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Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard that appeared at a World Series game last month so the group would not be exclusively white and male.Human diversity cannot exceed 23 chromosomes. Anyone continuing to perpetuate the myth that the thin veneer of genetic variation that makes people physically distinguishable Means Anything needs to go take a biochemistry course and disabuse themselves of their medieval notions.
Accounts differ as to who was added to or removed from the Oct. 29 color guard. But the net result was that one of the six who marched on Yankee Stadium's field, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, was selected because her presence would make the service academy look more diverse before a national audience.
Policy makers, senior officials and the media have got to stop perpetuating the intellectual vomit of racism. Making decisions based upon the color of peoples' skin is false, false, and false.
How sick, embarrassing, craven, an insult to all USNA graduates, as well as the country they serve, these shenanigans.
Update: I'll double down on my point. I claim, with gold-medal hand-waving, that the Political Correctness on display here is a diluted form of the institutional falsehood that helped create the context for last week's Fort Hood tragedy.
Update II: PowerLine has a summary and links.
Veterans Day Pacific Theater WWII remembering My Dad.
ReplyDeletehttp://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/11/veterans-day-pacific-wwii-memorial.html
Actually Stacy, it is about marketing.
ReplyDeleteAnd before you sneer about racial discrimination, that take a second to reflect. The military is a volunteer force. It wants to encourage people to join. Color guards are chosen for good looks (sorry, that is a criteria), lack of tattoos, etc., etc. Provided the persons selected can march well and do the functions of being a color guard (trust me far less easy than it sometimes looks), a little "United Colors of Benetton" is not that offensive. In fact, it is smart for the military to do it--both politically and recruitment wise. The fact is there are a lot of people of many different back grounds serving, lots of women too.
Now I am against West Point or any academy giving preference to a person on the basis of race or gender on admissions. The military should be a meritocrisy with objective standards. But unless there is some rigorous screening process that was leapped over for being on the color guard (and if that was the case you have a point), I do not see this as a controversy.
And a point to remember on Veteran's Day: When members of the military are killed or wounded during service, they all bleed red.
ReplyDeleteexcuse me, I should have said smitty.
ReplyDeleteWell said. Has there been a commercial in recent years featuring a criminal that was not a white male?
ReplyDeleteColor guards aren't just chosen for being able to march well. Color guards usually strive for uniformity in appearance, in otherwords, they strive for a lack of diversity. The guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier have height and weight requirements. This "diversity" stuff is a bunch of crap. The people spreading this stuff don't know any more about the military than they do about fornicating.
ReplyDeleteJoe has it right. This is a fairly transparent attempt -- from the right -- to manufacture a "racial controversy" where no real one exists.
ReplyDelete"Making decisions based upon the color of peoples' skin is false, false, and false."
ReplyDeleteHow right you are. And yet you manage to get it all wrong.
It's hard to follow your tortured logic.
On the one hand, allowing an all white-male group represent the USNA in front of a national audience is right.
Presenting the USNA as a diverse institution is wrong, and possibly even racist.
Hmmm. Little wonder that Conservatism is a safe-haven for ass-backwards thinking. It's heart-warming to see Conservatives play the race-card, vis-a-vis the playing up to their mostly Southern male-caucasian membership.Warms the cockles of my heart to see that Conservatism seeks to isolate itself into a regional faction.
Thank You....
My goodness, Smitty, you mean the Navy established the composition of the color guard in order to present the Navy is a good light on TV?
ReplyDeleteHorrors!
@Kn@ppster:
ReplyDeleteStrong non-concur. As a 1995 graduate of the institution, I can tell you that the superficial, irrelevant motives for decision making were present even then.
In a purportedly post-racial period, the fact that people making decisions continue to fetish skin color perpetuates, rather than diminishes, lingering difficulties.
By all means, strive to encourage and support equality of opportunity for everyone to get into the school, but then let it be a true meritocracy, and not subject to bogus games (as I myself saw).
"By all means, strive to encourage and support equality of opportunity for everyone to get into the school, but then let it be a true meritocracy, and not subject to bogus games (as I myself saw). "
ReplyDeleteHmmm. And exactly what qualifies one person over the other to represent the USNA? Is your assumption that
the minorities representing the USNA at Yankee stadium were not qualified, or is that just the Conservative knee-jerk reaction when Conservatives see women and people of color?
@Y4E,
ReplyDeleteFrom TFA:
"Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard"
It would be one thing if the color guard organization was making DNA-based decisions about who could be on it.
While that is not impossible, I can tell you that if it's like (virtually) everything else at USNA, it's merit-based. You have to volunteer, have the best grades, etc.
You repeat these charges of "Conservative knee-jerk reaction when Conservatives see women and people of color", but they have no reality beyond your head.
if Diversity is so damn important to the military why do they all wear UNIFORMS and all get the same freakin' short haircuts.
ReplyDeleteIn these kind of discussions, it seems to me that only Leftists like Young 4-Eyes, et. al. are seeing color or sex.
ReplyDeleteSmitty's point, I think, is that the skin color or sex of the color guard should not matter; rather, what should always matter is that holding such a position of honor [as being a member of such a guard] should be a reward for proven committment and ability, which knows no color, creed, or sex. To reduce color guards to simply being props for gaining PC bona fides is to render such service meaningless.
Chance, uniformity in a color guard does not justify uniformity in skin color. When I was in the Marine Corps, my units were pretty diversified. When I went to 8th and I to see the Silent Drill Team, that group was diversified too. And I know that team is based purely on merit, not political correctness.
ReplyDeleteHeight and weight? Definitely. But not skin color, not any more, although the height and weight criteria might justify uniformity in gender. I do not recall any women Marines in the silent drill team. But perhaps that has changed.
Here is a piece on the Honor Guard at the Arlington Tomb of the Unknowns.
If there is an objective test that you have to pass in order to serve on the color guard and the best individuals pass that test--fair neough. If there is not and the people selected all qualified, then the Navy trying to look inclusive is not that offensive to me.
I will grant you this smitty, this was poorly handled by the Naval Academy. There is nothing wrong with selecting your representatives from a preselected group of midshipmen cadets who qualified. There is something wrong in bumping a cadet who was already picked to get some diversity in at the last second. But had the Commodant just added two more, that would have been fine. To equate the Navy trying to look inclusive on television at a major national event with the Major Hasan fiasco is not legitimate.
ReplyDeleteBut what troubles me is not the diversity issue of the color guard, but the disclosure---did the Commodant just tell a fib about all of this? Because that would be a violation of the honor code.
"Anyone continuing to perpetuate the myth that the thin veneer of genetic variation that makes people physically distinguishable Means Anything needs to go take a biochemistry course and disabuse themselves of their medieval notions."
ReplyDeleteI think you need to read up on HBD. Just head over to Steve Sailer's site. Leftist ninnies like 4 eyes will call you a raaaaacist, but they do that now already.
This is a story that will drive you mad. Regarding Nidal Hasan. If true, many careers need to end and end badly.
ReplyDeleteThis should be its own post smitty. This is serious and disturbing.
This USNA '82 alum is not bothered by this incident (except for the possible honor concept violation pointed out by Joe), and Joe has a point about the marketing.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me isn't that the USNA did this, but the stupid assumption that black people or women will somehow believe USNA is not an option for them unless they see "their kind" on the color guard. I don't think there are any high school guidance counselors saying to black (or women or Latino or whatever) students, "Gee, Joe, attending the Naval Academy is a lofty ambition, but did you see that all-white color guard the other night? You might as well forget it!"
As far as getting on the color guard by merit . . . I have no idea how the color guard was selected back when I was there. But I carried the guide-on for our company (that's the flag at the head of the company in parades, for you non-Boat Schoolers) for part of the year, and that was not an award. They needed someone to do it, I said "yeah, what the hell, that sounds cool," and I -- an indisputably middle-of-the-road midshipman -- got the job.
(By the way Joe, it's just "midshipman," not "midshipman cadet.")
I was not claiming that uniformity in skin color was justified. I was simply stating that diversity standards are ridiculous in most cases to begin with and are especially ridiculous in a unit that has, as one of its goals, uniformity in appearance. If you want to show off the diversity that exists in the military (and I think the military does a better job than most places of accepting a diverse range of people) show it off in the band or the choir. Don't tinker with a color guard to please someone's silly ideal of equal representation. If the sailors who earned their way to your color guard are 1 black guy, 1 white guy, 1 hispanic guy and 1 arabic woman...great! If not, that should also be fine.
ReplyDeleteDuece well thanks for your service and for your correction on the midshipman part (sorry). And while I think anyone serious in pursing a career as an officer in the Navy is not going to be turned away if the color guard is all white, all black, or whatever--the fact is the services are a fair cross section of society so it does make sense that ads for the services, public color guards, etc., would reflect that.
ReplyDeleteThen again, if the Navy ever goes this route, I think we might be in real trouble.
"You repeat these charges of "Conservative knee-jerk reaction when Conservatives see women and people of color", but they have no reality beyond your head. "
ReplyDeleteThat's funny, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't me who raised objections to the color guard story.
If you think about it, it was you who jumped to the conclusion that the changing of the " composition" of the guard
was not merit based. I would say this is proof enough of a Conservative knee-jerk reaction, but you, of course, would call it something else.Something a little less incriminating perhaps...
I guess all who disagree are leftist ninnies, eh?
That's funny, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't me who raised objections to the color guard story.
ReplyDeleteIf you think about it, it was you who jumped to the conclusion that the changing of the " composition" of the guard
was not merit based.
OK, you're trolling. The first sentence of the WAPO story is:
"Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard that appeared at a World Series game last month so the group would not be exclusively white and male."
The decision was DNA-based. This is the objection I raised. I would have raised the same objection had it been a rainbow display of individuals, and they tinkered to get a set of blond, blue-eyed, Aryan Nations poster children: such would have been DNA-based.
Don't jeopardize your status as this blog's Zampolit by a descent into ninny-hood.
Okay here is a song for the CIC:
ReplyDeleteBravely bold Sir Barack
Rode forth from Chicagolot.
He was not afraid to die,
Oh brave Sir Barack.
He was not at all afraid
To be killed in nasty ways.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Barack.
He was not in the least bit scared
To be mashed into a pulp.
Or to have his eyes gouged out,
And his elbows broken.
To have his kneecaps split
And his body burned away,
And his limbs all hacked and mangled
Brave Sir Barack.
His head smashed in
And his heart cut out
And his liver removed
And his bowls unplugged
And his nostrils raped
And his bottom burnt off
And his pen--
"That's... that's enough music for now lads,
*** there's dirty work afoot*** ???."
Brave Sir Barack ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("no!")
Yes, brave Sir Barack turned about
("I didn't!")
And gallantly he chickened out.
****Bravely**** taking ("I never did!") to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
("all lies!")
Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Barack!
("I never!")