Where is the Dream?

James Thindwa, In These Times

Since the war in Iraq began almost five years ago, Chicago has been the site of some of the most robust and raucous antiwar agitation in the country. But a persistent racial chasm undermines these efforts. Black participation in marches is depressingly low and the antiwar movement’s leadership is predominantly white.

A handful of progressive black politicians, clergy or community leaders show up at antiwar rallies to speak, but the black masses are conspicuously absent. The lack of black voices in the peace movement is particularly dissonant because the community overwhelmingly opposes the Iraq War. According to the Boston Globe, at the start of the war in 2003, only 19 percent of blacks supported it. Now an astounding 90 percent oppose this misadventure, according to a BET poll.

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