According to David Horowitz, the myth of Vietnam isn't true either. I got the following from
http://www.american-partisan.com/cols/2002/iconoclast/qtr4/1113.htm... One of the most widespread of these myths is that black Americans fought and died in extraordinarily high proportions in the Vietnam War relative to the rest of the population...
Here are the facts:
During the Vietnam War era (draft era to be precise) blacks of military age made up 13.5 percent of the total population, but only 9.7 percent of the Vietnam era military forces were black.
88.4 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were white.
10.6 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were black.
86.3 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were white.
12.5 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were black.
86.8 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were white.
12.1 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were black.
In sum, while the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5 percent of the population, they accounted for 12.1 percent of the deaths in Vietnam.
Thank you -
Perfect_Lady!
INTOLERANCE IN AMERICA: MULTICULTURALISM FAIRY TALES bears repeating.
(A.N.S.W.E.R. is organizing based largely on "Anti-Muslim" and "Anti-Black" sentiment and propoganda.)
Their rumors, innuendos, and slanders are all lies:
One of the most widespread of these myths is that black Americans fought and died in extraordinarily high proportions in the Vietnam War relative to the rest of the population. This was ostensibly the result of American racism and is a reason given by many blacks (a left-wing minority to be sure) for why they are so ready to betray their country in the current war and line up with Osama bin Laden and his friends.
This came up the other day in an e-mail exchange with a black friend of mine. The short answer (and truth) is that the only ethnic group that died in greater numbers than their proportion in the population in the Vietnam conflict was whites.
Here are the facts:
During the Vietnam War era (draft era to be precise) blacks of military age made up 13.5 percent of the total population, but only 9.7 percent of the Vietnam era military forces were black.
88.4 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were white.
10.6 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were black.
86.3 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were white.
12.5 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were black.
86.8 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were white.
12.1 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were black.
In sum, while the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5 percent of the population, they accounted for 12.1 percent of the deaths in Vietnam.
And so it goes. All of which leads to the latest multicultural fairy tales being circulated via the liberal-left media, this time regarding anti-Muslim bias in America in the aftermath of the tragic events of 9/11 -- with most of these tales being neatly packaged and disseminated by today's multiculturalism lobby, spearheaded by The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Not surprisingly, in an article last month on the
Tech Central Station Web site entitled
America the Tolerant: Miscounting anti-Muslim bias, Howard Fienberg took a closer look at CAIR's statistics and concluded that only a small number of the reported incidents appeared to be blatant instances of anti-Muslim bias or discrimination -- despite the contrary interpretation popularized by CAIR which makes the phenomenon appear to be a serious and far-reaching social problem.
In his own words, here's how Mr. Fienberg sums his interpretation of the CAIR stats:
Mazhar Tabesh, a motel owner in Salt Lake City, saw his business burn down on July 21. Police investigated the incident as a hate crime, but on September 11 the police arrested Tabesh himself on suspicion of setting the fire. The incident, and the date, illustrates a problem America has had to face over the last year. Has resentment at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks translated into increased abuse of American Muslims? Or is that threat overstated? A careful review of the data available on anti-Muslim incidents over the past year suggests that America has remained a tolerant society.
According to Howard Fienberg, the souce of most of the data on anti-Muslim incidents is the Muslim civil rights report issued annually by CAIR. And not surprisingly, CAIR purports to have detected an annual upward trend in the number of anti-Muslim bias incidents every year since 1996, especially since the events of 9/11 occurred. For example, according to Fienberg, CAIR compiled 1,516 incident reports of "9/11 backlash," including "denial of religious accommodation, harassment, discrimination, bias, threat, assault and even several murders" in the period between March 2001 and 2002. However, when Howard Fienberg carefully sifted through the reported "incidents," he discovered that "not all the cases are obvious instances of anti-Muslim discrimination or bias."
For example, 293 cases revolved around what Fienberg calls matters of perception -- individuals who believed they were being discriminated against because they were not hired, were fired, were treated rudely, and so on. Further, as Fienberg notes, other incidents were classified as "discrimination" mainly because the victim of a crime or negative act happened to be Muslim, although there was no supporting evidence that the particular crime or act was motivated by bias (for example, rude treatment at various Motor Vehicles Departments -- "discriminatory" behavior hardly unfamiliar to most Americans).
In fact, considering that the United States boasts a population of 280 million people, Fienberg points out that it's really suprising that the number of bona-fide documented cases of apparent anti-Muslim activity in the United States is as small as it is. And certainly, the kind of slights that are experienced by Muslim Americans pale in comparison to the real suffering experienced by Christians in Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Sudan.
Moral of the story? Don't believe everything you read in the mainstream press about acts of racism and cultural intolerance in America -- or everything that Dan Rather and Peter Jennings have to say about the alleged problem. You might just be hearing another multicultural fairy tale. ***
© 2002 The Iconoclast