Very interesting piece covering
ADM Mullen on Diversity. It is also very timely.
I have always looked at race as a generational issue, and I believe racism is in steep decline today. There is evidence everywhere you look, particularly with the recent discussions of racism in the media as it relates to the Healthcare debate.
I note that the charges of racism recently discussed in the press appear to lack the power to influence public opinion. This is measurable progress and itself an excellent sign for race relations. If the charges of racism continue to prove ineffective in the political debates we see today, it is likely we will see the racism accusation disappear as a tactic in politics.
In politics, people often reveal the worst of themselves and become assholes - and that's OK. America is not against Healthcare in the current debate because the President is black, they are against Healthcare because they don't understand the plan, they don't have enough trust in ANYONE in government to know who to believe, and no elected official has an actual plan in hand that has built enough support to pass. That isn't racism; that is the same pattern of American politics since day 1 this country was founded.
I read
the Maureen Dowd piece like everyone else, and all she did was remind us she is old and remains heavily influenced by her experiences of decades ago. In her world, a white guy from South Carolina who acts like a jackass on national TV to an African American in a position of authority translates into racism, because she herself comes from a generation that easily forms that stereotyped conclusion of race based on experience. As I read ADM Mullen, I noted he does too. Experience trains us; this is not good or bad, it can be either - sometimes both.
As a white younger American (I'm 33) with a completely different generational view, I understand their perspectives even as I cannot relate to them. My experiences are different. I grew up outside Little Rock, AR in a mostly white suburb. In 1989, the state agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit that claimed the state did too little to desegregate Little Rock area schools. One of the solutions that emerged was that white kids in the county could go to schools that had predominately black students, and black students could go to schools with predominately white students.
The dirty secret of Pulaski County was that the county schools, predominately white, were complete shit holes while the inner city schools in Little Rock that had predominately black students had better teachers, facilities, and curriculum. In High School, thanks to desegregation law, I went to a majority black inner city Little Rock school and it was absolutely the best choice I made in my teenage years. The county schools were incubators for prejudice while the inner city schools were incubators for gang activity. In hindsight, I think the gang activity was easier to manage for me as a white guy in an inner city school than the prejudice would have been for a black student bused out to a county (read country) school. I have no statistical evidence to support that opinion, but can remember plenty of anecdotal examples.
Before I moved to NY I saw racism in Arkansas society and the damage it did to people and communities, but in the workplace like what Mullen is discussing, I have never seen it since moving to New York. I have seen racism used as a political tactic in NY, but I have never seen it used legitimately as a politically tactic in NY. I have owned my own business for the last many years, and racism has never really been something I have encountered. In IT, I am generally one of very few white American males in the circles I am working in, mostly because everyone else is either female, Hispanic, African American - or part of the foreign (mostly Indian and Chinese) majority.
So when I read ADM Mullen's perspective and Maureen Dowd's perspective, I understand it but I have trouble relating. Having returned to Arkansas and met up with a bunch of my old High School classmates, I can tell you that our collective experiences and exposure to racism has nothing in common with Jim Crow or the Watts Riots.
Indeed, I often find that the folks I grew up with who attended the shit hole white county schools ended up adults who threw off any racist tendencies they may have had when they were younger. Not all though, there are still isolated pockets of hate filled rednecks, but the key point is that they are a tiny minority and are isolated primarily because their opinions are no longer acceptable or tolerated in southern society.
Watching my kids grow up in a diverse middle class community and witnessing the often baseless cry of racism in politics suggests to me that racism in America will never again influence American opinion at large like it did in my parents day. There will always be plenty of prejudice in the world, and there will always be social problems resulting from economic conditions, but I think the story of hate based on race in America is slowly coming to a conclusion, and the story ends in triumph.
Today's diversity policy in the Navy gets interesting reactions in the blogosphere. The Navy measures diversity with statistics in comparison to greater American society, and finds that as the officer’s rank gets higher, the statistics no longer match greater society. I don't know the exact reasons, only today's Flag officers were commissioned into the Navy in the 70s, with the 80s ensigns just recently making it into the Flag ranks.
If it requires ~30 years in the Navy to become a Flag officer, shouldn't the statistics measuring diversity measure against the diversity of the ensigns commissioned ~30 years ago? It seems to me that measuring an organization like the Navy against today's greater American society is akin to statistical manipulation. The statistics that measure the Navy career system, say for Rear Admirals, should measure diversity statistics of today against diversity statistics for the officers commissioned between 1975 - 1981.
That data would be more relevant I think, because if the Navy is losing a larger percentage of minority officers earlier in their career than the percentage of white officers leaving early, that could be covered up by simply promoting more minorities among a much smaller pool of eligible minorities using the statistical comparisons ADM Roughead uses. By comparing diversity statistics within the Navy to diversity statistics of America instead of diversity statistics of peer commissioning classes, we don't really get a feel for the trend lines to suggest the priority of diversity in the Navy is working or not.
The Navy has lost a lot of talented Commanders and Captains to early retirement this decade. I'd be curious to see how the statistics of officers who retired early measure in a diversity comparison with the commissioning classes of the 80s. Finally, if we knew the diversity of the commissioning classes from 1980 - 1995, this would give us a good sense of whether diversity in the Navy will resolve itself with Generation X, or whether we will have to wait for Generation Y. After all, in an organization like the Navy where one must work their way up through a system, statistical forecasting can be done and historical change can be both measured, and predictive.
I know diversity in the Navy is about more than race btw, but the ADM Mullen article is specifically about race.
There are several private advisories of attacks off Somalia this morning suggesting several small boats are armed off the Horn of Africa. So far, no details have hit the news, except this one.
