Re: How to approach the troops?

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 3:18 PM -0400 4/6/03, bon moun wrote:
> The most remarkable and least commented upon aspect of war support
> in the US, IMO, has been race.  I have no doubt that the vast
> majority of white Americans support the war.  I don't even doubt, as
> one BBC report implied, that half might see it as the fulfillment of
> some Zionist-Christian millenarian prophecy from Revelations or
> Notsradamus or Zarathustra or whomever the hell is on television
> Sunday mornings now.  It's the so-called "racial disparity" in
> support for the war that is interesting.
>
> The "honk for peace" street corner vigils have become informal polls
> for us, and our responses from Black folk is overwhelming against
> war. African American truck drivers are one of our most reliable
> demographics.  The other thing we found is that the model car most
> likely to honk is an Echo.  I have no idea what that's about.
>
> One thing we are struggling with right now, and it promises to be
> fruitful so far, is concentrating on building an anti-imperialist
> pole within our local antiwar work - which fragmented without
> totally realizing it the day after the first tanks rolled north -
> that prioritizes work in communities of color, beginning with Black
> majority unions and HBCUs.

I just happened upon the following article on another mailing list:

*****   Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds

By FOX BUTTERFIELD

An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in
jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the
Justice Department.

The proportion of young black men who are incarcerated has been
rising in recent years, and this is the highest rate ever measured,
said Allen J. Beck, the chief prison demographer for the Bureau of
Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Justice Department.

By comparison, 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group are incarcerated.

The report found that the number of people in United States jails and
prisons exceeded 2 million for the first time last year, rising to
2,019,234....

Mr. Beck said that the 12 percent of black men in their 20's and
early 30's in jail or prison was "a very dramatic number, very
significant."

That is just the rate on a given day, Mr. Beck said. Over the course
of a lifetime, the rates are much higher, he said. The Bureau of
Justice Statistics has calculated that 28 percent of black men will
be sent to jail or prison in their lifetime.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/07/national/07PRIS.html>   *****

This is a crime against humanity, which adds to the urgency of
building an anti-imperialist pole and prioritizing work in
communities of color.  It's also a gigantic obstacle in front of us,
too -- young black men who could have been taking over the streets
are locked up already!!!
--
Yoshie

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