"All That We Can Be"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that" All That We Can Be" by Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler relates that from the first days of armed combat in colonial times, blacks have fought in the army. Nonetheless, the more than a million blacks serving during WWII were mostly in segregated units. The author stresses that, in 1948, President Truman signed Executive Order 9381, which desegregated all armed services and guaranteed equal treatment and opportunity for all military personnel. The paper stresses that, after the Vietnam War, race relations in the Army moved toward being integrated completely, and systems were put in place to fulfill the promise of equal treatment and opportunity.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Why This Book Was Selected
Why Bother with Questioning Race at All
The History of Blacks in the Army
From before the American Revolution to the Gulf War
The Two Phases of Integration
The Problems Facing the Integration Process
Blacks Come from Poorly Educated Backgrounds
A System for Assigning Jobs to Recruits
Moskos compares the Army to College and the Corrections System
The Army Success with Racism Is Not a Control Issue
Fundamental Problems Show Themselves with the Most Furtive of Glances
The Army Leadership
The Non-Commissioned Officer Corps Is the Backbone of the Army
The Officer Corps Is the Executives of the Army
Specific Programs to Deal with Racism
Equal Opportunity Is a Guarantee
Practical Solutions Can Be Applied to Everyday Situations, Based on
Demand

From the Paper:

"In Somalia, an interesting thing occurred. Black soldiers came face to face with their "ancestors". Some watched the scenes carefully for mixed feelings about blacks being on the other end of the rifle of other blacks. Apparently, however, the consensus for Black American troops was that these people were not their ancestors and were not the face in the mirror, but a shadow of the past. Here, in this dictatorship in defense of a democracy, Afro centrism had not found its perch. Being black did not mean and for many, does not mean being a hyphenated person. For many blacks, being an American is enough. In my
opinion, this is because they know and are secure in the knowledge that America was shaped by blacks and the title of American is theirs as much as it is a middle income white boy's from the suburbs of middle America."

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