By Jill McLaughlin
World Can’t Wait activists and other organizations such as Peace Action, Ya Ya Youth Network, Revolution Youth, and Arrest Bush protested outside the NAACP convention on Tuesday July 15th.
We rightfully asked what right the Military Recruiters had to be at a convention of the organization that stands for the civil rights and justice for oppressed people.
The demonstration was a follow up to a press conference held on Saturday July 11th, the opening day of the convention where Benjamin Jealous, CEO and President of the NAACP, was asked by a high school student and a military mother why military recruiters were invited to recruit, given that the NAACP had come out against the Iraq war. Benjamin Jealous refused to disinvite the Army Strong Recruitment Tour and said that the recruiters would not be recruiting.
At the press conference this afternoon Debra Sweet, representatives of the Ya Ya Youth Network, revolution youth, war resister Mathis Chiroux, and Barbara Harris all spoke very eloquently as to why the NAACP should not allow military recruiters into its convention. The main points driven home were that the wars/occupations decided to go inside the convention to see what the Army Strong Tour was doing. What we found was appalling. Over 60% over the Diversity Career Fair was military. All branches of the military were present. And I can tell you that they were not just there to say “hello”. This was definitely military recruiting. The first group to go in with signs was promptly kicked out. Then some of us went in without signs. We walked around with jaws dropping as we looked at all the bright and shiny booths with bright and shiny uniformed Black young people behind them ready to answer any question one might have about the military.
I and one other activist approached the U.S. Navy Booth. I found myself staring at a touch screen computer where one could put in all their information and the Navy would later contact you. A young Black woman in her naval uniform approached us. She asked me if she could help me. I said I had one question and she pressed kindly how she could help. I replied, “Well I’m very confused. On Saturday Benjamin Jealous had a press conference where he assured people the recruiters would not be recruiting and this looks like recruiting to me” She looked caught off guard and said that she was not responsible for what Benjamin Jealous said.
My activist friend began to speak. She began to explain that this was not whether this recruiter was responsible for what Mr. Jealous said but rather what is he upholding by having recruiters at the NAACP Convention in the first place where Black youth were being lured into the military only to be sent to illegitimately occupied countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to terrorize and murder other brown skinned people or be killed themselves. The recruiter tried to defend recruitment by going into what the navy had done for her. My activist friend began to tell her she understood that this recruiter felt that the navy had done a lot for her but … This was when the conversation was cut short by another Black male recruiter approaching us and demanding to know what we were doing there. He demanded that we leave and that if we didn’t we would be escorted out. My friend asked why. We were told we were being loud and disruptive. My activist friend pointed out that we were only asking questions and that this was no reason to throw us out.
At that point we were surrounded by 4 or 5 men in business suits telling us we had to leave because we were being loud and disruptive. My friend explained that we were asking questions particularly why recruiters were recruiting when people were told they wouldn’t be doing this at the convention. White gentlemen, whose name tag read Michael Hall CEO Diversity Career Fair, then told us that either we were there to enjoy the fair or to be disruptive and demanded to know which it was. My friend and I said that we were not being disruptive and that we were asking questions. At that point he replied to something to the effect that if we were keeping the recruiters from recruiting. We got an admission right there…the recruiters were indeed recruiting. At the point my friend and I decided to leave.
There are a couple of things that I want to highlight here. One is when the young female recruiter began to tell us what the navy had done for her and my friend said that she understood it wasn’t just a matter of my friend agreeing that Oh yes that the navy had done a lot for this young woman. But it was a matter that my friend understood that the military was one of the few options thrown up before Black and Latino youth in this country when all other options are denied them. This is especially pronounced when hears that across the country schools, especially public schools in lower class Black and Latino neighborhoods, are becoming militarized. What does this young woman understand about her role in recruiting thousands of Black and Latino youth into immoral and illegitimate occupations. To what degree does this young woman understand that it is really fucked up if the military is the only “viable” option offered up to young Black and Latino people
The other point I’d like to make is that Barack Obama has promised 20 thousand plus troops to the war and Afghanistan. Where will these troops come from? These troops will be a majority Black and Latino youth who would never have dreamed of killing and dying in Bush’s wars will do so now for Barack Obama’s “good war” in Afghanistan. I think a lot of people like to sigh with a dreamy look in their eyes and talk about how great it is that Black and Latino youth have this opportunity to pull themselves up and out by serving this country instead of asking themselves what is up with a system that offers up the military as one of the very few options these youth are given.
One only had to listen Obama’s speech two days later when he said this, "We’ve got to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. That’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that. No excuses. No excuses. You get that education. All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able to compete. Yes, we can."
He at once admits the odds are against these youth, but then says that if they fail to over come the odds this horrible system is responsible for creating and perpetuates than it’s their fault. It is this rhetoric that will force many to make the horrible choice to join the military to only to find themselves oppressing and terrorizing other brown skinned people across the globe. This is not the post racial divide folks this is a monumental genocide in the making.