Poll Shows Most Blacks Still Oppose War
Sun Reporter, Chauncey Bailey, Posted: Mar 24, 2003
Black faces may not be showing up at anti-war protests in the same numbers as whites, but a new poll shows that African Americans are more opposed to a U.S. war with Iraq than any other major ethnic group in the United States. The new survey mirrors several Gallup polls in recent months that also noted while most whites are backing the Bush administration on the issue of war, most Blacks are not in favor of those policies. The Pew Research Center Survey found 44 percent of African Americans support military action, compared to 73 percent of white Americans and 67 percent of Latinos. ?Like other people in the United States, African Americans have been listening to President Bush?s charge that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and that he presents an international threat that justifies going to war,? said author Walter Mosley.
But he sees at least two important reasons why African-Americans are likely to oppose an invasion of Iraq. ?Why would we want to support a war against people, when you feel that number one, in your own country, there are issues facing African Americans which are dire and which this war has nothing to do with,? he said. ?And of course because there?s such a disproportionate number of people of color in the army, why would we want to send our own people over there to get killed?? Many Blacks in the recent poll said the best way to bring lasting world peace is to change the conditions that breed terrorism.
One of the ironies of the current debate is that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is an African American who?s spoken in favor of the conflict. ?The intelligence case is clear that they have weapons of mass destruction of one kind or another and they are trying to develop more and develop those they do not yet have an operational capability for,? said Powell in a statement this week. Condoleeza Rice, President Bush?s National Security Advisor, is also African American and also supports the war. She said this week: ?It is extremely important that the Iraqi people understand that America has always stood not just for power and stability but also for values. And this is a chance for the Iraqi people to liberate themselves of oppression, and it is a chance for the region to see an example of perhaps an Iraq that is on the path to democracy.?
Most Blacks, however, the poll notes, said war is not the right solution. Mosley urges Blacks to work for peace grassroots style, by forming discussion groups on current events, by supporting public officials who work for peace. ?We understand hatred and oppression by external groups whom we have to learn how to live with,? he said. ?And what we have to do as a group of people, is we have to identify the principles of unity that bring together the African-American communities.?
In Oakland, Congresswoman Barbara Lee joined other Black leaders and pastors during a press conference at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building where they spoke out against the war. Among the Black leaders present were actor Danny Glover, Dr. Rev. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. of Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks, and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. Blacks were urged to attend an anti-war rally on April 5 begining at 10:30 AM in Oakland?s Mosswood Park. Participants will meet at the park, located at the corner of Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard and march to City Hall.
Glover, who spoke out against the war recently when he received an award during the NAACP Image Awards show in Los Angeles, said anti-war activists are ?on the front lines because they are trying to make a better America. The world has come together and said no to this war and we must stand with them.? Lee said the Bush administration ?has a bankrupt economic policy and a bankrupt foreign policy... we believe the president is wrong and we believe it is immoral to send our sons and daughters into harm?s way and we believe it s immoral to risk the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.?
Lee, about 18 months ago, was the only member of Congress to vote to oppose giving President Bush more powers to fight terrorism. Smith said it was just as wrong for Black men to go to Vietnam and kill as it is to kill on the streets here and the same holds true for Iraq. ?Blessed are the peacemakers,? said Smith, who said Martin Luther King, Jr, would have also opposed this war.
Lee issued the following statement after President Bush declared war would be at some point soon: ?Tonight the President announced that he was abandoning diplomacy and the disarmament of Iraq. We have returned once again to war and regime change, cloaked in a 48-hour ultimatum.? ?This is a needless war. Inspections and engagement were working; they were successfully addressing the question of the potential threat presented by Iraq?s weapons of mass destruction. The United States is not in imminent danger from Iraq. We do not need to go to war in 48 hours, or the end of the week, or the end of the month.
Millions upon millions of people in this country and across the world have voiced their opposition to conflict. ?Yet we are on the verge of preemptive war. This war defies U.S. and international law.? ?President Bush called on the United Nations to prove its relevance in the 21st century world. And it did. But while the inspections process was underway and making progress, the United States refused to share information with the inspectors and proceeded to build up an enormous military presence in the region. And now this week when it was apparent that the Administration would not prevail in the United Nations Security Council, we refused to bring a resolution authorizing force up for a vote. We are rejecting democracy as well as diplomacy.
?This is a step we do not have to take. It is a choice. And it is a mistake that may cost untold lives and unknown billions of dollars and may unleash repercussions that will continue to haunt us for decades.? ?I hope and pray for the safety of our armed forces and for the Iraqi civilians who will inevitably be caught in the crossfire of any conflict, and I hope and pray that our nation finds an alternative to war.?
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User Comments
Nakia Hill on Apr 01, 2003 at 04:16:30 said:
War is a dehumanizing process and I have to say I'm thoroughly disgusted at Bush and his foreign policy. The majority of African-Americans oppose this act of agression by the USA because it is ILLEGAL and we truly value people from all corners of the world, whilst most white people are too caught in their racist superiority menatlity that is continually being fed to them by the moron Bush!!!!!!!! I really think Powell should resign and leave those racists to self-destruct on their own.
Jarrette Fellows, Jr. on Mar 30, 2003 at 18:34:19 said:
African Americans are not monolithic in a wholesale aversion to war with Iraq. While not a warmonger, I support President Bush in his "use of force" policy against Iraq.
People who put forth the notion that war with Iraq will engender grave consequences for American citizens, need understand that Saddam Hussein and Middle East terrorists were at war with America long before Persian Gulf War II. The demise of the World Trade Center should spell that reality clearly for them. Further, some blacks who feel that African Americans have some sort of bond and kinship with Arabs and Arab Americans, should open their eyes to reality; Arabs do not consider themselves African: they own gas stations and convenience stores in black neighborhoods, but rarely show any soldarity with black causes; and thirdly, I don't recall any of the world's terrorist cells putting out a call to blacks to abandon the World Trade Center before they targeted it with fuel-ladened flying bombs. Saddam is no friend to blacks, as there is no Iraqi policy to spare the lives of black soldiers, or avoid taking black soldiers as POWs. Finally, Saddam has had a quest for revenge against America since Gulf War I and will exact great harm to American citizens--regardless of ethnic heritage, given the chance. I don't want to see a weapon of mass destruction annihilate Americans before someone determines that Hussein should have been removed from power while he was manageable, as Adolph Hitler was before he expanded to monstrous dimensions. I submit that there is a silent majority among black Americans who support the war effort against Saddam Hussein. Black Americans know what it means to fight. There is a time for fire. We are not pacifists.
George Dash on Mar 25, 2003 at 07:59:13 said:
In 1939 German troops invaded Poland. They used a new military attack strategy to overwhelm the Poles. The Nazis called it ‘blitzkrieg’ or lightning war. Today the Americans are using the same tactic against the Iraqis and call it ‘shock and awe.’ The concept is the same- terrify and overwhelm the populace to the point where they would lose the will to fight back. The danger of such a strategy is that it hardens the survivors and increases hatred of the enemy while unifying the people- shared adversity unites people very quickly. Where the analogy with the Nazi attack on Poland and the US attack on Iraq becomes eerie is that the US is using the same rationale the Nazis used to attack Poland , i.e. Poland was a ‘threat’ to German security and harboured anti-German ‘terrorists.’ Sixty-four years later, the pre-eminent military power is dragging us in the abyss using the same specious reasoning. The difference is, that, in our time the collective human consciousness is awakened, impelling millions of people across the world to take to the streets to protest and hopefully check to coming storm. Perhaps there is hope for the human race after all.
-->George Dash
Toronto