Poverty Draft

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The poverty draft is a controversial belief in some circles that low-income demographics are either intentionally targeted by the military for recruitment, or that their low socioeconomic status makes enlistment especially attractive, such that they are overrepresented in the armed forces. The "poverty draft" is a term describing U.S. military recruiters' purposeful tendency to focus their recruiting efforts on inner-city and poor rural schools. The low-income youth and young people of color who attend these schools generally have fewer good educational and job opportunities than middle-class and wealthy youth and are therefore more likely to enlist. Proponents of the poverty draft view often claim that because of this the U.S. armed forces are disproportionally men and women of color and from poor and working class backgrounds.

[edit] See also

• Platoon (film)
• counter-recruitment
• institutional racism
• military industrial complex
• anti-capitalism
• Charley's War
• Fahrenheit 9/11

[edit] External links

• The National Youth and Militarism Program / American Friends Service Committee: "The Poverty Draft" (PDF) (Accessed 3/14/06)

• Counterpunch: Jorge Mariscal, "Fighting the Poverty Draft" (Accessed 3/14/06)

• Azine: Tamara Nopper, "Some Bodies that Matter: The Impending Draft as a Moral Crisis for White People" (Accessed 3/14/06)