Asymmetrical Information

This doesn't even get into addressing the issue that minorities in the military are actually (contrary to some stereotypes) less likely to be in dangerous combat roles.

The explanation being rather simple-- minority members of the military are more likely to come from poorer backgrounds and be joining for the money, and seek to avoid dangerous postings. A higher percentage of the white members of the military come from Southern middle class quasi-rural backgrounds who are joining not primarily for the money, but because of a desire to serve. Hence they volunteer for the front-line stuff more often.

Are minorities really over-represented in the military?

Not by much, according to recent (2003-4) statistics. They are especially NOT over-represented in combat units. Combat units could be described as being overly-represented by "red-state" caucasians. The LEAST represented Americans in the armed services are "European-Americans" from the Northeast and the West Coast.

I'm not sure there's really been a "long period when there were no wars" in recent history. The US Military doesn't seem to go long without fighting someplace or other in the world.

See, for instance, this timeline on wikipedia.

First of all, I served in the army for eight years of my life. The minorities aren't the target of recuiters. They don't go out of their way to try an sucker in minorities. What they do is offer a method of gaining 50k college money for an offering of three years of your time. The representation isn't that only blacks or hispanics can join. What it does is give an easy out for families that cannot afford to send their child to college to do so.

As I am of finish/irish decent you can guess what I look like. Now, I will state that I trusted my life to everyone in my unit. It wasn't a matter of me choosing based off my race. The military long ago used to have a very prejudice attitude as far as minorities were concerned. Then Vietnam occured and it became ethinically diverse. After Vietnam the US soldier came from all walks of life. The majority of those people though in the enlisted ranks came from the poorer individuals in the United States. The reason for this is because if you really had the money would you choose a 1300/month job that you will get shot at or would you choose to go to school and party?

The majority of the human race would rather go to school, party and get a good job. Those poorer individuals that cannot afford to make it through college have to find other methods to survive.

Now, if you want to argue that the minorities live amoungst the poorer areas of the United States. You would be correct. The fact that individuals wish to leave the slums of places like Chicago and Detroit doesn't suprise me. I worked with more people from large cities then I did from rural America. The arguement that your making isn't a valid arguement. It's like saying people drive break the law speeding. It isn't a view of the whole picture.

I have always claimed the US Army, etc., is the best education institution in the country.

It takes many young people that are not prepared to be responsible adults and turns them into highly productive citizens.

Yes, I don't think that word ("affirmative action") means what Mark Kleiman thinks it means. Many employers recruit minorities even for positions in which minorities are overrepresented (as Jane notes, government agencies are a prime example). They still call that an "affirmative action" program.

There is one other point to be made about the success in the recruitment of minorities,the ready availability of minority leadership role models.Minorities will find minority recruiters on their doorsteps and they will find minority officers and noncoms when they go through basic and advanced training and get assigned out to units. This gets communicated back home and it makes the next recruitment a little bit easier.

The recruitment of minorities is not just an American phenomenon. The Uk government has always done very well in its recruitment efforts in the Celtic fringe as well as among people of color.

The United States military has also done very well in its recruitment of certain religious groups, such as Roman Catholics. The schools that kept the ROTC programs active after the Ivies and other elite schools closed them down were the Catholic colleges and universities. This led to a circumstance in the 80s where Roman Catholics were disproportionately represented among the officer class in the military,again creating a virtuous circle for further recruitment.

One of the problems that American elites have yet to deal with well is the creation of a connection between those that earn such disproportionate wealth and those who extend their time and lives in the protection of the system that allows that wealth to be accummulated. It is clearly in the interest of the elite universities such as Harvard and its various faculties to keep America strong; at some point they will have to realize that it is in their interest to commit to doing some of that keeping themselves.

I believe fxm meant "those who expend their time and lives" rather than "extend".

My impression has long been that blacks, at least, make up a share of the military roughly equal to their proportion of the general population, not "grossly overrepresented". Maybe Kleiman has other facts.

I don't know where he gets the idea that Eugene Volokh "would love it to be true that the ACLU is inconsistent". EV's long worked with the ACLU, and while he doesn't approve of every position they take, he is generally supportive of them. This has been discussed multiple times at the Volokh Conspiracy, and EV takes some heat for it from commenters.

It's oh so un pc to point this out, but has anyone noticed that public sector workers are reknowned for thier particular work ethic. Rampant affirmative action isn't going to hurt the bottom line of an organization based not on accompishing a task within the envelope of a profit margin but instead based around a biger budget next year.

The really interesting question is why anyone at NYCLU should construe the military's intensive recruiting in minority neighborhoods, or even of people with "minority" tags next to their names, as a civil liberties problem. The CLUs generally don't mind the collection of racial data; in fact IIRC they were adamantly opposed to CA's Prop 209 in part because it didn't let CA collect racial data. I happen to think that letting the government put a racial category next your name could be construed as a civil liberties problem; but I'll believe that's what the NYCLU is concerned about when they also demand SUNY not do it.

I can second Shelby's observation, Volokh has repeatedly defended the national ACLU on his blog and in debates within the blog's comments section. IIRC he made a point of calling-out the 'Stop The ACLU' blog for failing to distinquish between national and local ACLU activities, and for portraying the ACLU as possessing a covert agenda.

There is a legitimate controversy occuring at this time, among ACLU members, concerning both the governance and priorties of many local ACLU's and the national office.

In the first place minorities are NOT overrepresented in the military. period. They are not now nor were they in Viet Nam, much to the chagrin of the Rangels, Jacksons,and Sharptons spiel.

What they said.

.. I mean the military is wonderfully representative of our nation as a united whole, no matter what the lefties say. Here is the data...

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda05-08.cfm

A more nuance answer maybe.

Just guessing from active duty time, but minorities are overrepresented in the Army and Marines, to a lesser extent in Navy and Air Force. But the concept is a myth; the US military is very much a middle-class institution. Unfortunately young people with poor academic achievement and schools scores have difficulty here, as they have difficulty getting ahead in every other American institution. So Thacker is repeating liberal mythology, and I agree with Shelby and the rest.

In this military, elite combat troops are considered prime postings, line troops much less so. As a consequence, elite units tend to attract people who were more successful in their prior role in life, and, unfortunately in our society, that tends to be the more successful ethnic groups; whites, asian-americans, the middle class and upper middle class.

My guess is that upper-middle class elites from the northeast have very little contact with people from a service background, and so simply guess that they must be other than themselves; "poor" and "minorities".

Hmmmm.

I wish liberals would make up their minds.

Gays joining the military = good.

Minorities joining the military = bad.

Gay minorities joining the military = good?, bad?

Really now. If being in the military, I am a former Marine, is great then why wouldn't liberals want minorities to get in on the deal? If it's so terrible then what's the point of screaming about gays in the military?

Frankly if you look at this logically absurd view you could only conclude that liberals believe that the military should be comprised of white gays.

*shrug* I suppose the camo will be better color coordinated. Lord knows the Air Force needs all the fashion help they can get.

"at some point they will have to realize that it is in their interest to commit to doing some of that keeping themselves."

Really? I'd think if they could get other people to do said "keeping" while staying at home raking in huge salaries from McKinsey, that would be even more in their interest.

There are Asians in the military? I don't think I've ever seen one. The Services seems to be overwhelmingly Black and White.

My favorite observation came from the first commenter:

"I seriously cannot believe a human being exists on this planet who does not understand the distinction between the U.S. Army making extra efforts to recruit in minority neighborhoods, and IBM making extra efforts to recruit in minority neighborhoods."

The distinction, not apparent to me, turned out to be:

IBM = good
US Army = bad

My girl is from Beijing, and just got back from a two year stint in the US Army, stationed in Korea. She wanted to become a US Citizen without having to marry an old man (irony is that we're now engaged!). Being from China she was pretty naieve, so when they told her she could "probably" arrange to be stationed in Monterry (we live in San Francisco area) she actually belived them! Oops.... Point being there are in fact some asians in the U.S. millitary, though I doubt if many of them are "home grown"

As an earlier commenter said, the military truly is a very middle class institution. The main reasons for this are (1) an IQ of 100 is minimum for the military, while IQ of 100 is the mean for civilians, and (2) increased responsibility is earned by performance. I heartily recommend the military to anyone who had finished college (or high school) and is not sure what they want to do in life. A single tour is all that's needed, but surprisingly, many people really like the military life.

Per this http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/table3.gif Asians are _way_ underrepresented. Tons of Pac Islanders tho, percentage-wise.

Hmmmm.

There are Asians in the military? I don't think I've ever seen one. The Services seems to be overwhelmingly Black and White.

Well I'm from South Korea, now naturalized. So count one there, but we are rather rare. Frankly the military, Marines included, seem mostly white, black or hispanic. No idea about the breakdown of asians in the military by origin or ethnic group. But I'd say that we're probably very underrepresented compared to the breakdown in overall population.

*shrug* probably has something to do with the famous asian mother mania for education. After you've been lectured for the thousandth time on how much your family has sacrificed to bring you into the world and just how much your beloved great-grandmother would die all over again, but only of shame this time instead of by the advancing Chinese infantry, because you got a B+ rather than an A+ with extra credit.

Yep. No pressure there.

Liberal-Left Assumptions (as evidenced by many current / recent political statements / campaigns/liberal left blogs):

1) Chicken-Hawks shouldn't be in charge of the governement (or at least the President).
2) There are too many Minorities in the military.

Conclusion:
They don't want minorities being in charge of national politics.

So Thacker is repeating liberal mythology

Shrug. We agree that blacks are overrepresented in the line non-combat roles, underrepresented in the elite combate roles. I know people who went into the military for college money or to build skills, and I know plenty of others who joined the military for other reasons. The latter group tend to be middle class people from small towns or rural America, primarily in the "red states," as people note.

Not all poor people are stupid; I certainly wasn't arguing that and I think you come awfully close to claiming that. There are plenty of poor people who come from poor backgrounds but still have the IQ and the ability to rise from their backgrounds. The military provides many of those people with exactly such an opportunity. That's certainly not all the people in the military by any means, but it describes some people.

I'm simply arguing that:
1) Blacks are more likely to be poor (unfortunately)
2) The poorer background someone comes from in the military, likely the more important the educational advancement/skills/money were in deciding on the military.
3) Therefore, the percentage of blacks in the military who joined for the education/skills/money for college/instead of college is higher than that of whites.

Therefore, it's unsurprising that while black enlistment rates are high, casuality rates are low.

John,

Your conclusion seems heavily based off of point 2,

"The poorer background someone comes from in the military, likely the more important the educational advancement/skills/money were in deciding on the military."

I don't understand how you can claim that. Any data to support this?

I have known several poor, extremely poor by people in this blog's standards (ie, lives in a - gasp- trailer) people who joined the military, and they did so for the money and a sense of adventure/duty while they're at it.

Both lived in seperate halves of the country, and they were both white, but I have no reason to believe black people are any different. Are they not adventurous or patriotic? And do they not think its valuable to have a guaranteed steady paycheck for doing something that does not involve serving up french fries or running a cash register?

Probably the best answer to this would be to find out the % of people who sign up that actually take the education benefits.

Sorry for not thoroughly reading, even though I quoted, your qualifiers about skills and money in addition to education.

That being said, how can anyone disagree with such a qualified statment. I suppose if everyone was signing up just cause they were blood thirsty murders like someone have us believe...

Anyway, I don't understand why we keep letting the otherside define the terms of the debate. They pull up all kinds of inequalities, backed by half truths and leave us to respond. This whole debate is silly. The military is good. Service in the military is good. I would much rather have an army with people serving in it protecting this country and its interests than the alternative.

Maybe "we" need to go on the offensive pointing out the lunacies that "their" policies create rather than just responding to non-sensical rantings that our armed forces oppress black people by giving them money and opportunity. If only we could require IBM and Microsoft to give them all high paying executive jobs, gee wouldn't life be nice.

A huge problem is that most gov't jobs are quasi patronage jobs. Remember the shutdown when about 90% of the jobs were non-essential? I worked as a private contractor to the state of MA and the waste and inefficiency in state gov't is beyond beilief. Said 'jobs' are really just political payoffs and many if not most of the recipients are unemployable outside of the gov't. Equating gov't outreach with private or military recruiting is simply apples and oranges.

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