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Asan akbar duality DAVID PERSON: Did accused grenade attacker lose his struggle with duality? 03/24/2003 09:34 AM EDT By David Person Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com [IMAGE]If what they say about Asan Akbar is true, somebody should have schooled him on the centuries-old problem of being black in the white man's world. Akbar is the Army sergeant who U.S. military officials believe killed one of his fellow soldiers and wounded 15 others in a grenade attack Saturday at a base in Kuwait that is a staging area for the fighting in Iraq. Akbar is also an African-American and a Muslim. In his book, "The Souls of Black Folk," Dr. W.E.B. DuBois wrote about the double- consciousness that many blacks struggle to control. DuBois defined it as the tendency to look "at one's self through the eyes of others" ? as our effort to reconcile being both African and American. Blacks wish "to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face," DuBois said of this double-consciousness. This struggle may have been Akbar's undoing. Of course, Akbar may not be guilty of the horrible thing they say he did. As of Monday, the Army still hadn't charged him. But a military spokesman described Akbar as a disgruntled soldier who had been disciplined recently for insubordination. Beyond that, the Army revealed little about Akbar. But some of his fellow Muslims said tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim soldiers in his unit of the 101st Airborne Division were high. It's likely that racial tensions were high too. "Race relations in the military have always been stressed," Richard Gordon told me. "You have this collision of races and cultures." Gordon served in the Army for 12 years, retiring in 1989 as a captain in the medical service corps. He's now a civil servant working for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Washington, D.C. area. Unlike Akbar, Gordon is a Christian. But he is black. And when he heard the about the attack and saw the television images of a young black man being held in custody at rifle point, he was hurt. It literally broke my heart," Gordon said. Racial and cultural divisions are intensified in a time of war. We are judged based on our groups. In the United States, this has been especially true of blacks and other racial, ethnic and cultural minorities. In times of war these divisions get magnified. Fair or not, Akbar is now being judged because of his differences ? and by dangling, incomplete explanations of his alleged crime and the motivation for what he is said to have done. By hinting at attitude problems, but providing no concrete examples, Army officials have left room for Akbar's differences to define him. They seem to be whispering in America's ears that if he wasn't Muslim, or perhaps even black, this never would have happened. I don't know if Akbar is the one responsible for the grenade attack on troops in his own unit, though I admit it doesn't look good for him. But guilty or not, if he was as disgruntled as Army officials say, it might not have been because he was opposed to the war or was mad with his superiors ? as has been hinted. It could have been that he was fighting that internal battle most blacks in this country are forced to wage at some point in their life. The fight I'm talking about is not about oil, power, the offenses of Saddam Hussein or the excesses of George W. Bush. It's a war to discover and define who we are ? a fight for self identity that causes some of us to take new names and embrace a non-Christian religion, as Akbar recently did. Over a century after the end of slavery, we are still searching for that part of our ancestral soul that was stolen. I don't know what fate awaits Akbar in the military justice system. But whatever the outcome of the Army's investigation and the court martial that's likely to follow, I hope he wins that internal war. I hope he learns how to be African, Muslim and American. David Person is an editorial writer and an award-winning columnist for the Huntsville Times. He's a freelance reporter for National Public Radio and the producer of the Black Classical Masters radio series and "Uncommon Courage: The Viola Liuzzo Story." Related links: DEBORAH MATHIS: Bush's white supremacy agenda TYRONE POWERS: Blowback, colorblind terrorism WAR NEWS: Why black voices must be heard DEWAYNE WICKHAM: Guess who's coming to dinner? Not the Congressional Black Caucus

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