[WashPost] Many Blacks Have Doubts. Here's Why By Jonetta Rose Barras Sunday, October 28, 2001; Page B03
On Oct. 16, more than 200 people packed the moot court at Howard University's School of Law for a "black community national dialogue" on war, terrorism and peace. The participants had plenty to say about the military campaign in Afghanistan -- its antecedents and posthumous ramifications -- and much of it was critical.
The views expressed that night echoed those I have heard many times since the Sept. 11 attacks -- at receptions, dinner parties and public meetings, during interviews, and from listeners to my weekly talk show on WPFW-FM radio. They confirmed what I had already concluded: that a sizable portion of the African American population has doubts about the wisdom of this war. What I hear may be reflective of that larger population.
Sure, most national polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of Americans stand with President Bush. But beneath the warm glow is this cold reality: More blacks than whites question or object to the so-called war on terrorism. According to a poll conducted earlier this month by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 20 percent of African Americans surveyed -- compared with 6 percent of whites -- do not support the president's military assault; another 17 percent of blacks -- but only 11 percent of whites -- are undecided.
What's the reason for this difference?
Dissenting blacks intersect with the larger, predominantly white anti-war movement, but their evaluation of the merits of the assault is often quite different.The views of many are coloredby racial, economic and political injustice, and a history rife with betrayals and lies that can be neither casually discarded nor formally buried. "We've been here before; we understand where we are in history," says University of Maryland professor Ron Walters, noting that opposition or concerns do not mean they are unpatriotic.
Patriotism is a complicated notion that resonates differently among blacks, whose ancestors didn't enjoy the same freedoms or privileges as past generations of whites. As Walters explains it: "White patriotism is a patriotism of ownership of the state. Black patriotism is one of ambivalence; it is patriotism that has suffered."
Sifting through my radio calls, black-oriented Web sites, my reporting on the question, and the comments made at Howard and elsewhere, what's clear to me is that many blacks have the following concerns: a general distrust of the government and Bush; fear that heightened powers awarded to Attorney General John Ashcroft will metastasize with deadly results for blacks; worries that a sustained ground offensive will mean large numbers of black casualties; questions about Bush's overly broad definition of "terrorism" and "terrorist"; and a general belief that this country's foreign policy is biased, resulting in racist actions.
"The dirt done at home is reflective of the dirt done abroad," asserts the Rev. Graylan Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in the District.
Some of my radio listeners have said much the same. "The historical discussion is critical to what is going on," said one caller, named Anthony. "The Bush administration wants to set aside the Kyoto, the ABM treaties; his people walked out of the race conference [in Durban, South Africa] . . . . You can't ignore this stuff."
Understandably, black dissidents lay their litany of domestic grievances like a transparency over any debate about the war's validity. Many say they cannot pledge allegiance to a commander in chief who only a few months ago aided and abetted in what they believe was the stealing of the presidential election while endorsing the disqualification of thousands of votes cast by black Floridians. "I'm sorry people died. But I can't get upset when someone hijacks a plane and someone has hijacked the goddamn government," says Mary, another listener.
Sylvia Hill, a criminal justice professor at the University of the District of Columbia, points to legislation pushed by the Justice Department and signed into law by Bush on Friday, that provides for expanded wiretapping, arrest and detention of persons simply for being identified as a "possible" terrorist. "Today it may be an abuse of the rights of people who look Middle Eastern. But it will sooner or later come back to any group," that can be used to further the aims of those engaged in enemy-making, says Hill. Blacks well remember the tactics of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, including the illegal surveillance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the civil rights movement.
They remember, too, the disproportionate numbers of blacks who died in the Vietnam War. Many African Americans fear that any ground battle in Afghanistan will result in the same. They expect that, as in the past, when the Lone Ranger says "we," it will be Tonto who ends up on the front line.
>From my listening post, it seems the greatest source of consternation
for many dissenting African Americans is the Bush administration's
unwieldy definition of terrorism. "What do they mean by terrorist?"
Carlton, one of my listeners, asked recently. He said he thinks that
to accept that federal ascription is to forever taint people --
Geronimo, Nat Turner, Nelson Mandela -- who fought valiantly, using
whatever resources at their disposal, to free their people from the
shackles of colonialism and racism. "One man's terrorist is another
man's freedom fighter," Carlton said, invoking that much-repeated
phrase.
Equally important, say other black dissidents, is that by using Bush's definition, the United States could end up hunting itself: "When our government provides the weapons and training to the Guatemalan military, when you go to Angola and see children with no limbs walking in fields with land mines marked 'Made in the USA,' that is terrorism," argues international human rights and peace activist Damu Smith. "When the [U.S.] government provides assistance to the Israeli government and that government carries out violence in a systematic way, those acts by that Israeli government are acts of terrorism."
Context is critical. Many blacks are bothered by the fact that several of the countries involved in America's anti-terrorist coalition -- Pakistan, India and Uzbekistan -- receive financial support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Their participation has been bought using promises of debt restructuring and economic assistance. Many also say that on the surface this appears to be a war to annihilate terrorists, but that it's generally about market economics, and more specifically about oil; it's always about oil when America goes dancing in the Middle East.
Many dissenting African Americans say they will not blindly hoist the flag and sing "God Bless America" when they know the country hides its bloody hands in its cash-filled pockets. They want to uproot the lies, they say. And because there is a burgeoning Muslim population among African Americans, they want someone to speak up for Palestinians.
"Israel has created an apartheid system out of its victim status," one black senior-level District official told me. "The Palestinians have become the n-words of the Middle East."
For many blacks, the Palestinian fight is akin to the lost battle of native Americans, relegated to concentration camps called reservations. It is the Southern civil rights movement, the racism conference and the demand for reparations. There is no line of demarcation. For them, there is only one continuous cultural narrative written by poor and politically repressed people everywhere.
This identification with the Palestinians extends one step further to Osama bin Laden's demand for the United States to withdraw its military from Saudi Arabia, which is considered an Islamic holy land. Many blacks learned of Islam through a somewhat Americanized version, practiced by then-Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. When Malcolm X, the Nation's fiery spokesman, broke with the sect after a visit to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, many blacks also embraced the more universal form of Islam. While they do not endorse the cosmogony espoused by bin Laden and his Taliban enablers, African Americans most certainly understand blasphemy.
They also understand that, as it is written in Ecclesiastes, there is an appointed time for everything: This, they say, is the time for truth and justice. They say the public is hearing half-lies and propaganda, and that when they have sought to speak out, they have suffered intimidation: Rev. Hagler reports having received death threats for preaching peace during a time of warmongering.
As I wrote this essay, I was cautioned by friends and colleagues about speaking out and reminded of McCarthyism. There does seem to be a sort of unofficial gag order, even among some blacks, decreeing the exclusion of black dissenting voices. But those dissenting voices are a crucial element of this debate, especially if the country is to develop a new foreign policy that is more reflective of the views of all Americans.
Jonetta Rose Barras is a political columnist and author of "The Last of The Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the Age of New Black Leaders" (Bancroft Press).