African Americans historically have been assessed into noncombat career fields and have tended to opt for careers in supporting branches, such as logistics and personnel. Their placement is determined by the preferences they express and the needs of the military service they are commissioning into. Early in their careers, new officers are placed or “assessed” (also referred to as “branched”) into specific career fields. One ongoing obstacle is that African Americans tend to be underrepresented in combat roles across the services, especially in the Army. Many Black officers felt that they had to be even more perfect than their White counterparts. Strikingly, even when these obstacles were relatively minor on the surface, they had a lasting and outsized impact due to the highly competitive nature of the advancement process. A few officers and generals described examples of overt racism, but most referred to cultural or structural obstacles to their advancement. Many also talked to us about the non-Black officers who shared their concerns.īut most-including those who had reached very senior levels-were also frank about the challenges they faced coming up through the ranks as Black officers. Most saw the problem as systemic and structural. 3 These men and women were almost unanimously positive about their time in the military and what it had done for them personally and professionally. To better understand the roots of the problem and the potential remedies, we interviewed sixteen current and retired Black officers, including eleven generals-largely from the Army but also from the Air Force and Marines-to capture their experiences and challenges. Changes introduced now could take many years to bear fruit. More action is needed, and the sooner the better. If Americans want the military to live up to its image of being a mirror of a democratic and multicultural society, something should be done.Ĭhange won’t come easy, however. For example, research shows that racially diverse groups tend to be more innovative and creative, that diversity can strengthen civil-military relations, and that morale among rank-and-file African Americans would probably benefit from more equal representation in the most visible and iconic positions in the U.S. There are many reasons why Americans should want this to change. 2 They are especially underrepresented at the three- and four-star general level, where the most important decisions about the U.S. African Americans make up 9 percent of active-duty officers but only 6.5 percent of generals. Black officers just don’t become generals as often as their White counterparts. 1 However, when the numbers are broken down by rank, African Americans’ representation drops off markedly at the senior level (see figure 1). military, African Americans are overrepresented in proportion to their representation in society. Chivvis is the director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment.
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