What does it mean for a social group to be “placed” nearer to death?
Societal hierarchies are realized through individuals’ deaths, as death during war reflects which social groups are nearer to dying. Indians in World War II, Puerto Ricans in the Korean War and Black soldiers in the Vietnam War were placed nearer to death because British and U.S. states disregarded their lives. The groups’ overlooked positions in society paralleled the lack of care toward their lives in war.
This theory, coined as necropolitics by Achille Mbembe, is the exercise of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how others must die. The state creates settings where populations are subjected to fatal conditions. War is a primary manifestation of necropolitics, as the state controls environments in which some have a higher risk of death than others.
Indians during World War II had a disproportionately higher number of deaths compared to British citizens. Roy Casagranda, Ph.D., a professor of political science in Austin, Texas, explained that while 70,000 civilians from the U.K. died, 3,000,000 civilians in India died, mainly from famine.
Puerto Ricans experienced a similar proximity to fatal conditions. The Korean War was the first time Puerto Rican troops, the majority of the 65th Infantry Regiment, were thrown into combat in large numbers. Sources relay the experience of Raúl Reyes Castañeira, who served in the Infantry: “‘So many young men there just dying.’”
Black soldiers faced similar conditions during the Vietnam War, as they were more likely to be on the front line and consequently had a much higher casualty rate. In 1965, African Americans represented nearly 25% of those who were killed in action. Across different social groups and time, individuals’ experiences of war were saturated with death.
The disregard of proximity to death parallels neglect for life. Each war was a physical manifestation and tangible measure of the extent to which states value their members’ lives. Reyes Castañeira emphasized that: “‘They treated us … like we were worth nothing … And we were giving our lives.’”
