Introduction
This paper will deal with the issues of Race in the Military, it will further fully include in scope and bring to full comprehension the issues of ethnics and racism discrimination in the military base and practice. However, to understand or comprehend the nature or meaning of race in the present day military practice we must consider the past in detail.
In line with this, it was discovered that there was a time in the recent past that the military was separated by race or religion, thereby practicing a policy of racial segregation which resulted in the soldiers being set apart from others or isolated.
Furthermore, the military completely or entirely practiced obvious racism among the personnel’s or officers, moreover, in line with the racial discrimination in the military, the inclusion of unkind, cruel or uncivil treatment and incomprehensible possibility due to a favourable combination of circumstances for individuals or personnel’s of different race and colour is also observable to a great extent or degree.
Consequently, to fully comprehend and assimilate the nature of racial and ethical discrimination meted out on the black military personnel’s or to better put it for military officers of different race or colour, one will discover that the black military personnel or officers are two times as likely as white military personnel’s to become aware of or comprehend racial unfair treatment on the basis of prejudice in the military.
Nevertheless, on account of and the consequence of severe and unethical racial discrimination meted out on majority of black soldiers, it made them conclude and say that race relations are better in the military than in civilian life.
Furthermore, in relation to the race discrimination practice in the military, it is observable that black military personnel’s are to a great degree or extent more likely to be lock up or confine in jail than their white counterpart.
Additionally, Black recruits in the armed services who hold a position of authority or command are less likely than whites to be given a promotion or assigned to the middle rank positions or any other higher positions within the military order of hierarchy, but are more likely to stay put in connection to the act of raising in rank or positions.
The Military unit usually consisting of two or more divisions and their support is not to a disproportionate degree white. The military draw attention to the fact that the military unit large enough to sustain combat of any kind add to event of dying or departure from life in period of war.
The institutional knowledge and values shared by a society prevents most absolute discriminatory or abusive behaviour towards members of another race in the military.
Impact of WW 11 in Race in the Military
World War 11 marked a crossroads in the position of racial group of people who differ racially or politically from a larger group of which it is a part and women in the U.S. armed services.
The essential qualities or characteristics of the hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war questioned the truth or validity of existing forms of condition of being arranged in social strata or classes within the military, in addition to other American institutions.
Previous military act of limiting or restricting that was placed on race were lifted as a result of the Selective Service Training Act of 1940, and African American men were formally registered as a participant or member for the war earnest and conscientious activity in greater numbers than in preceding wars. They were also served in a greater selection of military assignments (Moore, 1997, p.1).
Issues of ethnicity and racism in the military
An ethnic quality or affiliation resulting from racial or cultural ties and race have been to a lesser extent causing inconvenience or discomfort to military subject matter at issue of racial or ethnicity discrimination in the military for American or most world government than for politically organized body of people under a single government where shared knowledge and values of a society, characteristic of tribal demanding or stimulating situation, demanding attempts for political power or right to give orders or make decisions, social class separated from others by distinctions of hereditary rank, and professional systems have had a military aspect (Nalty, 1986). Nonetheless, the above stated factors have brought the military State of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavourable options for Americans as of the earliest colonial inhabitants who remain nationals of their home state but are not literally under the home state’s system of government into existence.
As a result, prior to the Revolutionary waging of armed conflict against an enemy, a large number white settlers, who viewed the black inhabitants as physically and racially less important and useless material to serve as soldiers in the military, were also filled with fear or apprehension of equipping slaves with weapons in preparation for war thereby, setting the black slaves free, hence, ceasing to have their labour force, either physically or in an abstract sense (Nalty, 1986).
Overview of Race in Military
On several occasions blacks were kept out from colonial militias, more so to a greater extent or degree in the South, however, the desires for military was greater in significance than cultural panic, like those experienced for the period of the war between French and Indian. A number of slaves were constantly accorded their free will for the period of war in the service of military.
Furthermore belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group, doubt about someone’s honesty, and deprivation of labour as well had and exerted influence or effect on the military use of non‐traditional immigrants, consequently, the desire for international boundary or the area of defence in history provided part of a whole amount to the settlement of Scotch‐Irish, German, and Swiss clusters on the boundary to take the initiative and go on the offensive and discourage slave resistances.
As the rebellion got excited or provoked to move to the west and journeyed to far areas enhanced the appearance of the military standard, much of the effective operational was made by existing immigrants on the outside boundary or surface of the social association.
The markedly new War was seen as a war for confinement or oppression; whereas those in the northern part engaged blacks, the South expressed opposition to equipping African Americans with weapons in preparation for war. Lessening the authority, dignity, or reputation of mobilization by whites and British acts of independence for blacks, who would leave someone who needs or counts on you and bear arms to win a victory over preliminary endeavours by southerners in the Continental Congress and to keep out blacks from the military service.
More or less than five thousand African Americans made a strenuous or labored effort by fighting with the universal combatant soldiers or the opposition military, and nevertheless, after the fight, one thousand of them were recruited in the British military forces.
Fighting for their freedom, many blacks were victorious, even though some presiding officers tried to establish the existence of and to claim back their slaves and a number of blacks who engaged in fighting for the British were afterwards exchanged or delivered for money or its equivalent into slavery in the West Indies.
The drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving placed an continuing approach of giving as judged due or on the basis of merit and meticulous position or standing of things to peaceful religious groups, like the German Mennonites and Brethren, were non‐English, by way of a mandatory substitution fee, the act of giving something useful or necessary to surrogate, or special taxes.
The war also brought about the standard of rendering citizenship for military service, in particular for enemy military personnel allowed to control sides and to American, who moves toward, travel toward something or somebody or approach so to join the Continental forces. The work done by one person of several European military specialists in the American army during the time of Revolutionary War soon after entered or assumed a definite cause or initiation of feeling of self-respect and personal worth to their cultural assemblages in the United States.
Earnest and conscientious activity intended to bar those who moves to a foreign country and blacks from armed forces service reappeared on the surface after the drastic and far-reaching change due to the reduced desire for the force of workers available in the small normal army of the former national period.
Researchers’ authoritative rule drove away noncitizen from the act of getting recruits in the army not including extraordinary consent; but the lack of enthusiasm of Americans to enrol in an elaborating financial era, have or possess in combination with a gesture of immigration from Northern and Western Europe brought about the foreign‐born militants set up or laid the groundwork for widely held of the army’s enrolled positions, with Irish and Germans appearing very large or occupying a commanding position.
This perceptual structure re-emerged in the post–Civil War army and navy, and was advantageous for the overseas‐born, who gained knowledge or skills of English and American traditions, came into possession of some professional education, and acquired geographic quality to the boundary.
Blacks were expelled, by official verdict from army recruitment by a comprehensive order from John C. Calhoun of South Carolina who was at that time the Secretary of War, even though the army without stop or interruption to keep in one’s mind the blacks who have served in the armed forces and to make use of black labour.
The organization of military vessels belonging to a country and available for sea warfare was not pleased with reference to enrol African‐American serviceman in the navy, though their call for black labour was even superior than the army’s, and black member of a ship’s crew were less noticeable to the community than black soldiers. The 1812War, the Mexican War, and in particular the Civil War increased in extent or intensity since military needed them for manpower.
The form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere who had instituted the practice of being brought into Orthodoxy in thoughts and belief with nature were fit for the plan during the Civil War, even though there was an increase in the rate of unpaid assistant occupation among some of the people born in another area or country.
Quite a number of Western Europeans proceed to accomplish an anticipated outcome that is intended in the Union army, most probable in more detectable cultural group of people regarded as a structural or functional constituent of a whole who are inspire with confidence and led by social relationships involving authority and practical hardheaded intelligence immigrant heads.
There was relatively large plan opposition in the North, and draft state of disorder involving group violence.
However, the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861 was not as much of showing great excitement and interest about racial components, even though the military involvement of people who moved to a foreign country to live there permanently helped to transform race discrimination of complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways toward immigration and contributed to some degree of enlistment in the military several related operations aimed at achieving a particular goal in order to contribute to the progress or growth of European movement from one locality into the South region.
In relation to this, in the military base of the Northern part of America also, the state of being suspected and hostile (very unfriendly) disposition to immigrants went down, and self‐conscious assimilation into American military culture was encouraged (Bruce, 1971).
The military forces of so many nation has become racially distinctly dissimilar or unlike for some time, as a result of this, the present day military can be represented in words especially with sharpness and detail as a vast environment in which many ideas and races are socially assimilated.
Furthermore, the present day military is reversing the issue of race discrimination, by this means, recruiting and filled with people from diverse race and culture.
Looking back at the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future, it will be discovered or observed that the African Americans were not accept gladly in the military or armed forces of so many western countries (like the United States of America).
The Negro in the American Revolution
The historical review of race in military proved that, in the past, it is of less importance the blacks were slaves or not held in a state of subjection to an owner, master or forced labour imposed as punishment; the then America President George Washington did not however, permit the black Americans to be recruited into the countries Continental Army.
In relation to this, President George Washington did not alter his stands up to a time that it was found out that the British Army were recruiting the black African Americans to engage in war or fights in their favour. However, with this British development, the Black African Americans were recruited or permitted to join the military in order to add to the Continental Army’s battalion of soldiers available in the military.
The Black Americans were also used as fronts in war thereby being the furthermost troops sent to suffer or face the pain of death for the first time to prevent the white soldiers from being ruined, destroyed, or harmed by their enemies. Furthermore, slave merchants employ the services of their black slaves by sending them to war fronts, so that they the merchants or the white vendors would not have to engage in wars themselves, they only give orders while the Black recruited soldier’s faces and fights the war.
On the account of past war events of World War II it was discovered that male populace who were drafted into military service were of minimal supply and racial discriminatory recruitment was imposed, although small number of African Americans populace and other group of people who differ racially or politically from a larger group of which it is a part were also recruited into the military force that is a branch of the armed forces.
With the recruitment of the minority soldiers into the military, they proved to be solemnly dedicated to the line of action, hence avoiding a situation of Absence without leave (AWOL), but racial inequity still occupied the most important aspects of the service.
The group of soldiers who differ racially or politically from a larger group of which it is a part were positioned in separated or isolated units, and offered domestic servant job such as chefs and repair member of staff.
However, the Second World War was the opportunity to an event whose occurrence put an end to the social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups in the military.
The inclusion of the African American populace and the Navajo Indians into the military during the World War II influenced a great change throughout the period of war. The African American centre of population forced the then organization that is the governing authority of a political unit to train African Americans in the aggregation of the country’s military aircraft.
Moreover, the African Americans recruited soldiers continued to live through hardship or adversity the embarrassment meted on them and continuous harass by imposing humiliating or painful tasks.
After series of pressure on the government to form or create the Black air force their training was successful and the populace from a town in eastern Alabama Airmen was created (Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, 2005). On the creation of this group of Airman, they proved there worth by killing several of Hadolf Hitler’s (German) aircraft operators as well as escorting white aircraft operators all over the war opponent lines.
Navajo Code Talkers
One of the most important and effective group during the world war 11 was the Navajo Indians, as a result of their distinctive and incomprehensible language of communication.
With the Navajo Indians incomprehensible language, the world soldiers could not contrast the novel language to any other thereby not being able to make the Navajo Indians codes inoperable or ineffective (Molnar, n.d).
The Navajo Indians communicative language was fast and simple, on the contrary to programming machines that took some minutes to decode. With the communicative advantage of the Navajo Indians, they were fully sheltered and valued in the military (Molnar, n.d).
Moreover, the organization regarded as part of a larger social group became racially integrated, despite the fact that some white soldiers were still to a high degree or extent racist.
With the inclusion or recruitment of minority groups into the military, it was no more separated or isolated from others or a main group by colour and had the prevalent figure of African Americans serving in the military.
The group of soldiers has a desired or expected effect or outcome in the direction of a general aim to conquer the opponent and triumph in the war.
However, at the same time as trying to preserve their target a lot of collective soldiers widen their eyes and started to view all other members of the troop as human being hence not taking note of the colour of the skin.
Nevertheless, a number of sections of the military did not become integrated, since the soldiers that were not on the line along which opposing armies face each other did not require to be contingent upon any person to prevent their lives from being ruined, destroyed, or harmed and maintained on to their racist belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty.
In line with the discriminating act in the military and the torture that the black soldiers were made to go through, the military officers that went to battle did not come back the same way they went on their respective missions.
This made the other soldiers that were educated on the racist personal belief or judgment and to extremely dislike the African American soldiers because of their skin colour; now had a transformation of heart.
The soldier’s main concern was to remain full of life and spirit, so each military officer or soldier had to understand each other and to live together as one hence avoiding racism in the military.
Nevertheless, mutually and unitedly combating the opponent assisted and motivated the soldiers in the understanding that skin colour does not count and that they are all one entity fighting together for a common purpose.
In spite of the fact that the military has ameliorated race and discrimination mutual dealings or connections among persons or groups there is still partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation in the military it is just not as completely obvious.
In an early investigation carried out in the year 1995 It was revealed that there were soldiers who were fraction of the racial and ethnic extreme dislike groups. This group of soldier’s had been engaged in or performed crime in opposition to populace not within their race.
It was also reported that three white military officers or soldiers killed an African American married couple who were away from home for a walk; in a state of proper readiness, preparation or arrangement to earn a racist emblem.
However, the soldiers were taken into custody the next day and the law enforcement officers found a lot of racist objects. Their room was covered in a cross with the arms bent at right angles in a clockwise direction and there was even an instrument used to assemble bombs (Spencer, 1998).
Nevertheless, to better understand and comprehend the issue and initiative about the military’s most recent race mutual dealings or connections among persons or groups, researcher’s classification according to general type can be employed.
Types of racist in the military
In a recent research carried out on the military race relationship it was discovered that there are four types of racial discrimination in the military, which are:
- The free from undue bias or preconceived opinions military racist: better known and called operative or practised open-minded,
- The unbiased differentiator: These groups of military officers are known as the unenthusiastic liberal,
- The discriminatory non-racist: better known as the hesitant prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own, and lastly
- The subjective person who differentiates: These groups of people are known as unrestricted extremist.(Schaefer, 2006, p.37)
In grouping the different type of racist in the military one will discover that the first group of racist are the military officers from various racial groups and skin color is of less importance because they have confidence in equal opportunity.
The second type of racist in the military is not as physically powerful as the first type and can be effortlessly persuaded in the other way.
They encourage state of being essentially equal or equivalent on condition that it does not bring about any difficulty, and oblige them to speak out or take a firm ground on the problem of race in the military.
The third Type of racist in the military is the more widespread practice to discrimination in the military. The anxious biased human being who is prejudiced of any views contradictory from his personal view does not accept equal opportunity for cultural and racial sets, and hides their exact emotions.
They possess the qualities of leadership in that, they motivate the workforce because they must carry out and finalize their assignment and must be obedient to their high rank officers.
In line with this, the nervous person who holds extreme views will not relate with the populace outside his current employment except it is a military gathering, however, the public not within their race is not welcomed to visit their homes.
Furthermore, in the military it is rare to observe the fourth type of racist which are known as the unrestricted extremist.
The unrestricted prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own does not conceal their lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike for other racial or cultural groups. They take action and communicate on their narrow-mindedness principles.
On serious investigation, one will discover that the military implements penal act against the soldier.
The military has become extremely distinctly dissimilar or unlike over the years. With the latest transformation in the military one will notice that, in all the military base and camps worldwide there are soldiers of different race and colour in the present day military, and moreover race discrimination is being faced out gradually in most countries military base.
Present military officers or Soldiers are assigned to a particular location all over the world and in certain cases but not always the military officer’s falls in love at their alien duty locations, thereby practicing intermarriage and putting an end to race in the military.
In relation to this, there are many children who have dual citizenship or combining two different races as a result of interracial matrimony or interracial courtship. Though, this is not an unusual instance of visual perception on a military system.
The military presents some other officers the possibility due to a favourable combination of circumstances to observe different races and cultures, which they would not have noticed (Ford, 1994).
Consequently, there are individuals from little settlements that have not had the opportunity to see people from a difference race other than theirs.
In conclusion, the military centre of population provides avenues for the military officers to accept and acquaint with one another’s race and cultures. The military have implemented once a year events that lay emphasis on diverse ethnic groups.
These events make it possible for the military to come together and gain knowledge about one another’s food, tradition and culture, thereby making it possible for the military officers to be acquainted with other cultures and race.
With the recent reshuffle and transformation in the military, it will be noticed that life in the military base is packed with racial compatibility in opinion and action. The medium of information transmission was not demonstrating African American soldiers to the extent of White soldiers, and if one is to observe the gulf war, it will be perceived that only the white military officers were engaged in war.
Nevertheless, the military has compelled or put in force the same opportunity exercise to declare that there are no racial differences.
Military officers are given moral and racial training every year to keep them informed on what is reserved and not-reserved.
The military services still has some racial issues and worries, but they are not as strict as the earlier period.
It appears possible that the military services will go on to include ethnic and racial minorities in excess of their proportion of the entire population, and that they will serve in an environment more harmonious and hospitable than in the ancient times (Ford, 1994).
The set and closely controlled in the military setting has always with an option of becoming literal has enhanced the military’s ability to terminate or put an end to narrow-mindedness and discrimination, and the services appear more enthusiastic than ever before to characterize equal opportunity as a advantageous aspiration.
Reference List
Bruce, W. (1971). The American Military and the Melting Pot in World War I in J. L. Granatstein and R. D. Cuff, eds. War and Society in North America.
Ford, N. G. (1994). War and Ethnicity: Foreign‐Born Soldiers and United States Military Policy during World War I. Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University.
Molnar, A. (n.d). Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Facts Sheet. Web.
Moore, B. L. (1997). To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II. New York, NY: NYU Press, 1997.
Nalty, Bernard C. (1986). Strenght for the Fight. New York, NY: Free Press.
Schaefer, R. T. (2006). Racial and Ethnic Groups, tenth Edition. Delhi, India: McGraw-Hill Education (India) Pvt Ltd.
Spencer, C. T. (1998). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Racism Within The Ranks, Covert Action Quarterly. Web.
Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. (2005). Web.