African American officers still rare in military
July 30, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: HR blunder of the week, Latest News & Views
Government regulations require many businesses to have a staff that is racially representative of their communities. And of course, HR managers have to track this. However, a recent survey shows the U.S. military isn’t living up to this standard.
African Americans make up about 17% of the armed forces. However, only 9% of all officers are African American, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
This comes 60 years after President Truman desegregated the military.
For general officers with one to four stars, the number falls to 6%.
Only one of the 38 four-star generals or admirals serving as of May was African American. Only 10 African American men have ever gained four-star rank.
The lack of African Americans among officers provides few mentors for younger African Americans in the military.
Tags: African American, military, standard
November 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
So Fred:
What’s your point?
The United States military leads all aspects of our society in being integrated and offering it’s personnel a fair career track based on accomplishments — not race. Race has no bearing on whether an individual can accomplish his or her mission and take care of their troops. Can our military do better? Of course it can — as can every aspect of our society, but I don’t want to put my child’s life (or your child’s life) in the hands of someone that has been placed in a life and death decision making position just because he or she filled one of your racial or any other kind of quotas.
There is no other organization in our society or perhaps in any society in our world that offers men & women of any race or ethnic origin the opportunities for fair career advancement to the degree that our military does. In the military we tend not to stereotype our leaders as Black, Asian, White, etc. We’ve gotten beyond the racial bias that your article tries to further. Colin Powell was first and foremost this Country’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (He also happened to be Black.) Eric Shinseki was this country’s Chief of Staff of the Army. (He also happened to be Asian.) Our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs happens to be White — so what? As President, a Black man will soon serve as the most senior military commander in our country. He wasn’t put there to fill one of your racial quotas. Actually, he’s only 50% Black. Where does he fit in as far as your quota system goes?
Other than promoting a “military bashing” and racially demeaning agenda, what useful purpose does your article serve? If your only purpose in writing this article was to say that, “The lack of African Americans among officers provides few mentors for younger African Americans in the military.”, then I guess we agree on that one aspect of your article. I believe that our military is constantly improving this situation and that in our lifetimes, this problem will no longer exist.
I’m just curious. Given that our military is spread out over the entire country and world, would your racial quotas require every military facility to reflect the racial or ethnic background of the nearest local communities in which they reside. It seems by your reasoning, the military would always have to have a Black commander at its Atlanta facilities, a Hispanic commander at its San Antonio facilities, a white commander at its Salt Lake City facility, etc. Not only is this militarily impossible — it’s also demeaning to the services and to the communities in question to suggest such a quota system is necessary.
I had a long military career in both the enlisted & officer ranks. I’ve been in the business world for over 13 years. In both careers I worked with very diverse workforces without ever considering the racial backgrounds of my leaders or those I led (except of course in private business when I had to fill out the government directed racial quota forms that you mentioned).
In writing this response to your article, I am responding based on my experience and not on my totally irrelevant racial background.
Thanks for the opportunity to express my opinion.
Kevin Cheney
Retired military & currently HR Director for a multi-state company.
PS: Just curious, am I the only one that took offense to this article?
January 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Kevin, you really do have a point. Has anyone ever stopped to think that African-Americans may not want to join the military as fast as other racial classes.
As an African American, I hear from the men of my race that they will not join the Military only because they do not want to work for a government that in some cases still consider them to be second class citizens. Not saying that that stement is true or not that happens to be the rational of alot of people that I speak to in the African American community whenI tell them that I am a child of the Military.