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pecuniumThis was sparked by desert_vixen, who points out she has a hard time writing about this, because she's got privilege. I have more privilege, I'm not only white, I'm male.
I have, however, experienced racism, though at a remove.
When I was a kid there was a drive for the United Way. I asked my mother for money. She said no. If I wanted to give the UW money, I could, but she wasn't going to contribute. I asked her why, and she told me they had a policy of supporting exactly matching the racial makeup of adoptees, to adoptors. At church (a progressive Vatican II type of place) we had a couple of bi-racial twins; and the thought that their parents (white) couldn't adopt them made my blood run cold.
That was my first stand on the subject (I was the only one who didn't contribute. I was the only one who didn't contribute for a long time, until they changed that policy).
Later, my second stepfather was black. We got robbed (lived in a less than afluent chunk of town). The cops were very attentive to me (all of 14) until he came to the door. At which point I could see them shut down. A couple of, obviously, pro forma questions, and they were gone.
But those aren't what I was moved to write about.
desert_vixen points out that being in the Army, which has a higher percentage of minorities than the population at large, can mute how soldier see racism.
A recruit who can't handle a black person (or an Hispanic) yelling at them, will get chaptered out. Guys in my company at Basic, had never seen anyone who wasn't white.
Then I went to DLI. In an army which had about 25 percent blacks, there were 4 in my company, of 182 soldiers.
WTF?
We talked about it. It bothered us. We tried to figure it out. All we could come up with was the difficulty of getting in. Not that it was all that hard. But the recruiter had to work harder. The candidate had to take a test; and a damned odd one. One that most people fail at, even ones who have some schooling in a second language. And there's a, somewhat more than cursory, background check.
All we could figure is that lazy/nervous recruiters weren't offering the chance to the recruits. They assumed that the black kids couldn't pass, and perhaps that, were they offered the idea of something glamorous, and then had it fade away, they'd elect to not join the army.
And that seems to be true, across the board. There were very few blacks in the other services student detachments either.
So even in a place which has some very good ways of dealing with race (and the Army has some very good ways of dealing with race), can have this sort of blind spot, where subtle bits of bias creep in, and color the whole thing.
desert_vixen, who points out she has a hard time writing about this, because she's got privilege. I have more privilege, I'm not only white, I'm male.I have, however, experienced racism, though at a remove.
When I was a kid there was a drive for the United Way. I asked my mother for money. She said no. If I wanted to give the UW money, I could, but she wasn't going to contribute. I asked her why, and she told me they had a policy of supporting exactly matching the racial makeup of adoptees, to adoptors. At church (a progressive Vatican II type of place) we had a couple of bi-racial twins; and the thought that their parents (white) couldn't adopt them made my blood run cold.
That was my first stand on the subject (I was the only one who didn't contribute. I was the only one who didn't contribute for a long time, until they changed that policy).
Later, my second stepfather was black. We got robbed (lived in a less than afluent chunk of town). The cops were very attentive to me (all of 14) until he came to the door. At which point I could see them shut down. A couple of, obviously, pro forma questions, and they were gone.
But those aren't what I was moved to write about.
desert_vixen points out that being in the Army, which has a higher percentage of minorities than the population at large, can mute how soldier see racism.A recruit who can't handle a black person (or an Hispanic) yelling at them, will get chaptered out. Guys in my company at Basic, had never seen anyone who wasn't white.
Then I went to DLI. In an army which had about 25 percent blacks, there were 4 in my company, of 182 soldiers.
WTF?
We talked about it. It bothered us. We tried to figure it out. All we could come up with was the difficulty of getting in. Not that it was all that hard. But the recruiter had to work harder. The candidate had to take a test; and a damned odd one. One that most people fail at, even ones who have some schooling in a second language. And there's a, somewhat more than cursory, background check.
All we could figure is that lazy/nervous recruiters weren't offering the chance to the recruits. They assumed that the black kids couldn't pass, and perhaps that, were they offered the idea of something glamorous, and then had it fade away, they'd elect to not join the army.
And that seems to be true, across the board. There were very few blacks in the other services student detachments either.
So even in a place which has some very good ways of dealing with race (and the Army has some very good ways of dealing with race), can have this sort of blind spot, where subtle bits of bias creep in, and color the whole thing.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 12:04 pm (UTC)The operations research community is much as you've described the language community: Strongly dominated by white folks. On the other hand when you look at Force Recon you find a whole lot of black and hispanic faces. Anybody who's ever spent even a few hours with Force Recon knows those people have to be pretty damn smart in addition to having the strength and endurance of Norse heroes, so whatever's going on is more subtle than just selecting for smarts or whiteness (since there are a whole lot of white folks in Force Recon too.)
My guess is that the same kind of racial bias is at work that can be seen in professional football, where quarterbacks are predominantly white while running backs are predominantly black. In the case of Ops Research, I'd guess the determinant is the math requirement. Most non-white people in the US don't even get the opportunity to take calculus in high school, and I think that drives a lot of things that happen later in life. I imagine there's something similar going on in languages.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 12:32 pm (UTC)I thing part of the problem you see with black in intel units has more to do with the recruiters than it does with applicants.
I have a GT score of 128. My recruiter was black and pushed me toward jobs like cook, supply, and truck driver. My ex husband has a GT of 122 and his white recruiter didn't stop until he agreed to look at intel, specifically linguist jobs.
At MEPS, I had a black counselor, who even after he saw my GT score, didn't ever bother to push any jobs that required a GT score of 110 or higher. He pushed cook, supply and...truck driver. I loved being a truck driver, but I literally was the highest GT score in the battalion. I know, because I saw most of the records when I was helping out Haj (pronounced Hi) in the orderly room before a huge massive honkin' inspection.
My transpo unit was mostly black, my PA unit is...mostly white I guess with some Asian thrown in. It's weird.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:05 pm (UTC)Having been next to them for a few hours, they both seemed to be smart enough for most things, and I know the Army had openings for pretty much everything, but the push was for 11/12/13B. One of them wanted to be a legal clerk, but he was told, at first, that he could do that in a second tour.
When I was in high school I took the ASVAB. I got scores which were better than I got when I enlisted (the math was more current). The recruiters were trying like blazes to get me to go for Artillery. I got about an hour of hard sell on how great cannon cocking was.
Most of the people I saw at DLI, had needed to push to get offered the slot. The recruiters didn't want to spend the time (on average, getting a recruit qualified for MI adds 15 hours to the process), and it's a lot easier to push people into warm body slots, and let them fend for themselves.
But, for whatever reason, the "smart" jobs are predominantly white; though they do tend to be overrepresented with women (about 25 percent, when the army is about 10 percent).
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:47 pm (UTC)One of the theories I've heard, especially when they were throwing out the "poor black kids pushed into infantry are now cannon fodder" BS (when, actually, infantry has a lot of white guys who are there because they want to be 11Bs, is that minority recruits are more interested in getting jobs that have job potential on the outside, in case the military isn't going to be a career.
DV
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:59 pm (UTC)It seems the black kids *are* looking for jobs that translate well.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:59 pm (UTC)When I was at DLI (May 99 - May 00), we started with three black classmates. All 3 were Army.
One of them did not graduate due to deciding she didn't want to be in the Army, and smoking pot during Exodus. (This is not an assumption, she told several of us why she did it.)
The other two who graduated with us, one was probably the second or third best person in the class.
We also had an incident with a Russian teacher during the block on physical description, in which the teacher told the student who was later to leave us that she had a wide flat nose and frizzy hair. Did that maybe play a role?
When I was at Basic, we had one black girl who was forced by our drills to cut off her extension because they were so big they made her cap a whole siz bigger than her head.
There seem to be more black 96Bs and 98Cs than in the other MI fields.
However, the number of black MI officers I've had? Don't even need a whole hand to count them.
DV
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:01 am (UTC)Whatever the reality may be, I think there might be a perception that a kid who comes from inner-city Anywhere, USA is going to have a more...um...colorful past than some kid from Bumpkinville, USA, and so, they're reluctant to put kids in spots when they might have a record, which adds a lot to getting a clearance. After all, why send a kid to DLI when there's a chance that he/she won't be able to get that TS anyway?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:02 am (UTC)I haven't asked most of the people I work with, because the population is wrong. I'm in a Brigade HHC, which means we have lots of people who are at 17-plus.
Definitely, a lot of signal people are looking at the outside.
DV
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:33 am (UTC)3, in 15+ years. One of whom was worse than useless.
Lots of everyone else, but only 3 black.
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:37 am (UTC)So the idea is, the "other", esp. the black other is likely to have had problems, which is true; and deserving of a completely different post.
And the recruiter just bags the thought; rather than risk losing the quota-filling signature.
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 01:12 am (UTC):-) I had a NAC waiver to get out of AIT, and I had a helluva time getting my secret, but that was mostly financial woes.