![]() ![]() ![]() “Those who are indoctrinated into white supremacist ideology present a significant threat to national security and the safety of our communities,” SPLC President Margaret Huang wrote. The Southern Poverty Law Center sent Austin a letter shortly after his order, applauding him for his decisive action but underscoring that systemic change on all military levels is urgent. Some service members said their units went “above and beyond,” but others reported their trainers made disparaging comments that undercut the discussions and that the sessions were short and non-interactive. Austin III – a former Army general who now is secretary of defense, the first Black man to serve in the post – ordered commanders and supervisors to take an operational pause for one day to discuss extremism in the ranks with their service members.Īustin gave commanders the latitude to address the matter as they saw fit, but emphasized that discussions should include the meaning of their oath, acceptable behaviors both in and out of uniform, and how service members can report actual or suspected extremist behavior through their chains of command.Ī recent poll from The Military Times showed the stand-down was received with mixed reviews. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows. That same fiscal year, civilians working in the financial, technical and support sectors of the Army, Air Force and Navy also filed 900 complaints of racial discrimination and over 350 complaints of discrimination by skin color, data from the U.S. But discrimination doesn’t exist just within the military rank-and-file. The military said it processed more than 750 complaints of discrimination by race or ethnicity from service members in the fiscal year 2020 alone. 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. And during her residency, she was the sole Black resident in a program with no Black faculty, staff or ancillary personnel. Some patients refused to call her by her proper rank or even acknowledge her. White subordinates often refused to salute her or seemed uncomfortable taking orders from her, she says. 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. 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.īut many of her service colleagues, Davis says, saw her only as a Black woman. 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. 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. ![]()
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