Al Sharpton has promised to galvanize the black churches to support the Obama’s administration Iran deal. He says the reason is because African Americans have suffered disproportionately in America’s past wars (e.g. “We have a disproportionate interest, being that if there is a war, our community is always disproportionately part of the armed services, and that a lot of the debate is by people who will not have family members who will be at risk.)
Set aside the fact that liberals are usually skeptical of religious non-profits engaging in blatant politicking, perhaps especially in the age of Lois Lerner. Set aside also the fact that President Obama does not have a good record of assuring Jews that he has not been singling them out for coded disparagement during his selling of the Iran deal, and that, given his past, Sharpton is the last person who might dispel that growing suspicion of administration anti-Semitism (e.g., “white interloper”/“diamond merchants”/“If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house,”). Sharpton, as usual, is not telling the whole truth here. There is no statistical evidence to suggest that blacks have suffered more military deaths during wartime on a percentage basis than have other groups — including whites — since the integration of the armed forces nearly 70 years ago.
According to the Congressional Research Service, since 1948, there is little evidence to back up Al Sharpton’s stereotypes of inordinate African-American sacrifice (at least as defined as the ultimate sacrifice in war) compared to the African-American percentage of the general population. In the Korean War, 80 percent of military deaths were white; 8.4 percent were African-American. In Vietnam the military death ratio was 85.6 percent white to 12.4 percent black. In the first Gulf War it was 76.3 percent white compared to 17.2 percent black; in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), 85 percent white compared to 8 percent black; and in Operation Iraqi Freedom through 2014, the military death ratio was 82 percent white to 10 percent black.
In other words, in almost all cases, the white death ratio approximated or exceeded the percentages of whites in the general population. The black military death percentages were mostly similar, slightly falling below population percentages in Korea and Afghanistan, reflecting about the percentage of the general African-American population during Vietnam, slightly lower during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and slightly higher during the first Gulf War — although the total deaths in that war (383) were a fraction of those lost in the other four wars referenced. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that Asians, Latinos, blacks, and Native Americans have died disproportionately in America’s wars since 1948, although during the Vietnam War era that was an article of faith of the anti-war Left.
If Sharpton means simple membership within the Armed Services, then representation of blacks in all branches (16.2 percent) is not all that inordinate (less than average in the Marines and Coast Guard, more than average in the Army, Air Force, and Navy) and is not explained by white underrepresentation in the military (71.9 percent), but rather by apparent under-representation of other minority groups (e.g., Asians, Latinos, and those either of mixed race or who do not identify by race), although particular minority percentages of the general population are often disputed for a variety of reasons. Of course, it is hard to know whether Sharpton feels that overrepresentation or underrepresentation in the military, in terms of racial percentages, represents discrimination or putting an unwelcome burden “disproportionately” on African Americans.