War & Peace Quote by Mort Walker

The punchline here is that there is no punchline: a cartoonist adds a Black character to a long-running military strip and the institution tasked with serving the troops responds by suppressing it, allegedly to keep the peace. Walker’s wording is careful, almost deadpan. “They were having racial problems” is a euphemism doing heavy lifting, flattening a combustible reality into bureaucratic understatement. It’s a classic move in institutional speech: name the crisis just enough to justify control, not enough to accept responsibility.

The stated rationale - “thought it would increase the tensions” - exposes a familiar logic of American gatekeeping. Representation isn’t treated as a corrective; it’s treated as an accelerant. The subtext is that the presence of a Black soldier on the page is framed as controversial, while the absence of Black soldiers (in a real military that had plenty) is treated as neutral. That’s how power maintains itself: by defining “normal” as whatever already excludes people.

The context matters. 1971 isn’t ancient history; it’s the post-civil-rights, Vietnam-era U.S. military, a moment marked by documented racial conflict on bases, in barracks, and in the broader culture the troops carried with them. Stars and Stripes, an official military newspaper, wasn’t just curating entertainment - it was managing morale and, indirectly, the story the institution told about itself. Walker’s recollection makes that management visible: the strip wasn’t banned because it lied, but because it told a truth too plainly.