To Blacks, Powell Is a Hero and Source of Controversy : Leadership: Admiration for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his achievements is clouded by racial and political concerns.

By SAM FULWOOD III

Feb. 17, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking military officer in this time of war, has the ear not only of President Bush, but of the world.

In press conferences, his telegenic good looks, military bearing and quotable style make him a media darling. He is mentioned with increasing frequency as a possible vice presidential candidate in 1992--or even a presidential candidate in 1996.

But for many black Americans, the luster of Powell’s four stars is clouded by a constellation of racial and political concerns. Although they point to him as a source of pride, his celebrity and success also generate internal confusion, doubt and sometimes bitter controversy.

In effect, says Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy, many blacks are “embracing him while criticizing him at the same time.”

The reaction to Powell in many ways goes to the heart of what it means to be black in America today. And his rise to national prominence and power raises questions for blacks that may be surprising to many whites:

* Can a black American retain his racial identity and still reach the heights of success in a white world? blacks ask. Or does his success necessarily raise suspicions that he has been forced to sublimate his blackness?

* Do blacks bear a special obligation to use their careers to address issues of particular concern to blacks? Have they failed in this obligation if they devote themselves to other matters that may not have as high priority within black communities?

* Are some political philosophies and positions, such as those of Bush and former President Ronald Reagan, incompatible with serving black needs?

The strength of the conflicting feelings in the black community was vividly demonstrated recently. Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change invited the general to serve as grand marshal of a parade commemorating the birthday of the slain civil rights leader, and Powell accepted.

But the invitation triggered such a storm of controversy--not so much over the individual but at the military office he holds and whether a general would be an appropriate honoree for a peace group--that Powell withdrew.

Black Americans do take heart from Powell’s undeniable success.

“He’s a great representative, not only for blacks, but for the nation. I’m very proud of him,” said retired Maj. Nancy Leftenant-Colon, a former Army nurse who is president of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a group founded in 1972 to honor the black fighter pilots of World War II.

If Powell, 53, were to seek a major public office, she added, “without question, I would vote for him.”

And in dozens of interviews with blacks--political leaders, academics and ordinary citizens across the country--almost all expressed great admiration for Powell and were proud of his achievements as a black man in a white-majority system.

“Powell has entered the inner sanctums of white-boy power,” said Harvard’s Kennedy. “He’s not some undersecretary for the undersecretary of minority affairs. This guy knows where the button is. He has real power.

“We’ve got so few people among the super-elite positions . . . so when we get one, we’re naturally very careful in supporting him. We’re going to lean over backwards to want to embrace this guy,” he said.

Also, many blacks believe that the war--with its present high level of support among Americans in general--brings a special vulnerability to the nation’s black community.

Many blacks who oppose the war argue in favor of a quick and decisive allied victory because they fear that white Americans would blame a military defeat on Powell.

Emily Tynes, a Washington lobbyist and consultant, echoed this point of view.

“If he were a white general and chief of staff,” she said, “I would be hollering and screaming: ‘Look at this warmonger.’ But since it’s Colin Powell, a black man, I’m not going to do that. I want him to succeed, despite my (negative) feelings about his views.”

With roughly 46% of black Americans opposing the war, however, Powell’s role in it stirs widespread feelings of discomfort.

For one thing, in interview after interview, blacks expressed the belief that Powell bears a special responsibility to champion issues of primary concern to blacks, and they are not sure he is doing so.

Susan Anderson, a Los Angeles public affairs professional for a variety of social causes, said there is “a dichotomy at work here. Black people have wanted equality, but we have wanted it with the ability to make some changes. Now that we have some people with access, like Colin Powell, there is an expectation that they will make those changes for all of us.”

Fewer than half of black Americans support the war, according to a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times last month, compared to 85% of whites.

Those differences, in part, reflect black Americans’ “keen awareness that we have many domestic needs that are not being met,” said Arthur J. Gregg, who became the Army’s first black lieutenant general in 1977 and served as director of logistics for the Joint Chiefs before retiring in 1981.

The frustration of seeing government dollars spent on the Gulf War, instead of at home, helps create some of the ambivalent feelings about Powell. Many of his fellow blacks may believe he should be doing more to change federal policies, Gregg said.

“I think there might be a tendency to assign some responsibility to Colin Powell for the fact that we’re in the Persian Gulf, instead of doing something about medical care and other issues,” he said.

However, Gregg believes that is an unfair burden to place on Powell, saying: “It should not be on his shoulders at all. He should not be tagged with the burden of deferred domestic needs.”

A second major source of uneasiness over Powell stems from a perception among some blacks that being successful in a white man’s world automatically means selling out.

“He would make a great, white general,” said a customer at Joseph’s Hair Salon, a black-owned barber shop in Washington.

“He’s had to overlook his blackness,” he added. “They wouldn’t let him get there otherwise.”

Shop owner Joseph Ray said that is a pervasive attitude among his customers, for whom Powell and his role have been the topic of intense discussions in recent months.

“That’s a hell of a note to get such a great job and have to reject your blackness,” he said ruefully.

Some blacks, particularly those whose success has made them the object of similar attitudes, consider them pernicious. Such thinking demeans the “dramatic shift in racial attitudes” represented by Powell’s accomplishments, Kennedy said.

But the attitude remains, and it is intensified because Powell is so closely linked with a President who recently vetoed a civil rights bill considered crucial by black communities.

“He’s a Reagan-Bush-Establishment man,” complained William Fairfax, who works in the Defense Department.

Fairfax said he appreciates that Powell, as a career military officer, may be limited in what he can say and do about government policies. But, he said, it was ultimately Powell’s decision to accept and support the Administration’s policies.

“Even if he’s in the Army, he has a right to do what he pleases like everyone else,” Fairfax said. “He has a choice. He could speak his mind. Or, he could get out if they won’t let him say what he truly thinks.”

Others complained that Powell reportedly was among the earliest, most eager of the President’s advisers to call for the use of military force in Grenada, Panama and Iraq. While black Americans harbor no affection for the leaders of those nations, many identify with the citizens of Third World countries on racial grounds.

“We’re proud of him because he’s an individual that has made it up through the ranks on merit and that he’s black. . . . Because there are still so few people like that, his achievements make him a role model,” said Anderson. “But when he has to go and kill people in the Third World, then we have a problem.”

To a degree, Powell’s problems rest with the media, said Joel Dreyfus, a reporter and editor in New York who writes frequently about issues of interest to black Americans. “The perception (among many blacks) is that this is a white man’s war--a point of view that’s not been alleviated by the fact that almost all the reporting, analysis and commentary in the media has been almost exclusively by white men.”

Thus, Dreyfus concluded, some blacks feel that Powell is “carrying out the very white Establishment’s agenda.”

There is also concern about the unequal burden that blacks could bear in a bloody ground war. While young blacks represent just 14% of the population, they represent close to 30% of the Army’s troops in Operation Desert Storm.

Powell has responded that the military can be proud that it offers opportunities to blacks.

“I wish that there were other activities in our society and in our nation that were as open as the military is to upward mobility, to achievement, to allowing them in,” Powell recently told the House Armed Services Committee. “I wish that corporate America, I wish the trade unions around the nation would show the same level of openness and opportunity to minorities.”

Some blacks also criticize Powell for supporting Bush Administration foreign policy on issues outside the Gulf.

In an interview in Emerge, a black-oriented magazine, Powell was quoted as favoring U.S. support for Jonas Savimbi, who heads the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Savimbi’s group is supported primarily by the United States and South Africa.

Powell also said in the interview that “I certainly support liberation movements that truly are liberation movements--that have as their purpose bringing to the people of that nation the opportunity to decide how they will be governed.”

But he noted that during his tenure as national security adviser to Reagan, the White House never considered the African National Congress as “freedom fighters” against South Africa’s apartheid government. Such White House views go against the grain of majority black opinion.

But some, particularly those who know Powell well, say blacks would embrace him if they knew more about him.

“They should never have any doubts about Colin Powell’s sensitivity to these issues,” said Gregg, the retired Army general. “The man’s personal integrity is so strong, he just would not compromise himself. Whatever goes on with him present, you can bet it’s better than if he were not there.”

DeWayne Wickham, past president of the National Assn. of Black Journalists, said Powell has impressed him as someone “in touch with his blackness” and eager to work within the system to help black people. Wickham, who persuaded Powell to address his 1,200-member group at its convention two years ago, is a columnist with the Gannett News Service and USA Today.

“In both his private and his public statements during the convention,” Wickham said, “he made it very clear that he perceived himself as a beneficiary of the civil rights movement, even though his military service kept him overseas during most of those turbulent years.

“He understands the many problems that black people face in this country, and that he’s in a significant position to have an impact on many of those problems,” Wickham added.

“But he also understands that he can’t be a chest-beating, foot-stomping, Mau-Mauing black leader as a general in the military and get those things done.”