Blackout

By Roger Rapoport

Wall Street takes a bath and can’t figure out how to pull the plug. Will the wealthy be excluded from the next round of tax cuts? Can we get to a carbon-free economy in the next 40 years? Should background checks be waived for people who want to buy assault weapons in our nation’s capital?
You might think these issues will shape our presidential election. Think again. Sad to say, the polling booth remains one of the last places in our land where some people feel comfortable voicing their prejudices. Unfortunately there are still racists in the American woodpile.
In Michigan, the swing state where I live, some voters aren’t mired in policy issues. The first KKK signs of the election season have sprouted like mushrooms. Some voters here and elsewhere don’t have to waste time listening to debate rhetoric, attending campaign rallies, watching 30-second TV spots or opening the doors to canvassers. For them this election remains a matter of black and white.
No one knows exactly how many voters will play the race card on November 4. The idea of using the kind of Willie Horton racist ad that helped sink candidate 1988 Presidential Michael Dukakis is unthinkable in 2008. But once you’ve pulled that voting booth curtain, no one can stop you from voting your prejudices. It really is a free country. There is a good chance that this election will be decided by voters who declare they can’t support a black candidate.
I can think of more than 50,000 reasons why this approach is out of touch. Our ability to vote is inextricably linked to the bravery of more than 50,000 black men and women who have laid down their lives for this country. Most of them perished long before there was a Civil Rights Act.
Blacks have been fighting for homeland security since 1641 when they were handed tomahawks to help battle the city now known as New York. Black Minutemen fought at Concord and Lexington. A black man, Crispus Attucks, was the first American to be martyred in the 1770 Boston Massacre. More than 5,000 blacks, both free and slave, fought heroically in Rhode Island and Connecticut and were part of Washington’s army in every major Revolutionary War battle.
Long before they were freed from slavery, allowed to vote, attend school with whites or play major league baseball, blacks were honorably defending this nation. They have also helped keep the peace in unexpected ways. York, a slave, was critical to Lewis and Clark’s voyage of discovery, a wise decision in the eyes of Native Americans who welcomed the explorers in the belief that this black man was their leader. His presence may have forestalled an attack.
Blacks went on to play a critical role in the War of 1812. After the emancipation proclamation, more than 180,000 blacks fought in the Civil War, where 33,000 died. Twenty-two black soldiers were among the dead when the battleship Maine was blown apart in Havana Harbor. Over 400,000 blacks served in the First World War, including 1,100 officers. Thanks to the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, literacy tests and Jim Crow laws, many of these veterans were denied voting rights guaranteed in 1870 by the Fifteenth Amendment.
During World War II, the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen destroyed and damaged hundreds of enemy targets. In Germany, black American POWS were placed in segregated prisoner of war facilities, supposedly for their own protection. In some cases segregated blood banks compromised the ability of doctors to treat wounded black soldiers. Ironically, the plasma critical to saving the lives of many injured soldiers of all races was created by a blood separation process invented by a black physician, Charles Drew.
Among the forgotten black heroes of past military campaigns are some extraordinary soldiers who went above and beyond their duties to defend and protect white comrades and officers. Among the 50,000 reasons not to cast your ballot on the basis of race, creed or color is Dorie Miller, a high school football star in his native Waco, Texas, who helped support his family by enlisting as a navy mess attendant in 1939.
Promoted to the rank of cook, he was gathering up laundry on his ship, the USS West Virginia, at 6 a.m. on December 7, 1941, when Japanese Zeros began their sneak attacks. After courageously carrying off fellow sailors and the mortally wounded captain, he manned a machine gun for the first time. Turned out, he was a pretty good shot. Pacific Fleet Commander Chester Nimitz personally awarded Miller the Navy Cross in a special ceremony, the first black member of the Pacific Fleet to receive such a high honor.
Two years later he perished along with 645 other Navy men when his escort ship was torpedoed and bombed by the Japanese. Miller also received a Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal, The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. A Knox-Class frigate, the USS Miller, was named in his honor. Visit Pearl Harbor today and you’ll find a bronze plaque honoring this hero at Miller Park.
Of course Dorie Miller is only one of hundreds of thousands of heroic blacks to fight for all Americans. We don’t have exact totals because prior to the Korean War race was often not tracked (Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and Native Americans were all lumped together in a single nonwhite category).
President Truman’s decision to desegregate the Armed Forces in 1948 led to a sharp increase in black enlistments. During the Korean War, studies showed that integrated units outperformed segregated units. After blacks were allowed to serve without any restrictions they were also drafted at a higher rate than whites. For example during the Vietnam War era 16 percent of the drafted soldiers were black at a time when 11 percent of the population was black. And when the military went to an all-volunteer Army, blacks were quick to sign up. During Operation Desert Storm, black enlistees made up 24 percent of the fighting force at a time when 12 percent of the nation was black.
The bravery of our black soldiers has astonished some of our enemies. For example, black POWs captured by the Viet Cong were asked why they would risk their lives for a country where leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated.
During the final weeks of the political campaign, American soldiers stationed around the world will be casting absentee ballots. Sadly, Army Specialist Andre Darnell Mitchell of Elmont, New York will not be joining them. A few weeks before the 2008 national political conventions, he died when his Humvee flipped in Mosul, Iraq. On August 11 all flags on New York state buildings were flown at half mast in his honor.
On November 4 all Americans should be remember soldiers like Darnell Mitchell and Dorie Miller. Like the more than 17,200 black men and women who have perished on American military duty since the start of the Korean War, they and their families deserve our respect and gratitude. Everyone stepping into a voting booth can honor them by remaining color blind as they cast their ballot.