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Iraq is safer for some than Washington, DC
Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington DC's non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives never wanted the United States to use its military to liberate Iraq because
Today we have a volunteer army whose race and class composition speaks to the absence of equal opportunity in civilian society. The middle and upper classes, for the most part, no longer serve and will not be on the front lines. African Americans are 25% of the U.S. Army, Hispanics are 9%, an army more than one third of whom are people of color.
[aside: Hispanics are 12.5% of the U.S. population, so they're actually underrepresented in the military] Others have made similar claims that minorities are bearing a disproportionate share of casualties in Iraq.
It appears, however, that young African American men from Washington, DC might be safer going to war than staying at home.
According to this week's story from Scripps Howard News Service, there are 140,000 troops in Iraq, and there have been 286 fatalities from all causes since the war began in March (about 24 weeks ago). That gives us an annualized death rate of 443 per 100,000. Only about half of these deaths (147) were in combat, for a combat death rate of 228 per 100,000.
According to Center for Disease Control / National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, there were 21,836 young black men (age 18-30) in Washington DC in 2000, the latest year that mortality data is available. The total number of deaths in this group from all causes was 132, with 95 homicides. i.e. the death rate for this group was 604 per 100,000 and the murder rate was 435 per 100,000.
In other words, a young black male soldier from Washington DC would have been 36% more likely to die by staying at home than by serving in active duty in the Iraq war, and almost twice as likely to be murdered at home than to be killed in combat. Yes, that's horribly sad, but it puts a few things in perspective.
Meanwhile, what is Eleanor Holmes Norton doing to save the lives of the young men in her district who would be better off going to war than staying at home? She is fighting against school choice. Yeah, that'll do it.
