- 5 months ago
Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree leads a town meeting exploring the attitudes of Black Americans toward the Gulf War, a conflict in which nearly 30% of US soldiers were African American.
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00:01Frontline is a presentation of the Documentary Consortium.
00:08Tonight, the Gulf War and its aftermath for Black America.
00:13Thirty percent of the U.S. ground forces were African Americans.
00:17And it was General Colin Powell's military doctrine that guided the success of the operation.
00:22First, we're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it.
00:25No black human being in America has ever exercised as much power as Colin Powell does.
00:31Now, don't show me a Joe Louis of Colin Powell when mothers can't feed their children.
00:38Law professor Charles Ogletree examines the issues of war, peace, and race at a church meeting in Philadelphia.
00:45We have a war to fight on drugs. We have a war to fight on poverty.
00:50Every time a bomb dropped, every time everybody read, yeah, there was another bomb, another Nintendo game.
00:55It cost you, the taxpayers.
00:58Tonight on Frontline, Black America's War.
01:07With funding provided by the financial support of viewers like you.
01:13And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
01:17This is Frontline.
01:30In 1917, as America entered the First World War, the great writer W.E.B. Du Bois made a public plea to the Negro community.
01:38Let us, quote, forget our special grievances and close ranks, he wrote.
01:44If the black man could fight to defeat the Kaiser, he could later present a bill for payment due to a grateful white America.
01:51Du Bois clearly believed it, and he encouraged blacks to sign up for that war.
02:02He was doubly disillusioned, therefore, when young black soldiers returning from France were lynched, still wearing the uniform of their country.
02:16In the past three weeks, still wearing the uniform of their country, black soldiers, along with whites, returned from the Persian Gulf to a tumultuous welcome.
02:33Never before in the history of this country were blacks so prominent in the front lines of war.
02:48And never before did blacks at home fight so hard to stop the war.
02:58No other group of Americans had as much to gain or to lose.
03:05For African Americans, what will be the legacy of the Persian Gulf War?
03:10This past week, at the Berean Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest and most historic inner city churches of Philadelphia, there was a town hall gathering.
03:22Don't you ever tell a young person, especially not my children, not to be all that they can be, whether it's in the military or wherever.
03:31The consequences to life and the reality of it is, if you are part of a nation, I don't care what color the people are, you face the aggressor.
03:39If you are part of that nation, when that nation go to war, you go.
03:42Be all you can be? What can you be when you have a government that has misplaced priorities like that?
03:53You cannot be anything. You cannot be anything in this country.
03:58You've got to be a person who respects where you are and what you are.
04:03Citizens talked and argued among themselves, and with a panel that included the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
04:09One should not get the impression that somehow our patriotism is up for discussion.
04:16It is the way that we have been dealt that's up for discussion.
04:22Columnist Hotting Carter was there.
04:25I'm sorry that there was this falling apart on racial lines as this war progressed.
04:31I'm sorry because in many, many ways, the way black Americans have made their way through the military today and the way the military functions ought to be exactly what ought to be demanded of the society at large.
04:46The first black general in the U.S. Marine Corps, Frank Peterson.
04:51When I came home from Korea, I thought, now I'm really a part of the mainstream.
04:56Wasn't there.
04:58I came home from Vietnam, now I am part of the mainstream.
05:02Wasn't there, and I only wasn't there, I had to fight my way out of the airport literally just to get to my car, because I was in uniform.
05:08Now you have those kids coming home from the Persian Gulf.
05:11And the writer for New York Magazine, Joe Klein.
05:15No, wait a second.
05:16Now, I want you to listen to me, because for 20 years in this country, we haven't been talking to each other.
05:22We haven't been talking to each other since the late 60s.
05:25We who?
05:26We, whites and blacks, for 20 years, the political reality in this country, and you know it very well, Reverend Jackson.
05:32The evening was moderated by Charles Ogletree, professor of law at Harvard University.
05:38Now, we're going to start this actual presentation with a film clip.
05:42We ask you to watch this very carefully.
05:44Then I'm going to come back and talk to the audience to get your responses as well.
06:02It is ugly, but true.
06:17Outsiders bind themselves to this country by the shedding of their blood.
06:23The conflict in the Persian Gulf revived one of the most sensitive arguments in African American life, especially among its leaders.
06:38What are the stakes for blacks when this country goes to war?
06:44Reaching back to Frederick Douglass and Du Bois, black activists have a long history of supporting America's wars.
07:03In World War II, the slogan among black troops was the double V.
07:07Victory abroad, victory at home.
07:10Still in segregated units, blacks agitated for the chance to fight, in the hopes of being repaid with better lives at home.
07:21Everybody supported the war at that time, World War II.
07:26Blacks were urging the government to put them in combat services.
07:33Vietnam marked a turning point.
07:35The front lines were nicknamed Soulville because blacks were so numerous.
07:42Black troops were bitter and racial tensions ran high.
07:47You found that your units, your actual grunt units, your front line companies, platoons, were predominantly black or minority.
07:55So you wind up essentially as a rifle.
07:57You're a grunt.
07:58You're on the ground, you're in the dirt.
07:59That's where they wound up.
08:00They were the troops who were actually doing the fighting.
08:02This is the old Thomas Edison High School in inner city Philadelphia.
08:09Fifty-four of its students were killed in Vietnam.
08:12More deaths than any other high school in the country.
08:15Today, blacks make up almost 30% of army troops.
08:29Last fall, as America steeled itself for a long ground campaign, it was anticipated that about a quarter of all casualties would be black.
08:38Blacks all over the country knew people who had gone into the reserves in order to augment meager incomes.
08:53And the idea of preserving the Kuwaiti way of life, protecting the Saudis and protecting their way of life is a very hard sell for people who have a hard time keeping a kid in a public school.
09:14Meanwhile, America's upper classes were almost entirely absent from the Gulf.
09:21Lower Merion High School in a suburban neighborhood just a few miles from Thomas Edison.
09:29The armed forces come here looking for recruits, but in schools like this one, they find few takers.
09:35I think it's really aimed at people who have a lot less money around than we do.
09:44A recruiter from a good college could get 10 to 20 or more people.
09:50But a recruiter from the military might get five and about two who really want to know about it and the other three went as a spoof.
10:05As a spoof?
10:06Yeah, it's really considered sort of a joke.
10:09Have you ever thought about serving a country?
10:10The military is not a part of doing what they want to do.
10:13They're not going to sign up and go.
10:16They know that those battlefields, you can die.
10:19And they're not about to, they have a future that they've planned on Wall Street and other places, and it does not include the armed services.
10:26That's why they're very, very happy to brag about, quote unquote, the all-volunteer army.
10:31Those guys volunteered, they say.
10:33But they never take into consideration that the reason why they volunteered is because they had no place else to go.
10:43The disengagement of the rich.
10:45The growing divide between black and white.
10:48The arguments seemed a metaphor for what this country had become in the 1980s.
10:52One writer, looking at how differently the war was perceived by whites and blacks, dubbed it the Reagan-Bush Gap.
11:05But if many fault white leadership, black leaders too have come under fire.
11:11What do we want?
11:12Peace!
11:14Ever since Vietnam, the civil rights and peace movements have been closely tied.
11:18The prospect of war in the Persian Gulf has brought anguish to the residents of your host city.
11:25Prominent black leaders were all but unanimous in opposing the Gulf War.
11:29I think most of those so-called black leaders, and I say so-called because we're one of the few races on Earth that must have a leader designated by color.
11:40I can say that as an anomaly.
11:42But I think most of those were motivated by political desires and misreading what their constituencies were really all about.
11:49I think also now that the war is over, many of them are with egg on face.
11:54We are talking life and death, war and peace.
11:59For much of the war, polls showed that about 50% of blacks supported it.
12:04But all the members of the black Congressional Caucus, except one, voted against the use of force.
12:10The Reverend Jesse Jackson traveled to Baghdad to meet Hussein.
12:14He came back with a television interview of the Iraqi leader.
12:19And a group of freed hostages.
12:22Saddam Hussein was interested in trying to divide American public opinion along racial lines.
12:27So, Jackson comes back with this and doesn't quite get the reception he anticipated.
12:31In fact, complains that the media doesn't give him more celebrity status for bringing back some hostages.
12:37Because I think he failed to see that he was being used there by Saddam Hussein in a propaganda war.
12:42Jackson later met with the Iraqi ambassador to the UN.
12:48With him was the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, who had earlier declared that George Bush, not Hussein, was the invader.
12:56The United States, Daughtry had said, was the greater monster.
13:00As the deadline for war grew near, black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan flew to Baghdad to express his sympathy with the Iraqi leader.
13:10Farrakhan also tried to persuade Saudi leaders to expel American troops from their soil.
13:15And I don't think blacks should look at this issue through a racial prism only.
13:22It invites a political isolation that is even greater than the political isolation that we now suffer.
13:30But we can't, on the other hand, we can't just leave out the racial aspect.
13:37The long term legacy for black Americans should be pride.
13:43I mean, this was a case where African Americans played a very major role in the operation from beginning to end, from top to bottom.
13:53It was enormously successful.
13:55Something actually worked.
13:56Do you realize how long it's been since that's happened in this country?
14:06If history is any guide, black soldiers are coming back to this country with new confidence, unwilling to settle for the lives they had before.
14:17They have fought the war abroad, and now they're home.
14:21What war they'll fight next remains to be seen.
14:24We have a young man here in the audience who's in the military, I believe.
14:31Sir, you wanted to respond?
14:33I talked to Mr. Klein.
14:35My brother's in the Gulf.
14:37And the day before he shipped out, I drove down to Stuttgart, Germany, to speak with him and speak to people that were shipping out with him.
14:45And pertaining to your saying that people are not mercenaries, many of the African Americans were very concerned with their role in the Gulf
14:52in the Gulf, and that they were going to fight on other dark-skinned people, and that America made no effort to free South Africa or free the Palestinians.
14:59So there's a deep concern amongst the African Americans, the ones I've seen. I can't speak for all.
15:03Well, before you leave, you're saying your brother, as willing as he was to go to Persian Gaul, still had other important issues that he thought should be addressed?
15:12No, he was not willing.
15:13He was not willing?
15:14He was not willing.
15:15Well, it's a volunteer army.
15:16Yes, it is.
15:17So what did he volunteer to do?
15:18He volunteered because of the alternative.
15:21Oh, wait, wait, wait, excuse me. Because of the alternative, why don't you...
15:26The military allows you an alternative. Being from the inner city, there's certain things that are available to you.
15:33You have sometimes the drug trade, if you don't want to get involved with that.
15:36Higher education has been taken away from us during the Reagan slash Bush administration.
15:41So you can do the underground or you can join the military.
15:44Okay.
15:45So many African Americans choose the military.
15:48Anyone else who says no? Anyone else who says no, we should not go? Sir?
15:55Well, as a matter of fact, I was involved in a program here in Philadelphia where we were trying to counsel and advise blacks not to choose the military as a way out.
16:09But the thing about it is that our situation has not changed since slavery.
16:14When we were slaves, we had to work as slaves if we wanted to live or survive.
16:18Well, what about...
16:19Today, we have to do...
16:20You've got a General Peterson who joined decades ago, rolls up through the ranks, has been the first African American to be a general in the Marine Corps.
16:31Aren't you doing a disservice to his commitment and his loyalty to say, don't go?
16:40Why he goes is his business. All I'm saying, does he know why he is going and who he is serving?
16:47We'll ask you.
16:48And he is not serving us by going.
16:49All right. General Peterson.
16:50There are two issues there. I mean, whether to go and why to go, but one of your objectives was fighting discrimination in the military and that you overcame that.
17:03Well, let me just...
17:04What about this attitude?
17:05Let me just preface any statement I might make by saying that I've never been confused. That's not one of my traits.
17:14I went because of a personal commitment to serve my country and myself. And for those of you who say that blacks should not go into the military, I would balance that against your alternative that you would offer them, which is zero.
17:30All right. We actually have some...
17:33I belong to an organization that says, if your country is in trouble, regardless of who you are, red, white, green or black, you support it. You go with it. Because I have no other country to go to. If you can tell me another country where I could be free to stand up here and say that, then I'll gladly go.
17:54And those who want to go, I am against those who are opposed to it. Because now you have a cause to say, I want this. Because I went out there and fought for it. Now I want this.
18:09Yes, this man right here.
18:10I'm a Vietnam veteran. My attitude from Vietnam, I served, I paid for my own blood. I should get the best that America has to offer bar none. And that's what doesn't work.
18:22And what about your attitude in terms of what black leaders had to say about this war?
18:26I thought that they missed a political opportunity. However, I believe just like the Palestinians never miss a chance to miss a chance that sometimes black leaders blow opportunities because of the rigidity of their mindset.
18:40So when black political leaders stood up to oppose the use of armed force when we started that, you disagreed? You didn't think they were...
18:46I understood what they said. And I agreed in what they were saying, but I thought that there was a point that they had to become more political, even in light of the successes and the feelings of the black community, of the black troops themselves.
18:59They felt good about what they were doing. They felt proud. And over here, there was a division, even in their own ranks. I thought black leaders should have been more political.
19:06Reverend Jackson, Saddam Hussein has been called a terrorist, a madman. He invaded a sovereign state. He used weapons that threatened the lives of many sovereign countries. And yet we see the reaction in America.
19:2480% of white Americans enthusiastically supported our decision to go into the war. And yet, not more than 50% of African Americans, at one time only 27% supported the decision to go and fight in Iraq.
19:43How do you explain this race gap?
19:46Well, first of all, Saddam Hussein's invasion, occupation, and oppression of Kuwait was immoral, illegal. It was wrong. There was almost unanimous support of the military deterrence stopping from going beyond Kuwait.
20:10The same was true of the economic sanctions, so as to take the profit out of his invasion, his occupation, and his annexation. There was a substantial split as to whether we should maintain the sanctions.
20:23It was almost 50-50 in the U.S. Senate, and it is an all-white body. The fear for many African Americans was once we moved from sanctions to military escalation, that the African American troops, for example, were disproportionate, like 30%.
20:40There was the fear of blacks dying disproportionately, and then the fear that maybe the policy objective of peace and stability might not be achieved.
20:53Mr. Carter, let me ask you this. You were involved in the Carter administration, and more importantly, you have been witnessing eight years of Reaganism in the White House and two years of Bush's domestic policies in the White House.
21:04Is there any correlation between the low amount of African American support for the war and what you've witnessed in the last ten years of the Republican administration?
21:14There is no question that you have a large number of people who I can only think of as those who have been dealt out, who look at a government which has systematically spent ten years failing to address or even systematically attacking the root of the ways of getting at their problems first.
21:34And then you say, you say, and now I'm supposed to trust these guys when they say this war diverting this much money is a good thing.
21:43And you look back and you say, now these are the same fellows who have been sitting there spending a great part of their time quite overtly appealing to people who don't have my interests at heart.
21:55And then they're turning around and saying, but this war is a really good thing.
21:59I don't think you have to go much deeper than that to understand the roots of a great deal of the disagreement.
22:06Now, I like the applause and the last applause I'll get tonight.
22:11I happen to disagree with that.
22:13I mean, this was something in the end I, as an old anti-war guy, felt was the right war at the right time.
22:20But on the other hand, I'm one of society's beneficiaries these days.
22:24I'm not one of the guys who has been really, in effect, screwed over over the last ten years.
22:29A number of black political leaders expressed opposition to that war.
22:32Let me ask you this in terms of your perspective and what could have been done and what should be done.
22:38What's your reaction to, as you call them, so-called black leaders standing up in opposition to the war once this country was committed to going?
22:47Well, if they're going to stand up for opposition to the war and be very vehement and vocal about it,
22:53they should do the same with those conditions that exist prior to those troops going into the military.
22:58Well, Reverend Jackson did that.
22:59What about the idea, Minister Farrakhan talked about embracing Saddam Hussein.
23:05Reverend Jackson went over and brought some hostages back.
23:10Do you think they should have done that?
23:12I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
23:14I think in this country you're allowed to do anything that is not essentially illegal.
23:19And if that's one of the methods of getting your point across or your message across, that's fine.
23:24Reverend Jackson?
23:25I want to say this is important.
23:26It's not fair.
23:27All right.
23:28It's not fair.
23:29It's not a fair correlation.
23:31I confronted Saddam Hussein and challenged him to leave Kuwait and urged him to release Americans and others held hostage and brought them back home.
23:44But our further challenge, not only was he wrong for being in Kuwait, if we're going to embrace the principle of self-determination, it must apply to Iraq.
23:57It must also apply in West Bank, Lebanon, Panama, Grenada, Angola, and South Africa as well.
24:03Broadly issued.
24:04It must apply across the board.
24:08So it is fair to distinguish what my mission was and I felt good about bringing Americans back home.
24:16There's a client on the issue of black leadership here.
24:18Juan Williams in that piece that you saw was critical of Reverend Jackson's mission to the Persian Gulf.
24:25And in fact said that that was a way of dividing the black community in some sense and creating a racial issue in this country.
24:32Well, I think that there are two different issues here.
24:34One is the issue of diplomatic freelancing and who sent Reverend Jackson.
24:37I feel uncomfortable about your trip on two levels.
24:39One, as a journalist, I think that mixing journalism and diplomacy is kind of off the board, which you were doing there.
24:47And secondly, I think that there's a possibility in the case of freelance diplomacy of sending mixed messages.
24:55I think that Saddam Hussein was getting that very message that you delivered to him from President Bush, from Secretary of State Baker.
25:05I'd like to ask you what you think you're delivering that message.
25:10What difference it made that you personally delivered that message?
25:13I was there as a TV host, but also there concerned about trying to help break that cycle where communications had broken down, in fact, and making an appeal directed to him and the challenge to come out of Kuwait.
25:28That was within policy.
25:30But what, I mean, what prevents, I mean, Louis Farrakhan was there and Ramsey Clark was there.
25:35Jim and Tammy Baker could have gone there.
25:37What prevents everybody from going, well, anybody who wants, what prevents anybody who wants to get a little press from going over there?
25:44Nothing prevents them except maybe courage or conviction.
25:48Or the money from the plaintiff.
25:49I don't want to prevents them.
25:50All right, we're going to take another couple of comments right here.
25:55Why jump on Reverend Jackson when he was going to bring back Goodman and when he went to bring back some people who needed to come back because they were sick, Hussein?
26:09Why jump on him when he brought people back from Cuba?
26:12I would to God there were thousands of other Jesse Jacksons.
26:19There are some military recruiters here.
26:21I believe there's a gentleman here.
26:23Sir, one of your responsibilities is try to encourage people to serve in the military.
26:29And I'd like to hear your response to some of these views that black Americans maybe shouldn't join and maybe shouldn't be fighting these wars.
26:40Well, personally, I think that we offer opportunities to everyone.
26:44And if they choose to accept those opportunities, that's great.
26:47We don't discriminate on racial lines at all.
26:51Well, does it trouble you that, not following orders, but the view here by some people that maybe blacks should not be involved in the military, maybe they should not be fighting?
27:03No, I believe it's their right to express that opinion.
27:06I don't have any problem with that.
27:09Again, as Reverend Jackson stated, I don't feel any problem with people not supporting the conflict.
27:15That's what we're fighting for.
27:16That's what the military is there for, to support their right to express their opinion.
27:20Reverend Jackson?
27:21That's why I said it's important because this issue, it's so finely cut.
27:28We have earned our rights with our blood.
27:33The veterans of World War I and II and Korea laid the predicate for Dr. King and Rosa Parks.
27:43It's never been that far apart in that sense.
27:47Part of our problem is that tonight, outside of the streets here in Philadelphia, where we are tonight, Kuwait looks worse than the inner city of Philadelphia tonight.
27:58But two years from now, Kuwait will be rebuilt and inner city of Philadelphia will be two years worse on.
28:07That's a part of our problem, that the risk-reward ratio is off here.
28:18Just last week, the brother raised such a profound question.
28:21As our troops are coming back home, hugging wives and babies, looking for a job in the middle of an economic recession,
28:29the ambassador of Kuwait took a plane load of business people to Kuwait for a $100 billion five-year plan for 500,000 people.
28:42The troops who fought in the war should have the first cut on the redevelopment of Kuwait.
28:49It's like there is no equation where reward and risk ever comes together.
28:54Okay.
28:55It's not so much for or against war.
28:58It really comes down to reward and risk.
29:01And for us, it's high risk and low reward.
29:04And that's part of the agony that you feel here.
29:06Okay.
29:07I want to talk a little bit.
29:08We want to talk about reward and risk as Reverend Jackson has characterized it.
29:13And we want to talk about that reward and risk in terms of General Colin Powell, who, as you know, based on his role in the Persian Gulf,
29:22was the most powerful African-American in this country and perhaps one of the most powerful in this country's history,
29:28given the power that he had to make decisions.
29:31We're going to have a short videotape production about General Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and African-American.
29:39And we're going to talk about General Powell's role in the war and his role as a leader in this country.
29:46As a measure of effectiveness of how we're doing in the air campaign, I just pulled these two things out.
29:51I've laundered them so you can't really tell what I'm talking about because I don't want the Iraqis to know what I'm talking about.
29:57But trust me. Trust me.
30:03The most sensitive decisions of war and peace.
30:09The trusted inner circle of men.
30:12And for the first time ever, a black man among them.
30:16I feel about Colin Powell much the same way I felt about Jackie Robinson.
30:31This man is a pioneer.
30:33There has never in the history of America been a more powerful black human being.
30:39Ever.
30:41No black human being in America has ever exercised as much power as Colin Powell has.
30:49Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple.
30:52First, we're going to cut it off and then we're going to kill it.
30:55Colin Powell poses a dilemma to other black leaders.
30:58He is a symbol of black pride and he is also the most hawkish chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the days of Vietnam.
31:07It's not just the established black leadership, but it's also the Democratic Party that would have problems conceptually with Colin Powell.
31:15You know, on the one hand, he's an African American.
31:18On the other hand, he's a general.
31:19That makes him both a victim and an imperialist.
31:21It's, you know, cognitive dissonance.
31:23How can you be both?
31:26Colin Powell has moved between two worlds.
31:30The White House of Reagan and Bush and the network of black organizations around the country.
31:36These two worlds have been at odds for much of the past ten years.
31:42What does Colin Powell really stand for?
31:45And what will his rise to power mean for other black Americans?
31:49Colin Powell was born at the fringes of Harlem.
31:53Like many young men from working class homes, he enlisted in the ROTC drawn to the military in part for the fringe benefits it offered.
32:02That was more than 30 years ago.
32:05Now reporters comb through his past looking for clues.
32:09You know, in 1952 when Dwight Eisenhower accepted the Republican nomination,
32:13a close friend of his said, Democrats were after you to accept it in 1948 and this year, why weren't you a Democrat?
32:22And Eisenhower said, well, look, I grew up in Abilene, Kansas.
32:25I never knew Democrats.
32:26What are Democrats?
32:28Colin Powell grew up in Washington Heights in New York.
32:30He went to City College in New York.
32:32He speaks a little Yiddish.
32:33I don't think he probably met very many Republicans.
32:36He may well be a Democrat.
32:39The last time anyone could fix a political identity on Powell was in 1964,
32:45when his Volkswagen had a Johnson for President sticker on it.
32:49By then he'd served a tour in Vietnam while his family waited in Birmingham, Alabama.
32:55These were the days of Bull Connor and the famous police dogs.
33:02It really got to him that his family, while he was fighting for his country,
33:07his wife and her and his small child and her parents had to live in such fear of the police in Birmingham.
33:15And I think that that really left a mark on him.
33:18Unlike many black leaders, Powell watched the civil rights movement from afar.
33:25After his second Vietnam tour, he caught the attention of Frank Carlucci and Casper Weinberger,
33:31two powerful Republican appointees.
33:34Weinberger, as Secretary of Defense, presided over the great military buildup of the early 80s.
33:41Domestic programs were being cut.
33:44Civil rights leaders protested loudly.
33:46Powell remained loyal to Weinberger and Reagan.
33:51They, in turn, were loyal to him.
33:54General Powell is a very smooth operator.
33:58He's got a lot of style, he's got a lot of tact,
34:01and he has moved easily in jobs which allow him to mix and mingle with the high and mighty.
34:09He is a very smooth customer.
34:11Powell maintained close personal ties with black organizations and many black leaders, even as he climbed rapidly through the White House.
34:21Ladies and gentlemen, I am most pleased to introduce the man that I have selected to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
34:32General Colin L. Powell.
34:34This man would go on to orchestrate in the Persian Gulf, one of the most punishing bombing campaigns ever unleashed on this planet.
34:45Iraqi casualties are estimated at 100,000 or more.
34:48Yet, few have chosen to criticize Powell for that.
34:52He emerged from Desert Storm with the nickname The Black Eisenhower.
34:57And Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, whites and blacks, all are rushing to claim him as their own.
35:06I'm really proud of everything you're doing.
35:09Hey, get him on camera. You don't need me on camera. Take hold of you.
35:12Have you ever seen anything like this before in your life? Come on, let's go here.
35:15Wait, get your finger over the left, son.
35:17There you go.
35:21America loves black heroes.
35:24We love black exceptionalism.
35:26America loves to have black heroes because it tells America that we're fair and that the doors are open.
35:37And for those people who want to believe that the doors are open and we have a level playing field,
35:42you can look at Colin Powell and Michael Jordan and as exhibit A and say where you see those people in the ghettos if they just pull up their socks and stop going to bed at the age of 15,
35:56they too would be fine.
36:00He's not a Jesse Jackson. He's not someone who challenges whites and challenges the white power structure or their values.
36:06The truth is, Colin Powell validates the white power structure and their values because he has played by their rules and has succeeded and says others should play by the rules too.
36:18I'm the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I represent every GI who wears our uniform.
36:26But I'm also black and African American. My path was different. My path was more difficult.
36:33So, many interviewers, when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black.
36:44I tell them, don't stop now.
36:46I shot somebody you'd have mentioned.
36:5853 years you've been saying it, don't stop now.
37:04He can go into politics, he can go into corporate boardrooms.
37:08The truth of the matter is, I think Colin Powell can do whatever the hell he wants to.
37:13I think the world is his oyster. He can eat it, he can fry it, he can do anything he wants to.
37:21If Powell ever enters the political world, if ever he declares a position on abortion or affirmative action,
37:28then this man who now seems to have no enemies except Saddam Hussein will find out that he has many.
37:36In the meantime, he remains a mystery.
37:40Not even his children, it is said, know his political views or party affiliation.
37:45Reverend Jackson, what does General Colin Powell represent for a black American?
37:53Well, at one level, to me, he represents a personal friend.
37:58On the other hand, he lives outside of the zone of certain criticism,
38:02because he does not have to take positions where people do vote up or down.
38:07He is in the military arena.
38:09He administered the Panama war. He didn't make the decision.
38:14He administered the war in the Persian Gulf.
38:19Deciding to have the war was Mr. Bush's decision.
38:24He implements his job well.
38:27You've seen a lot of press reports calling him an American hero,
38:31and a lot of reporters and journalists suggesting that he should consider a political career.
38:36What's your reaction to that?
38:37Well, that's a choice he has to make.
38:40Why is it happening, though? I wonder why.
38:42Why are they saying Colin Powell might be a good vice-president candidate?
38:46He might be a candidate for a governor?
38:49Well, there's a sense now that somebody...
38:54That's George Washington.
38:56No, it's not. It's just that, too.
38:58This is the same George Washington?
39:00It's time for somebody black to make that breakthrough.
39:03And many whites are trying to choose who that will be.
39:06You see? And that's the two-ness of that.
39:10He's qualified to be it.
39:13He has great favor within his own ethnic community and around the country.
39:19So he has earned these accolades.
39:21But being a war hero coming out of a popular war, he is...
39:28I think Roger Wilkins' point was this.
39:30He is an exception.
39:33And there are those who would use his exceptional status as a fig leaf to cover millions of others who do not have those opportunities.
39:41All those things being said, there are several other things that also have to be said.
39:47I mean, the fact of the matter is, he is a genuine hero.
39:51A general becoming a presidential boom figure is as old as this republic.
39:57And it's a good thing, frankly, that it now is extended out to be new for the republic that it would be a black man who would be.
40:04Second thing is, this is not just a chairman of joint chiefs taking somebody's orders.
40:11This is the most powerful joint chief in the history of this country under a military reorganization which makes him an eminently powerful person in his own right.
40:22A man who, when he argued inside that four-person council, was heard and not responsive only.
40:28This guy had real power.
40:31Pocket it, folks, whether you like the war or not.
40:34The man was a power player who had positions which carried the day inside that debate within that circle of president, secretary of state, secretary of defense.
40:46Sir, you have a comment? You want to set up?
40:48Black leaders have been attacking Colin Powell.
40:50In what way?
40:51You said he just, first of all, the Bush administration is on the line and the republicans to deliver to these people when they come back.
40:56No doubt about it.
40:58You said he only administered the war.
41:00Bill Gray, and I have a lot of respect for him.
41:02But he denigrated his own position and the black caucus by saying Colin Powell was not a policy maker.
41:08He was just a policy executor.
41:11That's saying that Colin Powell is a house nigger.
41:13And if they say that blacks shouldn't have been in the war, shouldn't go to the gulf, and Colin Powell sends them, that's the house nigger sending the field niggers to die.
41:21That's what they said.
41:22And that's the anger that I have.
41:24That is an unfair characterization of his role.
41:28That is not, that's not Congressman Gray's position.
41:33And certainly it is not my position.
41:35In the file analysis, the commander-in-chief determines war and determines cease-fire.
41:44Everyone beneath that is an implementer and an inputter in that process.
41:50That's no denigration of Colin Powell.
41:54You're telling me a black cop can't address a black drug dealer.
41:59We'll get to you in just a minute.
42:00We'll get right back to you, sir.
42:02We'll get to you.
42:03People said, excuse me, Reverend Shepard, people said the same thing when blacks wanted to get into the police force.
42:08They said it was racist.
42:09Blacks became police officers, and then he accused them because they had to fight black street crime.
42:14A black policeman can't fight black street crime.
42:16A black general can't send black soldiers over the war.
42:19I mean, it's crazy.
42:20I don't understand what you're telling us.
42:21You got problems going into corporate America, problems going into education systems.
42:24We got problems everywhere, but we have made gains.
42:27Stop telling black people that they've done nothing, they've accomplished nothing.
42:30They have, and we need to move on from here.
42:32My point is...
42:33Mr. Klein?
42:34Is there a difference between Colin Powell and other black leaders?
42:38I think, I mean, other black leaders.
42:41You're generalizing.
42:42I think that as blacks...
42:43Well, let's take Reverend Jackson, for example.
42:45Let me be specific.
42:46I've heard him mention.
42:47I've heard him mention for president.
42:48I mean, here you are.
42:49You're a journalist.
42:50You've got two people.
42:51You've got Reverend Jackson, who's been in the political front for a long time.
42:55You've got Colin Powell, where the public and the press are saying, this guy has great political
43:00potential.
43:02Are they different?
43:04Are they different?
43:05Of course they're different.
43:06All right.
43:07I've seen Jesse Jackson in inner city high schools inspire kids the way I've never seen
43:12another American.
43:13But I haven't seen Jesse Jackson move 500,000 troops and a whole army over to the Middle East.
43:21So they have different skills.
43:23I mean, there are different human beings.
43:24There are...
43:25I mean, what I was going to say before is this.
43:27That as blacks move more into the American mainstream, as they have and will continue to
43:32do, you're going to see a greater diversity of black leaders and differences among them.
43:38You're seeing Doug Wilder.
43:39You're seeing Mike Espy in Mississippi.
43:41You're seeing Gary Franks in Connecticut.
43:43You're seeing all kinds of different people.
43:45Okay.
43:46The point is, our differences as human beings are self-evident because we have different
43:52parents, you know, and different orientations.
43:56And there is no conflict between our position.
44:00Jesse Jackson as president and Colin Powell as chair of Joint Chiefs allows both of us to
44:08function compatibly.
44:09We're going to take a couple of questions from the audience.
44:19Mr. Do you want to stand up?
44:23I wanted your sense.
44:25There's been a lot of talk in the press, the public about Colin Powell and his potential
44:30for leadership in this country.
44:32What's your perspective as a young student who has to make these critical decisions?
44:36He's coming out of this war as the architect of this masterful military operation, probably
44:41one of the most successful in modern history.
44:44And I think that brings with it positive implications as a role model for other black Americans.
44:51What about white Americans?
44:52For white Americans?
44:53Yes.
44:54In what respect?
44:55Is he also a role model for white Americans?
44:57I think he is too.
44:58I'm not saying that he's just specifically a role model for black Americans.
45:03But I'm saying maybe a new type of role model for black Americans, one of whom is self-reliant
45:09and who, although, you know, worked with a system that placed many obstacles for blacks
45:14in the United States, has risen to gain significant power.
45:19See if you're in power.
45:20My point is...
45:21Reverend Shepard, let me come to you.
45:22What I would like to say is, I get a little weary of this conversation about progress that
45:30we have made.
45:31How have we made progress when black people are in worse condition today than they have
45:38ever been in poverty in the history of this nation since slavery?
45:42Exactly.
45:43Now, don't show me a Joe Lewis or Colin Powell when mothers can't feed their children.
45:50I don't want to see no more a Jackie Robinson and talk about how we have achieved.
45:56We ain't achieved nothing until men and women, boys and girls have a rightful share for the
46:03blood that they've shed.
46:05Mr. Carter?
46:18Mr. Carter?
46:19Black America has not achieved yet, in large part because of white America, what black America
46:26should have as American citizens.
46:28That is a fact.
46:29But to say that no black Americans have achieved anything and that things are worse,
46:35is simply wrong and I cannot sit here and allow it.
46:38I am sitting here.
46:39I am sitting here.
46:40I am sitting here.
46:41I'm sorry.
46:42It would be very popular for me to go right like that to you.
46:44And it's dead wrong.
46:46Dead wrong.
46:47Dead wrong.
46:48Dead wrong.
46:49Dead wrong.
46:50I am sitting here next to two people who demonstrate to me by their presence that you're wrong.
47:04There is accomplishment for some.
47:07There is desperation for many.
47:09But pocket the accomplishment.
47:11Don't denigrate it.
47:12Because it is on the back of accomplishment that you have a chance to deal with desperation.
47:17Mr. Klein.
47:18I was not denigrating.
47:19I was showing how it was used as a symbol.
47:22And every time things get worse and worse in our communities, somebody brings me a Joe
47:28Lewis, a Colin Powell.
47:30I know what Colin Powell has had to go through.
47:33There's Joe Peterson in the corporate area.
47:36There's not one, not one CEO in the top 250 corporations who is black in this nation.
47:45Please, when we are on the verge of almost a total destruction of our community, to talk
47:52about progress is almost a selfie of one or two individuals.
47:57Clearly, more has to be done.
48:12There's no question about that.
48:13But I have a real serious concern here with the sort of things that that gentleman was
48:17just saying, and it is this.
48:19It is the exact opposite message that I've heard Jesse Jackson deliver in high schools
48:24across this country.
48:26The message you're sending to black children is that white racism is insuperable.
48:31You can't overcome it.
48:32You can't triumph.
48:33Things are worse than they ever were.
48:35That is inaccurate, and it sends a message to children that it doesn't make a difference
48:47if you try, and that is the exact wrong message.
48:50As I listen to him argue his case, and two journalists speak right past him, it says so
48:57much why there's so much hostility toward the press, because it is so white, and it is
49:03so male, and it's shooting past us and not hearing really what we have to say.
49:08All right, Mr. Carter.
49:09I got it.
49:10All right.
49:12Mr. Carter, I'm telling you, I wasn't going past anybody.
49:20I'm speaking directly to the issue that's raised here, and I'm going to say it one more
49:25time, because it is important that it be engaged directly and not pretend like we're ships passing
49:31in the night.
49:32We're not.
49:33We're engaging on this one.
49:34We live in a real world of political engagement, which you engage in all the time.
49:40It is all very well to make the speeches to the converted, okay?
49:45It's great to say over and over again those things which are clearly wrong.
49:50But if you're not able to at the same time pocket that which has been done which is right,
49:56done by you, then I'm going to tell you what happens.
50:01Step by step in a political society, you lose the political possibilities inherent in your
50:06own success by denigrating everything that you've already done.
50:11Or this, I'm going to take, sir, right here.
50:13I'm going to get these two brothers next, all right?
50:15Yeah.
50:16With all due respect, I'd like to say to the two journalists, that you're not really qualified
50:20to speak about the condition or mindset or mindset of the African American, because you
50:25don't live in our communities.
50:26You see, you don't know what we feel and the pain that we feel.
50:28There's no way that you can.
50:29There's nothing against you not to say it to you.
50:31You honestly want to feel that way and want to do something good, but you can't understand,
50:34you know, where we're coming from.
50:36In terms of General Powell, in terms of whether he's a leader or not to African Americans or
50:40to all Americans, African Americans, we need to choose our own leaders.
50:43And that's something that we would decide as a people who will be our leaders, not who
50:46white America chooses or who the media chooses.
50:48That's something that we would do for ourselves.
50:51When you talk about white-nominated leadership, absolutely no white should name any leader
51:06for any black community, period.
51:08But if you think there's going to be a leadership of this nation without white votes, you're crazy.
51:14It's got to be put together and it's going to have to be with two.
51:18I think we're, I think we're a little confused here.
51:22I don't think any of the black community objects to any American citizens, black, white,
51:31or any other color going into the military services.
51:35This is-
51:36We've heard some objections.
51:37Well, but this is our country.
51:40And we applaud General Peterson.
51:42We applaud General Powell.
51:45But that should not be the only area where our young people can look to realize their potential.
51:53Mr. Klein?
51:54You know, I'm not so worried about the troops when they come home.
51:57I think if there's any resume line that is going to get you a job over the next 30 years in this country,
52:02it's I participated in Operation Desert Storm.
52:05This is going to be different from every other war.
52:07Yeah, in this case it is because it's a different army.
52:09It's a different structure.
52:10As opposed to my distinguished colleague, I might say that I think I'm not optimistic that there will be openings.
52:16When you speak of jobs being available, those jobs were there before those kids went into service.
52:23What's changed?
52:24A war?
52:25No.
52:26The labor unions, the various companies, are they going to open their doors now that these kids have fought?
52:33What's changed?
52:34What's changed?
52:35Why open the doors for a five-day war when they weren't open for a 360-day war?
52:40One final question here.
52:45And the question is, when the President spoke before a joint session of Congress,
52:52I didn't hear a concrete, well-defined, well-thought-out plan for this country.
53:01We had Desert Storm.
53:02The question is, what about Desert City Street?
53:06If we don't get the domestic agenda that you're talking about, what happens the next time we're called?
53:12Should we go?
53:13No.
53:14I think as far as a military member, that is our obligation.
53:19If we have signed the dotted line, we are committed.
53:22We feel we are committed.
53:23We went because there was an obligation.
53:25We signed to say that if America goes to war, that is our responsibility.
53:30I heard a couple of no's in the audience.
53:31Where are those no's?
53:32Is this a no right here?
53:33Please listen.
53:35I have a pal in my pocket, a Jesse Jackson in my pocket.
53:40But I say if the President says there's another war, hell no, we won't go.
53:45Because in my pockets, I am not feeding my children, I'm not housing my people, I have no education and no jobs.
53:54Until the war is fought here at home, until billions of dollars is pumped here at home, I say we will not go to war, we will stand up against it.
54:04Now, in case the press wants to play her position in a funny way, in the war, everybody got some out the deal.
54:21The Egyptians got their debt forgiven.
54:25The Syrians got debt forgiveness and got spoken to.
54:29Israel got more security and more support.
54:33The Kuwaitis get their country back.
54:36So the idea of expecting to get something out of the war is not an unreasonable expectation.
54:43And so when the question becomes, we go to war and we come back, what we get must not be put down as a less than valid concern.
54:54Everybody in the alliance got something out the deal.
54:59So those who are on the front line must expect to get at least their civil rights out of the deal.
55:09That's fair.
55:10Mr. Klein.
55:11Thank you very much.
55:12Thank you very much.
55:42I am.
55:43Thank you very much.
55:44Thank you so much.
55:46Thank you very much.
55:48Awesome director.
55:57Thank you very much.
56:00Funding for Frontline is provided
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56:47please write to this address.
56:56This is PBS.
56:58A year before Operation Desert Storm,
57:02the Pentagon tested its doctrine of overwhelming force
57:05in the invasion of Panama.
57:10But today, Panama is still plagued
57:12by charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.
57:15As time goes on,
57:16people forget the Noriega regime
57:18and are more conscious of the problems
57:21created by the invasion.
57:23War and Peace in Panama,
57:25next time on Frontline.
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57:56in the 21st please,
57:57one them in the 21st please.
57:59In the 21st please,
58:00take them into blindness,
58:01to LouisTech and Waite.
58:03Maybe that's a Fuji46 car is making sure
58:04that we are truly discussed
58:05in order there.
58:06So far you can think of
58:07possible
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