The Military and Racism

When Washington Post reporter David Mariniss began exploring the country to find a place where Americans of different races talk about racial issues, he came across two unexpected discoveries: 1) He couldn’t find it anywhere, with one exception; 2) The exception was at Patrick Air Force Base, in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Perhaps Mariniss would have found more exceptions had he kept exploring. But what he found at Patrick--the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, or DEOMI--serves as a useful laboratory in race relations as well as the subject of “The Color of Your Skin,” the last report in “Frontline’s” season (at 9 tonight on Channels 28 and 15; at 10 p.m. on Channel 50).

Mariniss, his cameras and DEOMI officials observe officers and enlistees in a room called “The Fishbowl,” in which they plunge into the emotionally taxing waters of racism. At first, it may seem like a bizarre amalgam of New Age-style breast-beating, civil rights debating and tough guy tete-a-tetes. But DEOMI’s mission, to groom advisers for equal opportunity programs in the military’s four branches, requires “sensitivity” training.

Fundamentally, “The Color of Your Skin” amounts to a record of a weeks-long dialogue between (largely) white and black officers, and the fitful communication that happens between both groups. It is lopsided, much to the whites’ frustration: Whether more progressive or conservative in outlook, these men have a hard time accepting the blacks’ case of historic white privilege. They can’t understand why racism remains an issue even as the Fishbowl meetings expose their sometimes buried racism.

Mariniss notes that “now that whites feel threatened, they argue loudest for a colorblind society.” The argument goes on in “The Color of Your Skin,” which clearly sorts out the differences between prejudice and racism and penetratingly depicts--at least on this air base--a very humanized military.