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Racism in the Military

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
I can't see it because it's behind the NYT firewall and I refuse to subscribe to that rag but...

This is pure Bullshit. The military as an organization is the least racist organization you will find anywhere. There have been many non-white 3 and 4 stars and their number is probably in proportion to their oval all percentage of military officers if not higher.

I've been around the military my entire life. 18 years as a dependent, 20 years in the Army National Guard or Navy, and 15 years, and 20 years as a retiree. My Dad had many non-white (mostly black) COs and so did I. The earliest flag ranked I can remember was in 1975 when my Dad's boss was a black 1 star (later 4 star) named Roscoe Robinson. He also had an Asian Colonel above him at the same time.

As far as the base naming goes, those bases are old and have had those names for a very long, long time, Most pre-WW1 or WW2. It's just like the Confederate General statue thing but the Army isn't trying to erase history, change tradition or be politically correct by renaming the bases. Further, every one played a significant role in the Army.

Don't believe the hype and crap of the NYT article.
 

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
probably true....
Which? What I posted or what the NYT posted?

From your profile picture you are black and from your profile information it seems the Navy has been pretty non-racist with you as an organization.

This is not to say you haven't encountered non-organizational discrimination/racism, I'm sure you have. But as an organization, I believe the military is the least racist place you'll find. As an organization, the military cares about what you do, not what color you are.
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
RAND does a study of this every few years and the conclusion is almost always the same. When compared one-on-one black officers have a slightly lower promotion rate than white officers (4%). The “however” is that when compared to the national demographic the rates are balanced. This is because military service is a very shifting thing. More people of all races serve during war time and have no desire to stay when the fighting is over. Some academy people start wanting to be an admiral, and can’t wait to leave as soon as possible. In short, they haven’t been able to establish institutional racism in any service.

As for the southern bases, that is a non-issue. They were given those names in an effort to build local pride and reflect national unity. Up north there are bases (mostly NG and reserve facilities) named after Grant, Sheridan, Custer, and any number of men who have a long history of killing Latinos and American Indians. History is a wonderful thing, but in the end it is has no power over you, the individual.
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
The article is nuanced and worth a read. It quotes directly a lot of officers (O1 - O9) and enlisted and results of polls. It examines the non-racism reasons (e.g., family heritage of service) for underrepresentation. No discussion of the names of bases. Some snippets...

Some 43 percent of the 1.3 million men and women on active duty in the United States military are people of color. But the people making crucial decisions...are almost entirely white and male.

Of the 41 most senior commanders in the military — only two are black...a second-generation Japanese-American, leads the United States Cyber Command...head of Africa Command (is a) son of a German mother and an Afghan father...only one woman in the group...who is white.

... A survey last fall of 1,630 active-duty subscribers to Military Times found that 36 percent of those polled and 53 percent of minority service members said they had seen examples of white nationalism or ideologically driven racism among their fellow troops. The numbers were up significantly from the same poll conducted in 2018, when 22 percent of all respondents reported personally witnessing white nationalism.
 
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Pags

N/A
pilot
Era specific politics played a large role in the naming of Southern bases during the expansion of the Army in WWI and WWII. During WWI in particular the Civil War was still a living memory for a lot of folks and naming the bases after Confederate generals was a way to garner the local political support that was needed to establish those bases.
 

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
The article is nuanced and worth a read. It quotes directly a lot of officers (O1 - O9) and enlisted and results of polls. It examines the non-racism reasons (e.g., family heritage of service) for underrepresentation. No discussion of the names of bases. Some snippets...

The interesting question to ask is, are those indications of a rise in white nationalism and ideologically-driven racism the same as the rest of the country? Also, how did they define "racism" and other terminology. It is entirely possible that the questions were innocuous and these indications of racism are being inferred based upon assumptions and correlations drawn by the authors of the articles.
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
The article is not really about racism directly, although it obviously hits on it. It is about (from the title of the article):

"African-Americans Are Highly Visible in the Military, but Almost Invisible at the Top: Seventy-five years after integration, the military’s upper echelons remain the domain of white men."
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Are there merits to these New York Times articles? Are blacks virtually shut out from the top jobs in the military?

And, why are 10 U.S. Army bases named after Confederate generals who fought against Americans and who fought for slaver?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/military-minorities-leadership.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/opinion/sunday/army-base-names-confederacy-racism.html
Who Army bases are named after is not really relevant to racism in the military in a practical sense - less so if you're interested in being a Naval Officer.

A better question is to understand the demographics in the Officer Corps to explain the demographics of those in "top jobs." Generally speaking, minorities of all kinds are overrepresented in the enlisted ranks, with respect to their numbers in the US population. In the officer ranks, minorities, and especially women, are underrepresented. Lots of factors the go into why that is, but we'll set those aside for now. With minorities being a very small subset of all officers - usually less than 10%, it's natural that there will be fewer eligible minority officers competing for those "top jobs." In many respects, it's just a numbers game. The same holds true for women, who are around 5-7% of the officer corps in the USN.

I would say that our promotions process for officers is at least as fair as anything in the civilian world. Some would argue that there are even mechanisms that look like affirmative action to give minority officers (and women) some advantages in reaching senior positions. That is debatable, but it's an idea that lingers.

So, my perspective (as a white male, granted) is that the military is, on balance, less concerned about someone's race than most large organizations in the corporate world. If you do good work, you will generally be rewarded. The Navy is working hard to change the demographics of the people it hires to more closely match the population at large - more women, more racial minorities, etc. That takes time.
 

snake020

Contributor
From the article:

In recent years, the Pentagon has faced intensifying criticism for a series of racist episodes. A lawsuit filed in federal court in February by a Navy fighter pilot accused airmen and officers at the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach of seeking to cover up institutional racism directed against African-American aviators, which he said resulted in their wrongful removal from pilot training programs. The pilot’s lawyer said in an interview that black airmen at the base were, among other things, given racially derogatory call signs like “8-Ball” and referred to as “eggplants” in group chats on social media.

As many of us know here, 95% of the context of this story is left out.


But service members note that two other aircraft carriers retain the names of segregationists, John C. Stennis and Carl Vinson.

Easy solution, have Congress tell every SECNAV to stop letting ships be named after politicians.
 
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