Air Force Academy racial slurs
The other day, five Black Air Force Academy prep school students awoke and found racially-charged messages scrawled on the boards outside their rooms. The New York Times reports;
The episode attracted national attention when Tracye Whitfield, the mother of one of the students, posted a photo on Facebook of the message, which paired the words “go home” with a racial slur. “It’s a nerve-racking feeling,” Ms. Whitfield told a local news station in Colorado Springs, near where the academy is located.
The preparatory school, usually called the “prep school,” prepares candidates for admission to the academy proper. About 240 students, called “cadet candidates,” attend the school each year.
The Superintendent of the Academy responded;
In a five-minute address in front of the academy’s 4,000 cadets and 1,500 staff members, Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria affirmed the Air Force’s belief in “the power of diversity” and insisted that “small thinking and horrible ideas” had no place there.
In recent months incidents like this have happened across the country. Many times the incidents turned out to be folks just stirring up trouble.
For example, from Fox News;
…an Indian-owned store in Charlotte, N.C. was set afire, a rock thrown through the window and a racist note left behind. It read, in part: “We need to get rid of Muslims, Indians and all immigrants.” It was signed, “White America.”
Days later, police arrested a suspect. He was not a white supremacist, nor a Donald Trump supporter, nor Caucasian. He was an African-American man, 32-year-old Curtis Flournoy. Surveillance video showed him lighting the fire.
In January, a black restaurant server in Ashburn, Virginia claimed a customer wrote on the receipt, “Great Service, don’t tip black people.” The customer later maintained the slur was written by the waitress herself, who was upset with a one cent tip the customer left in response to her poor service.
And in December, an 18-year-old Muslim woman who claimed that three men attacked her on a New York subway and tried to pull off her hijab was charged with filing a false report.
The National Review writes about a few others. Fake Hate Crimes lists hundreds of incidents.
LeBron James, the basketball player, reported to police that someone had painted racial phrases on his gate. The Los Angeles police say that they found no evidence of the phrases, or no video evidence from James’ cameras that the crime ever happened.
I hope whoever did this at the Air Force Academy is caught and punished severely – WHOEVER it turns out to be.
Category: Air Force
Agreed.
No place for this small minded behavior in my Mil.
I’d like to clarify/correct a couple things.
First off this occurred at the Air Force Academy Prep School not the Academy itself.
Secondly Lt Gen Silveria is the Superintendent not the Commandant.
If this is for real the creatures who perpetrated the stunt should get the AF equivalent of keelhauling on their way out the gate at Peterson.
If this has been “faked” than that clown needs to beshown the door too.
Superintendent not the Commandant
What’s the difference? Or did the Air Force not like that they had so few Flag Officer positions and added another one?
Semantics. A Marine Captain on a ship is different from a Navy Captain on a ship, but they can both be the same rank.
Negative. At the Service Academies, the Commandant’s responsibilities are oversight of the Cadets/Middies. As Devtun notes below, that’s typically a 1-star GO/FO position.
The Superintendent is a different duty position. That individual is in charge overall, and is typically a 2- or 3-star GO/FO. Their duties include supervising all aspects of the Academy’s operations.
Some years ago I’m pretty sure some if not all Service Academies also had a third GO/FO position – that of academic Dean (the title may have varied among the academies), who was also a 1-star GO/FO. Their duties were/are as their title indicates. However, the position of academic Dean may have been downgraded or converted to a civilian position in the last 3 decades or so.
Both the Dean and Commandant report to the Academy Superintendent. The situation is analogous to an Army division, where you at one time had – and still have, I believe – 3 GO slots: a 2-star CG and two 1-star DCGs, one each for maneuver and support.
Yeah the Dean Of the Faculty at the USAFA is still held by a Brig Gen. Most notable holder of the job in modern history was Brig Gen Dana Born. She was promoted to Brig Gen in 2004 at age 43/44 w/ only 21 yrs service, and installed as the Dean Of Faculty. Brig Gen Born held the job for about 9 yrs as a one star from 2004 until her retirement in 2013. For a one star to hold the same job for 9 yrs is pretty damn unbelievable. As comparison the 4 star navy admiral who heads Naval Reactors is an 8 yr term.
“…but they can both be the same rank.”
Not even close.
Can’t a navy O-3 who is assigned as the commander of a ship be referred to as a captain? I thought that is what Flagwaver was talking about.
Yes, the commander of a ship holds the position of Captain regardless of the officer’s actual rank. Probably the most famous example was Captain Bligh who commanded the HMS Bounty, but who’s actual rank was LT.
The world’s navies use of Captain as both an official rank & nautical title as ship commander has caused confusion for centuries.
Adding to the confusion. Senior Navy Captains (0-6) filling a position of great authority can hold the title of Commodore or the captain (0-6) who is commander of naval air on a carrier is addressed as the “CAG”.
A reason Bligh, as a lieutenant, was in command of HMS Bounty was because the Bounty itself was not a “rated” ship. It was a converted collier too lightly armed to warrant being commanded by a Post Captain. Someone with such a higher rank would have normally gone to a vessel with at least 20 to 24 guns.
The term “Commodore” in the Royal Navy in those days wasn’t a rank. It was an operational title used to designate who was in overall control of a group of vessels making a group movement or whatever.
There is a commandant at the USAFA, its called the Commandant Of Cadets, and is typically led by a one star.
…This is the current CofC. Former B-52 driver with combat missions.
https://www.usafa.edu/staff/brig-gen-kristin-goodwin/
And I hope that the Academy finds the idiots who pulled this stunt and runs them off the mountain on a rail…but sadly, recent history suggests we should take a look at the GPA of the alleged victims. If you’re not hacking it at the PS, there would be a lot of motivation to take the pressure off…
Mike
What no chancellor?
No vice chancellor?
media reports whatever it wishes, details are irrelevant.
If the facts are different than they want, they just make it up as they go along.
Ditto with liberal politicians.
My money’s on the attempted false-flag. That’s the “cool thing” amongst the dipshit snowflakes these days.
Now let me get this straight. This story was broken by the mother of one of the victims. Might be a hoax. Time may tell.
We’ve seen plenty of THAT in the past! The first thing I wondered as soon as I read about it yesterday was if this wasn’t some stunt being pulled by a “Professional Victim” type?
I hope they do find out who it is. The really bad thing is that these days it makes you wonder if this was truly someone who didn’t like another race OR just someone faking it to make it seem like it was racism.
Scumbaggery that should receive zero tolerance.
What if these candidates did it themselves?
It happens, you know.
If that’s the case, we’ll have to find out why they did it. We have to know why they’re so disaffected that they would do this, what we’ve done wrong that caused this. Jeebus, that’s so close to what the snowflakes ❄️ would say, I scare myself.
I don’t care WHY they did it. Just to know that they did it is enough. After that, kick their asses, whoever they may be, in front of the TV cameras before kicking them into Leavenworth and then out the door. No hiding behind anonymity, only to rise up and create havoc again later.
I may be wrong, but I read on Fox that NFL Player Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks may be trying to pull the same same.
“Sigh” Never ends, does it…
From Daily Wire;
Their is a nice website dedicated to false hate crimes.
What these chowder heads fail to realize is that if someone is racists and really wants to screw over minority students at he school, scrawling graffiti on doors is the LAST thing they would do.
They would fuck with their grades, steal study materiel sabotage their inspections and plant stolen tests, Etc.
“The truth will set you free”. I’ll just withhold judgement until the truth comes out. So many times the headline news just seems to lead down a rabbit hole.
If it turns out to be a False Flag (never happened at all), or reverse racism (students of color doing it to themselves), I hope it’s all made VERY PUBLIC, and not swept quietly under the rug.
I absolutely concur!
Flase Flag…. will MSM care? Prob not.
http://gazette.com/air-force-academy-finds-cadet-candidate-responsible-for-racist-messages/article/1614770
It is very concerning to me that we seem to have rot infecting all branches and levels of the officer corps. General Officers getting caught being Jody, Flag officers on the take, ship’s captains sleeping while transiting dangerous waters, all type didling subordinates or acting the drunken fool, pilots getting caught with prostitutes, service academy members and grads openly promoting communism and sedition (ever wonder who took the photo of Rapone?) and the list goes on.
There is absolutely no doubt that after going on 16 years of war we have some competent and able war fighters but they do not seem to have the same capability away from the battlefield.
I spent part of my career as an officer and am a retired Captain (O3E type)and some of the stuff going on now makes me wonder if in the effort to fill slots we are just letting our standards down. The academies in particular have had a series of scandals involving rapes, cheating, drugs, etc and that does not bode well for the future as some of these marginals make it to senior rank.
Part of the swamp that needs draining wears a uniform.
I am betting on at least one of the five offended students.
If you conduct a hasty panty raid, there is always going to be a soiled pair in the booty.
I didn’t realize that Civil Service had an Academy.
Whoever did it needs to be promptly escorted off the property. The reason behind it is irrelevant to the finding of guilt.
Should be easy to determine a multitude of regs broken with this one.
All that with at least a Field Grade Article 15.
If someone wrote crap like that on my door, I would add:
” I -am- home, you cowardly assbag. Why didn’t you knock and say that to my face? Hmmmmmm?”
I would leave it there, too,
with the occasional addition “well?”, “still waiting…”
Regardless of the truthfulness of the allegations,
the Air Force opened the gates of diversity to include pagans, atheists, perverts, snowflakes and the marginally qualified, what did the Air Force think would be the outcome?
I don’t know this USAF LtGen but he totally wanted his 15 minutes of fame and got it. He was SOOOOOOO clearly pandering to the media he makes me sick. He could have come out, called everyone to attention and said in 60 seconds what he took 5 minutes to say, ensuring all had their cameras out. I’m NOT defending the accused, but this dude correctly realize he’d be a CNN/MSM hero.
No promotion in this for him. The Supe job for the 3 service academies is considered a “sunset” assignment, and the 3 star GO/FO is expected to retire after his term is up. The general is probably signaling to the Pentagon leadership he is taking a proactive stance. A predecessor was demoted to Maj Gen for alleged lack of aggressive action in dealing w/ the academy sexual assault scandal that the media was having a feeding frenzy w/ back during Bush admin.
to date, 99.99% of ‘hate/thought crime’ have been found to be fabrications. at this time, I hold no position until a through investigation has been conducted.
Your mileage may vary.
In medicine the “Munchhausen Syndrome” is known for people who actually need, for psychological and emotional to be “sick” and will do most anything to fabricate illnesses, mess with their lab tests, falsify x-rays etc. Not far fetched and , earlier comments have touched on the same topic of those who “need” to be racially slurred. Most of them enjoy the outrage of others at their attack, officials questioning them, while a sense of importance is being fed. There are many variants of this inner need for attention out there. CAPT Bones USN (ret)
The perpetrator(s) of this act should be found out and turned out even if they are first string senior football players.
We have no room for this crap in the United States Armed Forces. They serve, swet, bleed and die just like the rest of us. They are, as many of us have been, American Servicemen (and women).
AMEN
Ol’ Poe is scratching his head and wondering if the problem here isn’t that we have too few acts of overt racism occurring to meet the needs of our downtrodden black communities. After all, social justice warriors, so-called black leaders, black community organizers, and all manner of other black pot-stirrers, need to occasionally re-prime the racist pump to keep the cash flowing and the world public morally outraged. A sure way to accomplish this is to create an overt act of white racism that the media can flail away on for a few news cycles.
Except that whites are apparently just not racist enough to keep doing this going on a schedule frequent enough to keep that cash flowing and those headlines steaming. Let’s face it, all you no-damned-good, lazy ass white supremacists are failing to meet the needs of your minority community so it’s no damned wonder they’re all pissed and so many are refusing to stand for the national anthem!!!
So all you sorry-ass racist whites git off your butts and go git some cans of spray paint and git back to work so all them poor black folks won’t have to create their own racist incidents to keep the pot boiling and the funds flowing.
After all, when our image starts to fade so much them poor black activists have to fake it for us, some folks might just conclude that we’re not even racists anymore and we damned well can’t have that now can we? For cryin’ out loud, them poor liberal Yankees at Southern Poverty Law Center has to have somebody to put on their list of hate groups, don’t they?
Give ’em a hand…it’s the American way.
Okay, now, you’re officially boring, Poetrooper. And so are those whiny, pouting, butthurt twits at the USAF prep school.
I wonder what the educated Lebron James has to say about this.