourselves to retreat, to just be still, to have small pockets of peace. We are in a daily environment that is aggressive, that assaults us with negative information. The sense of what I can do [for justice] comes up out of that[peace]."