{"id":1312,"date":"2007-01-15T00:26:31","date_gmt":"2007-01-15T00:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2007-01-15T00:39:43","modified_gmt":"2007-01-15T00:39:43","slug":"just_for_the_re","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1312","title":{"rendered":"Just For The Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Kleiman – who’s generally pretty sensible for someone with BDS (see his take<\/a> on the Jacob Hacker “$1.6 trillion to $300 Million” health care proposal) makes a passing comment<\/a> I didn’t want let stand…<\/p>\n

Affirmative action is an attempt by an employer to increase the number of workers it draws from groups currently under-represented among its workforce. African-Americans are currently grossly over-represented in the armed services, especially in the enlisted ranks.<\/b> So I find it utterly baffling that Eugene Volokh sees an inconsistency between (1) supporting affirmative action; (2) celebrating the success of the military in moving African-Americans up its career ladder; and (3) opposing efforts to further increase the over-representation of African-Americans by selectively recruiting them.<\/p>\n

\n[emphasis mine]<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wrote Mark and asked where he’d heard that, since it resembles nothing I’d heard. He commented that he’d read that African-American soldiers in Iraq were bearing a hugely disproportionate number of the casualties there, and so he was pretty sure there was a higher percent of African Americans in military service.<\/p>\n

I was pretty sure he was wrong. Actually, I was.The DoD compulsively tracks statistics and this is no exception. They have the most recent stats available (for 2004 – pdf<\/a>) and find that<\/p>\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 3.3. FY 2004 Race of Active Component Enlisted Members,
\n by Service, and Civilian Labor Force 18-44 Years Old (Percent)<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Race<\/td>\nArmy<\/td>\nNavy<\/td>\nMarine Corps<\/td>\nAir Force<\/td>\nDoD<\/td>\n18 to 44 Year Old Civilians<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
White<\/td>\n63.5<\/td>\n64.5<\/td>\n70.8<\/td>\n72.6<\/td>\n67.1<\/td>\n80.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Black<\/td>\n25.1<\/td>\n21.5<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n17.3<\/td>\n20.6<\/td>\n12.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
American Indian & Alaskan Native<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n1.2<\/td>\n0.5<\/td>\n1.4<\/td>\n0.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Asian<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n2.1<\/td>\n1.9<\/td>\n3.4<\/td>\n4.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0.3<\/td>\n0.5<\/td>\n0.5<\/td>\n0.3<\/td>\n0.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Two or more races<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0.8<\/td>\n0.7<\/td>\n1.1<\/td>\n0.6<\/td>\n1.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Unknown<\/td>\n7.5<\/td>\n3.9<\/td>\n11.7<\/td>\n6.1<\/td>\n6.7<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

So yes, African-Americans are significantly (like 2x in the case of the Army) over represented in the military.<\/p>\n

On the other hand…<\/p>\n

I pointed him to iCasualties<\/a>, which suggests that African-American soldiers have made up about 9.7% of the fatalities in OIF to date.<\/p>\n

So why the underrepresentation here?<\/p>\n

An interesting question. But I owe Kleiman an apology, and thought it best done in public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal was sure Mark Kleiman was wrong. Nope, he was right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}