Air Force releases 150pg report on racial disparities that kind of comes across as racist
Imagine for a moment, that you are the United States Air Force IG. You’re tasked with investigating if there are racial disparities in the force. You conduct a survey. Then release the results of the survey and you split the results by race and it’s black, white, and “other”. At least those “others” don’t lack as much confidence in their command as the black troops do.
Go see Sergeant Martinez at the finance office. Can’t miss him. He’s about my age, height, and he’s an other.
Another interesting note here is that nearly half(!) of the black general officers in the Air Force that responded to this survey don’t believe that they can solve issues related to racism. There are less than 300 generals of all grades in the Air Force. That’s a pretty small group.
Source; Air Force Times
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force
Poe and I went around on the subject yesterday. We’re both in agreement the Armed Forces are the most egalitarian organization in the United States, and therefore the world.
Not to say there isn’t room for improvement.
As for our conversation and this article, until people are willing to face unpleasant facts, and deal with them as rational adults, there will never be a solution.
That’s a shame. Thanks, Mason.
My own experience (Army) was that those who would vote “disagree” here are also actively abusing those systems for their own benefit–regardless of race. Of the 100+ complaints I dealt with as an E9, only two really stood out as actual racism. Dealing with those two was hard, but the Commanders were able to use the system to successfully address both the problem person and the victims. The rest were really in two groups. 1st were those enlisted persons who believed that any–and I mean any–action taken by the Chain to accomplish missions were racially based. So, for example, a decision to work on Saturday to accomplish predeployment training was reported as racially biased even though all soldiers were tasked. 2nd group were those who believed that regulations were racially biased because their own behaviors or off duty activities were impacted. The example here was motorcycle certs and safety training. One of my E6s (this guy was definitely NOT an NCO) who believed this was targeting him because he had 7 moving violations on his motorcycle–all because he was involved in a club that liked to perform stunts on the highway and had caused several accidents, including the death of two members. A smaller third group could be said to exist, but it was mostly officers griping about the promotion system. Among NCOs, the gripe was usually that the promotion board members often had no idea what the job of an NCO in their career field entailed. They were correct about that, but the base reality was that the slots available for low density MOS were usually so tight that almost everyone was being passed over. For officers, I believe this gripe is well founded or at least was at that time. The limits on Senior Rater profiles meant that in any Brigade sized element, only one or two officers could ever be “above center mass”. This was designed to reduce eval inflation, but the effect was that your combat support career field officers were not going to get that one or two “above” ratings in a combat arms unit.… Read more »
Absolutely concur, SGM. A legitimate grievance claiming discrimination isn’t always the discrimination that the aggrieved party sees. It’s too easy to claim racism or sexism, when it’s not necessarily the issue. And in surveys like this, there’s always that group of assholes who love to screw with surveys.
The more education, experience, command authority, responsibility, working with others and advancement, the smaller the problem.
I wonder why?
My read: the General Officers are the problem.
Everything else will hash out in the long run.
Stop being a lil b**ch, get over it, drink water and if you can’t handle it alone, let your team know when someone calls you the ‘bad word’.
I’m a huge fan of barracks justice (to a point).
Sue me.
Your reply sounded like what my friend and I always say – take a knee, drink water, shut the fuck up, Charlie Mike.
This is what happens when people are trained from birth that people are out to get you. This is very unsettling – I would have thought there wouldn’t be so many black military members who would think of their organization. I wonder if it is a case of “Well, I don’t see it, but I bet it’s out there”. I think that same thought is why people think the US is racist in today’s day and age. This also comes from having no historical context. Crappy inner city educations are probably not an accident. Not supporting charter schools or school vouchers DEFINITELY isn’t.
I reluctantly have to agree.
Many people of color ™ in the army think whitey and the system are out to get them. Unequivocally, when I ask what a solution to whatever the specific complaint happens to be would look like, the answer is some variation of “let me do what I want”.
Sorry but that’s not the way the Army works. We have a mission, and we will accomplish that mission at the lowest possible personal cost, but we will accomplish our mission, and this mission oriented mentality will always place restrictions on you doing “whatever the fuk you want “.
So feel free to use the Commander’s open door policy. After you notify me, of course.
It looks like The EO Pony will be alive and well for 2021. Its almost like a plane of some type.
Obviously, it is a “one horse pony” for some in uniform of a certain hue. Can’t wait for the survey of the aggrieved trannies after the SJW’s have their way with DOD under the Gropey Joe and Ho admin.
Its CoW-MaA -LAaAA!
The Military is reflection of Society. From the time our kids can walk and talk they are being bombarded by the liberal media and educational system the the country is noting but a bigoted racist entity and the primary reason behind the failure of ANY person of Color to be successful is racism.
It’s only human nature to grasp at reasons that an individual doesn’t have control of to blame for not succeeding. That’s why minorities in these surveys see more racism.
Exactly! Tell youngsters repeatedly that their behavior is not responsible for their failures and difficulties, but instead it is the prejudice against them by “the Man,” and eventually they start to believe it. It is what I call the “why is everybody always pickin’ on me” excuse.
I blame all this lack of trust on our institutions and our chain of command on the Obama administration.
Before them, it was nowhere near as bad.
Now is like every minmofo is woken and distrust the system and any decisions made by their chain of command.
Well, to be fair, according to those statistics 50 percent of people of color ™ still believe in the fairness of our institutions.
That was the chair force.
I wonder what those statistics look like in the rest of the services.
I would really like to read the actual report. Clearly the Air Force should look closely at this, but I think the article has a few errors of logic- in particular, confusing correlation with causation- that sort of skew the entire gist of what’s going on here. As an example: “But as their careers develop, Black airmen find themselves disadvantaged in subtle, but crucial ways. Black airmen are underrepresented in operational career fields such as pilots, and overrepresented in support career fields, the report said. Because key career development opportunities, such as the best chances at leadership and education, are more frequently offered to airmen in operational fields, those who are in support jobs tend to suffer.” Yet, later in the article they state this: “…an ROTC representative that visits historically Black colleges said some Black cadets aren’t interested in the 10-year service commitment required to become a pilot. That representative said those cadets were the first in their families to go to college, and instead planned to serve four years and then get a higher-paying job in the private sector, which is how their families viewed success.” The Army has the same issue with Combat Arms officers and NCOs. Contrary to popular belief, enlisted Soldiers get to pick their MOSs, and officers typically get one of their top four preferences. It’s not a question of inequity, it’s a question of propensity to serve in a particular career field. I don’t know about the Air Force, but Army ROTC has a dedicated recruiting effort at HBCUs to persuade Black cadets to go into the Combat Arms- and it doesn’t work very well. Unless we want to start forcing people into career fields they don’t want, we are going to have to accept this. The Air Force flies and fights, the Navy sails and fights, the Army fights on land, and the Marines do it all (I have no idea what the Space Force does). If you pick a career field in any of those branches that is one degree removed from their domain (air, land, or sea) or fighting, you… Read more »
I should add that I am making no value judgement here- if someone wants to join the Navy to learn HR, fine with me; I honor their commitment and thank them for their service just the same as the young Infantryman.
Combat Arms, Hooah, blow stuff up, cool!
Tell ya what’s scary stoopid about all of this, IMHO. It’s NOT the nearly non-existent perceived “taught” RAAAAYYYYCCCIISSSSMM. It’s the statement that nearly half of the Air Force Generals feel that they cannot solve issues of racism. They have no business being Generals.