AP says “Deep-rooted racism, discrimination permeate US military”

| May 28, 2021

We’ve had these conversations before. The US military I took part in was the most color-blind place I’ve ever lived and worked. It was a near-perfect meritocracy. People weren’t judged by what color, religion, or ethnic background they possessed, they were judged by how well they could do their jobs.

I know that this was the same in decades past. My father (Vietnam Vet) had a sergeant he worked for at Fort Huachuca circa 1971. The sergeant was about to leave the service and on his final day his wife came in. My old man was surprised the sergeant’s wife was black. It was then that he realized he should have expected it, the sergeant himself was black. He hadn’t really noticed it until that point.

I don’t know what has changed in the last 15 years since I got out, but apparently racism in the ranks has made a huge comeback.

From the AP;

For Stephanie Davis, who grew up with little, the military was a path to the American dream, a realm where everyone would receive equal treatment. She joined the service in 1988 after finishing high school in Thomasville, Georgia, a small town said to be named for a soldier who fought in the War of 1812.

Over the course of decades, she steadily advanced, becoming a flight surgeon, commander of flight medicine at Fairchild Air Force Base and, eventually, a lieutenant colonel.

But many of her service colleagues, Davis says, saw her only as a Black woman. Or for the white resident colleagues who gave her the call sign of ABW – it was a joke, they insisted – an “angry black woman,” a classic racist trope.

White subordinates often refused to salute her or seemed uncomfortable taking orders from her, she says. Some patients refused to call her by her proper rank or even acknowledge her. She was attacked with racial slurs. And during her residency, she was the sole Black resident in a program with no Black faculty, staff or ancillary personnel.

“For Blacks and minorities, when we initially experience racism or discrimination in the military, we feel blindsided,” Davis said. “We’re taught to believe that it’s the one place where everybody has a level playing field and that we can make it to the top with work that’s based on merit.”

In interviews with The Associated Press, current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.

The AP found that the military’s judicial system has no explicit category for hate crimes, making it difficult to quantify crimes motivated by prejudice.

The Defense Department also has no way to track the number of troops ousted for extremist views, despite its repeated pledges to root them out. More than 20 people linked to the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol were found to have military ties.

The AP also found that the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not adequately address discriminatory incidents and that rank-and-file people of color commonly face courts-martial panels made up of all-white service members, which some experts argue can lead to harsher outcomes.

Ah, there it is. Your court martial jury must look like the defendant. It’s not enough to expect that a jury of your peers be made of people of the same or higher rank. This has all the hallmarks of people who see racism behind every tree.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

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Anonymous

There’s no limit to how many people Leftists can disarm, imprison and kill to rout out “deep-rooted racism” for power… er,… “social justice” utopia, you know.

Anonymous

P.S. Anyone who disagrees with them or they just don’t like will be “racist,” of course. (That’s how Leftists work– just see Che, Stalin, etc.)

KoB

If people keep telling themselves (or have it told to them) that they are victims, of anything, then they start believing it. The only RAAAYYCISM I saw in my Military Service was some (not many, but some) Black Soldiers were hating on “Whitey”, just because or for..reasons. I also saw some, not many, but some, Black Soldiers promoted, given choice assignments, or allowed to “get over” or “skate” because they were Black.

Two of the finest Soldiers I ever served with were SFC Sledge and FIRST (ht 2 Roh-Dog) Sgt Richardson, both 3 war Vets and both Black. I witnessed several preliminary “counseling sessions” that these 2 fine individuals had with POC Soldiers, emphasizing that “…you stupid n***** that honky mofo can help protect your Black N***** Ass” and the only Color in “My Army” is OD Green.

I’m telling y’all, straight up and y’all know this, the politicians and news media are deliberately trying to pit the “We, The People” of this Country against one another, just as they did in 1860. Set the table, it’s nearly breakfast time and we all know who is coming.

Anonymous

Racists and Anti-Racist just hate different people. Both want to cause trouble.

Skyhumper

The only color I saw……was the color red when soldiers that I served with were wounded.

Skin pigmentation never made a difference or was thought of.

We were all brothers.

Skyjumper

Skyhumper????

WTF!!

SKYJUMPER, SKYJUMPER, SKYJUMPER!!! LMAO

Anonymous

Unintentional autocorrect humor there…

Skyjumper

Actually Anonymous, fat fingered typing hand. But, it made my day. (grin)

Anonymous

Either way, it’s a laugh.

Poetrooper

Actually, Jumper, ol’ Poe thinks it’s a fairly appropriate appellation for those of us who used a parachute to deliver our butts to the ground.

We were in the air but for mere minutes where we then spent hours, days, even weeks, constantly humping dozens of pounds of gear.

Skyhumper? I like it…😛😛😛

AW1Ed

Parachutes? Pffffft. I jumped from lots Navy aircraft and never needed one.

Poetrooper

And landed on your head perhaps?

😂😂😂

AW1Ed

And I would also get back into that same aircraft, sometimes with my new best friend who DID have to use a parachute.

Poetrooper

“And I would also get back into that same aircraft…”

Um, that was an option we didn’t have. If ya know what I mean…

timactual

Evidently he used all that free time before the landing to better use than you did.

timactual

Autocorrect?? Oh. —-never mind.

Poetrooper speaks truth. I actually believed that “Airmobile” crap for a while, too.

Poetrooper

Ol’ Poe always explained to civilians that being Airborne was 1% Air and 99% ground pounding…

ChipNASA

Guys, GUYS!!!!
Let me handle and fix this.
Jebus.
And opportunity to take a negative and turn it into a positive AND bring us all together.

AW1Ed

This explains much.

sky penis

ChipNASA

I can’t find it but there was a post about a bunch of guys in the barracks (my version)
“Where else can you find a black guy dancing a jig, a country guy playing guitar, an Indian guy making naan, and a Vietnamese guy teaching us a game he learned during his childhood.”

Something like that.
If anyone finds it (it’s one of those motivational poster thingies) let me know, I’d appreciated it.
I think it fits here.

Sapper3307

Does anybody else remember the yelling of racial epithets and not saluting of a LTC?

MK75Gunner

Yeah, thought the exact same thing. None of this happened. But leftist race baiters are gonna do what they do to divide.

Anonymous

Late ’60s/early ’70s? (I know I ain’t seen that and I’ve been around a while.)

SEAL Team TWO

Not then, either (as I remember it).

5JC

I do, but I am pretty sure that the Marine was directing that disrespect at an Iraqi Police Muqqaddam who we found was calling the local JAM cell leader every time we left his IP compound. Somehow magically an RKG3 thrower would show up a couple of minutes later on our route.

Other than that, not so much.

Retired

An MD only a LTC after “decades”?

Fyrfighter

Seems to explain a lot, don’t it… Maybe the ‘Angry” part of the call sign was accurate?

Green Thumb

And the Masons?

5JC

That kind of faded after 2000. By 2010 it seemed the only place it was still going on was middle NCO ranks E6 and E7 forevers.

Sapper3307

Range Control NCO’s

QMC

Just a little bit more…..

……so close to retirement.

M. Bibliophile

This week on things that didn’t happen…

Newsflash, if you got that kind of nickname, it’s because you were a bit of a dick. I’m willing to bet money that this individual was also unprofessional with poor bedside manner, which is why patients wouldn’t kiss her ass to the level she obviously expected. Racial slurs? More likely people made jokes and weren’t properly obsequious.

Long story short, the person in question is an ethno-narcissistic troublemaker who could do her job but is a pain to be around. This is my guess based on meeting other specimens of this particular species.

RetiredDevilDoc8404

I remember being told in the early morning brain fog of those wonderful first days at Lost in the Woods we were all equally worthless and useless and that we were all going to pay for being so worthless and pissing off our drill sergeant by doing God knows what. When I told that story, the boy who was in college at the time said that it was racist not to acknowledge a person’s race because it devalues them as a person. WTF, over?

A Proud Infidel®™️

This comes from the same AP that not only propagandized the BLM riots as ”peaceful”, screeched the D-rat party line that the January 6th demonstrations were an “assault”, they also had their HQ in the same building as Hamas when the Israelis casually turned the place into rubble, thus I’m sure the story is pure horse shit!

5JC

At least we the message is this weekend from Big Brother.

“All those people that died for their country? Yeah, they were a bunch of racists.”

5JC

“We know”

Mustang Major

I remember my “woke” Army experience when I joined in ‘71. The drill sergeants woke us at 0530 hours.

Anonymous

Folk start PT at 0430 now, do it for two (2) hours (’cause today’s X-box generation isn’t physical) and go directly to the chow hall (personally hygiene afterward)… and the DI can only say “Friggin'” is he’s angry (no “knife hands” because that’d be insensitive).

Poetrooper

“The drill sergeants woke us at 0530 hours.”

Oh, so you were Air Force, hmm? 😝😝😝

sgt. vaarkman 27-48thTFW

I was USAF and in 1974 we were awaken at 0400 every morning at BMT by the sound of garbage can lids being used as a musical instrument between yells of “get up , get up, let go of your cocks and grab your socks”

Quartermaster

USAF didn’t have Drill Sergeants. What bizarro world do you live in?

Poetrooper

Poe spent three decades dealing with military physicians ranging from brand new young captains in residency programs to their O-6 bosses and even a few flag rank doctors. In all those years, the only time I ever encountered any hint of racial attitude was from guess which demographic? And that attitude was demonstrated even by a couple of senior O-6’s of that particular demographic.

I never once heard a white military physician make a derogatory remark about a black colleague, even when we were off-base drinking together. In fact, I even asked white doctors whom I considered good friends about this attitude and they would just roll their eyes.

One old Army bird colonel, a Southerner himself, opined that my strong southern accent and good ol’ boy demeanor might make me suspect to certain people who had a tendency to stereotype all Southerners as racist.

Ol’ Poe calls bullshit on this doctor’s account.

A Terminal Lance Coolie

Ill take shit that didn’t happen for 800, please.

If your unit graces you with a callsign or nickname, you usually did something to earn it. Been there, done that, ate the T-shirt.

All the other crap she went off about just doesn’t add up. Failures to acknowledge customs and courtesies is an excellent way to get a pissed-off NCO to have a bracing one-on-one with you, at a minimum. Pretty sure officers have the equivalent attitude, too.

The complaint about people being uncomfortable usually points to something that isn’t racism. Considering the nature of her complaints….I could see people being uncomfortable to be around her. Race-baiting your colleagues is an excellent way to make them uncomfortable with you and to go out of their way to avoid you. Would also earn you that nickname….

The Left wonders why no one on the Right takes them seriously. It’s crap like this that removes their credibility. Make things out to be a one-dimensional issue, and you become a one-dimensional person who is rather unlikable.

David

I was in mid’70s to mid-80s. Saw a few bigots, probably evenly distributed among races but definitely at a lower percentage than I saw as a civilian (and I had civilian experience, I didn’t join till I was 24.) This story sounds like unadulterated bullshit. Even for a medical Air Force officer, this does not ring true.

A Terminal Lance Coolie

When I was in from ’06-’10 we had a couple of bigots pop up, too. It didn’t end well for them. They got a short, fast, painful lesson in how wrong they were, and how unacceptable their respective platoons found their behavior. Between that and time, their tunes changed dramatically.

Racism is abhorrent to the profession of arms. Those rare few who somehow make it through basic never fare well at their units. The rest of us don’t have time for petty, stupid, mission-endangering drivel like that, and nor do you, so you get a choice: fix it, or we fix it.

pookysgirl, WC wife

If she was working in a clinic, it’s common practice to make that area a no-salute zone, correct?

MSG Eric

There was a person who joined my unit a while back. Her current unit sang songs about how wonderful she was and we were lucky to have her.

Then she showed up. After she was assigned to us, they gave us all the other info about how she played the victim card all the time for being female and black. We had a black battalion commander at the time, so that shit didn’t play well but she abused the fuck out of it when she could.

I would say there are people who do stick to those beliefs in the military, sure. But at the end of the day, the ones who don’t learn that their racism is stupid and focus on mission accomplishment don’t last long at all.

Unfortunately the media makes any societal negative that in reality is a 0.001% presence in the military into a 90% or more issue. (Unless of course it’s an issue of benefits being taken away, budget cuts of personnel services, getting a real fucking budget even one time instead of a CR, etc.)

timactual

I was in the Army in the late ’60s. Saw some racism, and it was not confined to white folks. Mostly unspoken, but there was a fair amount of tension that sometimes popped up. Mostly everybody just tried to get along, but there were some assholes who just couldn’t let it alone.

The Army was my first actual exposure to people of other races, classes, etc. People are people–some good, some assholes, proportionately distributed among the various races, classes, etc. I have slept “cheek to cheek” (both sets) with all types, and all of it was equally equally unpleasant, although it was the lesser of two weevils.

The only people I learned to dislike as a group were what we called “lifers”. And no, that is not the same as a professional soldier.

UpNorth

Same here, actually. In Aschaffenburg, there were white bars and black bars, and the two groups didn’t mix, for the most part. If they did, there was usually trouble, usually 4 on 1 or 5 on 1 trouble. Usually because the fresh newby wandered into the wrong bar.

Poetrooper

On Fort Campbell in late 50’s-very early 60’s there were two primary NCO clubs, one that was mostly white but with a good number of black NCO’s in attendance. The other was solid black and no whites went into it unless they wanted to get their asses kicked.

I know because I went into it plenty of times as an MP, almost always to break up fights, a regular occurrence on weekends. Even then, with a loaded .45 on my hip, my partners and I were cussed out and verbally/physically threatened. We absolutely hated getting a disturbance call for that place and couldn’t get out of it fast enough.

Even the black MP’s hated going in there because they got more crap than we did–all the Uncle Tom BS.

timactual

Aschaffenberg, eh? Spent some time there. I read somewhere that it was one of the few places in Germany where overseas pay was authorized. Went out to play in the woods one fine spring day, about 75 degrees and sunshine. The next day a foot of snow, visibility zero, shivered me timbers.

The bar situation was the same in Mannheim. And the taxis were all armor plated. They were all Mercedes-Benzs, no legroom in the back because of the thick armored front seat and plexiglass partition. The EM club on post was always a trouble spot; sit near the door and leave well before closing time.

AW1 Rod

“The AP found….,”

The AP couldn’t find their own worthless asses in a dark room. I have yet to see anything from the AP that isn’t 100% pure, Grade-A bullshit.

A Proud Infidel®™

See my comment above.

AW1 Rod

Yup.

The Stranger

The AP couldn’t find Hamas if they were in the same fucking building…oh wait, that’s a true story!

Poetrooper

Mason, I forgot to ask, Did Lars send you that picture accompanying the article? If so, I assume he’s the one holding the log, right? 😜😜😜

Stacy0311

The AP seems to be populated by over credentialed sub literate morons who all believe they’re the next Edward R. Murrow.

So if LTC Davis joined the military after high school and then somehow ended up a flight surgeon, commander of a flight medicine, sounds like the military did a lot for her. It also sounds like she had a shitty personality, a massive sense of entitlement. Both of which combined caused a few people not to like her. Oh well, tough shit.

In my 36 years and counting, I’ve determined that people can basically be divided into 2 categories: good people or shitbags. And both groups are populated by every permutation of race, gender, ethnicity, skin color, sex, hair color, sexual orientation, left handers and every other physically identifiable trait. Sounds like LtCol Davis was definitely in the second group.

MCPO USN

How do you become a Flight Surgeon with only a high school education?