Glenn Beck
May 26, 2010
reprinted from Media Matters
We are on the right side of history. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!
As Glenn Beck tries to rewrite history from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I decided to take a closer look at his partners for the day, the people the Special Operations Warrior Foundation represents. I don't mean the families and the kids who receive the scholarships. And I don't mean the members that will stand on stage that day. I mean the larger family that they came from in the first place, the Special Operations Corps - those Green Berets, the Navy Seals, the PJ's, just to name a few, that they claim to represent.
I found out that it isn't only Beck and the Tea Party that have problems with racism.
For full disclosure, you should know that I am married to a career Air Force officer and the daughter of a retired Air Force MSgt. I have no connections with Special Operators. I have known a single PJ, almost 20 years ago, during my husband's first assignment and I was given the honor to see his tattooed green footprint. Although my husband worked for SOCEUR (Special Operations Command, Europe) about 10 years ago, my familiarity was more with logistics staff than commandos.
You also need to know that I have a big problem with a veteran's organization raising funds for Beck's rally. They may be following the law, as they love to claim, but they are breaking precedent. Military families are supposed to be kept out of the fray of political life unless they choose otherwise. Making appearances with two of the most divisive characters in today's political landscape is an atrocious lack of judgement by the staff and board of directors of Special Operations Warrior Foundation. The charity represents hundreds of families that should not be put in this position. SOWF has made short term money; I believe their name is tarnished for many years to come.
Disclosure finished!
As with most of my military research, I started by talking to my husband.
He recently came off assignment at the Air Force Personnel Center and I knew he would be able to give me some starting points, at least from an Air Force perspective. I had already found references to an 11 year old survey about diversity and Special Ops conducted by the Rand Corporation but was having trouble finding more recent information. He plugged me into the President's Military Leadership Diversity Commission:
This commission will execute a wide-ranging review of the issues regarding diversity in the military services. The commission, under the provisions of the law and the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C., Appendix, as amended), will conduct a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of policies that provide opportunities for the promotion and advancement of minority members of the Armed Forces, including minority members who are senior officers.
The Military Leadership Diversity Commission must submit a report to Congress and the President one year after it initiates its appointments. The report will include the findings and conclusions of the commission; the recommendations of the commission for improving diversity within the Armed Forces; and such other information and recommendations as the commission considers appropriate.
This site has tons of information about diversity, definitions of diversity, perceptions of diversity, etc. But when it comes to Special Operators, the information is exactly what I had already found, an 11 year old report from the Rand Corporation. And, when I contacted the commission itself, I was forwarded to the Rand Corporation. They had no further data to offer. If any new information exists, current leadership is keeping it under wraps.
So, this diary will work with data that is 11 years old.
Special Operators have a problem. Some people think they are racist.
From the San Diego Union Tribune, 9/18/2000, staff writer James Crawley:
It' s the perception that matters, not whether racism really exists, said Brig. Gen. Remo Butler, the first black Green Beret general.
With his cannonball-shaped head and arm muscles sculpted by years of off-duty professional boxing, Butler frequently is mistaken for a first sergeant rather than a general.
During workouts at the gym, Butler tries to recruit young black soldiers for Special Forces.
"Consistently, I get the same answer," he said. ' Sir, Special Forces is full of rednecks and Klansmen.' "
Or, they tell Butler that no blacks are in Special Forces.
"Perception is a very strong thing," he added. "Perception is reality."
In this case, perception is matched by the numbers:
Only 13 percent of the Pentagon' s highly trained special-operations forces are racial minorities. Of the 8,775 Army, Navy and Air Force commandos, 1,180 are classified as minorities.
Less than 15 percent of the Army' s Special Forces and Rangers personnel are soldiers of color, compared with about 40 percent of the entire Army.
About 11 percent of Navy SEALs, whose headquarters are in Coronado, are minorities. "We are underrepresented (with minorities) compared to what we'd like," acknowledged Rear Adm. Eric Olson, the Navy's top SEAL.
Eight percent of the Air Force' s special-tactics and pararescue groups, the military' s smallest commando force, are minority members.
The greatest disparity appears in the ranks of black servicemen.
The Army Special Forces, known by distinctive green berets, has 234 African-American officers and soldiers in a force of 5,200 men. Blacks make up 4.5 percent of the Green Berets, compared with nearly 24 percent of the male soldiers in the Army.
The Navy has only 31 blacks among its 2,299 Sea-Air-Land, or SEAL, commandos, less than 2 percent of the force. African-Americans constitute nearly 17 percent of the male personnel within the Navy.
And, the Air Force' s special-tactics groups have only eight blacks in a force of 472 men, less than 2 percent. Servicewide, about 14 percent of the Air Force' s male personnel are African-American.
The statistics have not improved significantly in recent years, despite heightened recruiting efforts.
Crawley also reports the problem within the Special Ops community made it to the Congressional level over 10 years ago:
During the past four years, the racial disparity within special-operations forces has been the subject of a congressional mandate, Pentagon hand-wringing and a $400,000 Rand Corp. study. Meanwhile, the military has beefed up its recruiting campaigns and, most recently, made changes in special-operations training -- steps that could boost minority numbers.
And that the military leadership understood the importance of having a more diverse Special Operations corp:
It' s the special-operations forces' missions -- all overseas, often working with foreign governments and often in secret -- that make ethnic diversity a significant issue with the brass.
Top generals and admirals argue that having more minority troops would help bridge language and cultural differences that special-operations forces often encounter in foreign countries.
"There are some areas in the world where it' s preferable for us to operate with something other than the traditional white male," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz, the No. 2 general at the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Which explains why, more than 10 years ago, General Butler was trying to recruit new Special Operators at the gym. Military leadership is trying to figure out what is going wrong. And the answers he received have a lot to do with it. Crawley points out that these soldiers are probably right:
White-supremacist and militia groups appear to have sympathizers and, likely, a foothold within special-operations forces, particularly Army Special Forces, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, as recently as 2006, says that the military is still having problems:
Ten years after Pentagon leaders toughened policies on extremist activities by active duty personnel -- a move that came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by decorated Gulf War combat veteran Timothy McVeigh and the murder of a black couple by members of a skinhead gang in the elite 82nd Airborne Division -- large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists continue to infiltrate the ranks of the world's best-trained, best-equipped fighting force. Military recruiters and base commanders, under intense pressure from the war in Iraq to fill the ranks, often look the other way.
The article continues to describe how the military allowed neo-Nazis to join, to train as Special Operators, to serve, and to be honorably discharged. During their active duty service, these men were not only serving our nation, they were serving organizations like National Alliance:
Using the online pseudonym "Mattiasb88" [88 is neo-Nazi code for "Heil Hitler"] to hide his identity, Buschbacher designed and distributed National Alliance fliers, white power screen savers, and a photo montage of Pierce on the Internet via his website, racialpride.com, which displayed a logo of a burning swastika and this mission statement: "The purpose of this website is to provide white patriots with a large database of information for recruiting and self-improvement." Buschbacher also posted messages to the white supremacist website Stormfront and the website of Resistance Records, a hate rock music company owned by the National Alliance. In the fall of 2003, the National Alliance magazine Resistanceeven published a collage of "Scene Shots" that included a small photo of Buschbacher wearing a Turner Diaries T-shirt and giving a Nazi salute.
The Special Operations Corps are especially vulnerable because the training they offer is exactly what many extremist groups are looking for:
Hate groups send their guys into the U.S. military because the U.S. military has the best weapons and training," said T.J. Leyden, a former racist skinhead and Marine who recruited inside the Marine Corps for the Hammerskins, a nationwide skinhead gang. He later renounced the neo-Nazi movement and now conducts anti-extremism training seminars on military bases.
"Right now, any white supremacist in Iraq is getting live fire, guerilla warfare experience," Leyden said. "But any white supremacist in Iraq who's a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL or Marine Recon, he's doing covert stuff that's far above and beyond convoy protection and roadblocks. And if he comes back and decides at some point down the road that it's race war time, all that training and combat experience he's received could easily turn around and bite this country in the ass."
I think it is safe to say that the perceived racism felt more than 10 years ago is alive and well today. It may even be amplified by two wars and a military leadership that has chosen to wear their blinders for the sake of recruitment numbers.
Ironically, we need diversity in the Special Operations field today more than we ever did before. We have operations under way in Africa, in Asia, in South America, in the Middle East, just to name a few, where an entire group of white men may just send the wrong message. They are even more likely to be the wrong US messengers if they are folks that think like this:
Wow, where do you start? Mental and physical endurance, ability to work as a team, knowledge that just doesn't come from books. All things that any minority would never understand. No wonder it is called "The Good Old Boys Club" It is widely know, yet almost never talked about to outsiders that every black tries to show boat or talk his way into the club.
Ever wonder why there are more blacks in the supply organization and admin areas than any other. I think the recruiter has a quota that they must fill at the MEP station. And how many do you see in ROTC or OCS or The POINT? almost nil. Do be surprised, but it is true and don't expect anyone in the club to just come out and say it. They don't like to talk about it.
This Stormfront comment gives you a small idea about the battle military leadership is facing. It isn't just a recruitment battle, it's also an educational one. Not only do Special Forces need to recruit more minorities, they need to recruit fewer racists.
The Rand Corporation survey of Special Operators was conducted to help determine why minorities are underrepresented. Here is what they discovered:
Failure Rates for Minorities During Selection and Training Somewhat Higher
Army data differ consistently between minority and majority graduation rates
Difference may be partly explained by the swimming requirement
Smaller proportion of minorities in combat arms specialties
Minorities have lower test scores
Similar patterns in Navy data, but small sample sizes make comparisons unreliable
Air Force does not keep data by race/ethnicity but anecdotal evidence suggests swimming an issue for minorities
Swimming Is a Frequently Mentioned Barrier
Most discussants aware of SOF swim requirements and that minorities are less likely to swim
SOF swimming assistance programs not widely known
Even if can learn to swim, “water comfort” is an issue for Navy and Air Force SOF
Lack of Knowledge [about SOF] and Support Are Barriers; Minorities know less about SOF
• Less likely to see in high school
• Less like to idealize
• Less knowledge leads to less support from families
• Less support in family leads to fewer role models
Lack of Identification Is a Barrier
Prior military and civilian research suggests “degree of comfort” important
Discussants perceived SOF training difficult enough without the added burden of isolation
SOF minorities in movies play minor, short-lived roles
Minority enlisted service populations often distrust recruiting materials and information from white recruiters
Perceived Racism Is a Barrier
SEALS seen as white organization but not racist
CCTs/PJs not well-known, have less perceptual baggage
Green Berets and Rangers perceived to be white organization with racist attitudes
Minority discussants believe that this reputation attracts people with similar attitudes
Minorities May Be Less Interested in SOF
Minority focus group participants emphasized civilian transferability
Discussants worried about danger and effect of injuries on civilian careers
But some disagreement over whether minorities more interested in civilian transferability
Youth survey data indicate minorities less willing to trade risk for success
Service occupation data show minorities less interested in occupations similar to SOF
Notice that the study came to the conclusion that minority officer and enlisted members tend to choose career fields that transfer more readily to the civilian world. They're thinking ahead to that job after the military. Sound familiar? The neo-Nazi's are thinking the same thing. They just happen to have a job waiting after all their special training. If we started to hear about black men training in Special Ops in order to return home to fight for the New Black Panthers, Americans would be up in arms.
Left with this survey, it is really easy to write of the failure of minority recruitment with the minorities themselves. Can't swim well, not interested in our field, don't have the right attitude. That's exactly what some vocal veterans think:
The swimming alone will eliminate most blacks... I think blacks have heavier bones, making them poor swimmers. This is actually true. I remember my boot camp days (USN), watching all the black bucks wheezing and puking after swim tests. The SEALs, among others, have done studies on the phenomenon, concluding that negroes, on average, have greater bone density and less body fat than Whites. This makes them "negatively buoyant", i.e., they have to expend more energy to swim or even to just stay afloat.
As for intel units, I spent 3 1/2 years as a shipboard analyst. My Intel "A" School class had ONE black female--EVERYONE ELSE was White. ALL the instructors were White... Since assignment to that "A" School was contingent upon a high ASVAB score, it makes sense that the class was mostly White.
Later, as I was out in the Fleet and getting close to separation from the Navy, I guess the "A" School must have started ramrodding negroes through, because we took aboard three of them in a row, capped off by getting a negro Division Chief. As soon as they achieved critical mass, they formed a "black mafia" to look out for each other. Any guesses as to what their performance levels were?
I served in the 1st Ranger Bn. in the mid-late 70s. There were very few blacks in the Bn. Several Latins though. The blacks came sure enough but most didn't last. The Latins on the other hand did well and my time in the Ranger Bn. I had no problems with any Latin. Most at that time were Puerto Ricans from NYC.
The blacks just dropped out like flys. Being in a Ranger Bn. is very demanding and you gotta want to be there and work to stay there. Work that blacks just wouldn't do. They exited about as fast as they came.
They wanted the glory but refused to work for it and soon washed out!
Why does this paper rant and rave about the need of "diversity" in our Special Forces?
I mean we already dumbed down our firefighters and police force so that minorities could get in; now do we have to dumb down our special forces too?
Special Forces are the elite of the elite and if your black ass can't get in it isn't because of racism.
Granted, this garbage comes from a Stormfront website but take a look at this one from a Special Ops site, bolding is mine:
http://www.socnet.com/...
while I was in BUD/S, I could count all of the minorities in all three phases on just a couple of fingers. I was the only black in my class (after one dropped out in indoc), two hispanics in third phase and one east indian in second phase. As far as instrutctor staff we had one filipino ptrr instructor, and two black third phase instr. Now as far as our ability to float, yes I do believe that there is a difference somewhere. I was not raised around water, living in the city. Six months before I left for the navy I started dating this lifeguard so she could help me with my swimming. When it came time for drown proofing I sank like a rock.I failed it twice, but I kept pushing and passed it. In the end it all came down to how hard I pushed myself, color makes no difference. I watched a decathelete quit and he was white. When it's five a.m. and your being surf tortured, pain knows no color. Its whether you've got it in the heart and in the gut. When you're in the trenches the only thing you should see next to you is your buddy, the most qualified MAN for the job:white, black,asian, or whatever.
This guy believes the garbage that black men are built differently and are therefore less able to swim. Obviously he knows that his inablility to swim is, in part, lack of experience in the water, but he seems very willing to accept the urban myth that his body is less capable. That's why he believes the biggest difference is the right attitude - the heart and the guts. I can buy into some of that - the training is grueling and difficult doesn't begin to describe it. But I can't and don't believe that minorities are less likely to pass because they don't have something that white guys do.
Guys like those above help determine the group moral in any unit. When you have these attitudes, even unspoken, among your numbers, it becomes very difficult to recruit any diversity much less to succeed once you are recruited. I wish the Rand Corporation had focused on the successful recruitment of white racists. If we could present hard data as to why the organization appeals so easily to them, maybe we could find exactly those areas that need to be addressed. Maybe the Special Operations leadership is tackling this from the wrong direction.
It should come as no surprise that others believe that the Rand survey is flawed from the start.
"This study was done by white people," Butler said. "Now, who has better rapport; who' s going to get the truth from minorities? A bunch of guys who are white, with doctorate degrees, or someone who hangs out with (the soldiers) at the gym?"
He acknowledged that the results were "fairly valid," but could have been more accurate if minority interviewers had been hired by Rand.
The study was panned by a military sociologist who said it failed to determine whether minorities were being improperly kept out of special operations because of the entrance and training standards set by the military.
"The Rand study is completely inadequate because it never really examines the institutional factors which may be causing the underrepresentation to occur," said James Burk, a military sociologist at Texas A&M University.
The sad news is that no other surveys have been conducted. Military sociologists agree that this survey does not determine if training standards and entrance exams have kept minorities out of the Special Ops mix, but no other study has been commissioned to remedy this error. And, more than ten years later, our government is still using this flawed survey to determine how to recruit more minorities. From what I am hearing on the Air Force side, folks still think training is key. Minorities wash out of the program at higher rates than whites, therefore, that must be the problem.
In the last 10 years, only the Navy seems to be trying to change perceptions. They are actively publishing articles about minority recruitment:
DIVERSITY ENHANCES SPECWAR'S OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY, FLEXIBILITY
Naval Special Warfare Public Affairs
25 March, 2009 07:48:00
CORONADO, Calif. (NNS) -- Deputy commander, Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Command visited several historically black colleges and universities recently in an ongoing effort to increase diversity among NSW's elite forces.
Lone comment on this article:
Please dont tell me that theres going to be affirmative action requirements for spec ops now.That is pushing political correctness way overboard.If it aint broke dont fix it.
But recruitment isn't the key; culture is. Until we change the culture of the Special Operations Corps, racism will continue to exist and will continue to dissuade minority members from joining.
So, this brings us to the Restore Our Honor rally this Saturday. Do you think Beck knew who he was partnering with from the start? Supposedly Beck met a wounded soldier being helped by SOWF and this soldier asked him to help the organization. Should this come as a surprise? I'm sure that soldier was white. He may not be racist, but he certainly wasn't considering the big picture when he asked for Beck's help. How about the Board of Directors at SOWF? Did they even think about the impact beyond their own charity? The board of directors is a lot of military folks with a sprinkling of civilians. I wonder how much diversity they have among their numbers? Did they consider the big picture? Until the culture that exists, and SOWF is a big part of that culture, learns to look beyond their own nose, inherent racism will be difficult to eradicate.
It is doubtful that Beck, or any other guest speaker, will address the concerns of racism in either the Tea Party, the 9/12 organization, or the Special Operations Corps during his event this Saturday. I would like to imagine Dr. Martin Luther King speaking on this day; he would bring up the topic. He might say,
I have a dream that one day, not only will men and women, straight and gay, black, brown, and white, serve side by side in our Armed Forces, they will respect one another and see difference not as a path to division but as the solution to our problems.
I don't think that the leaders of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation see this dream. They only saw money signs and middle class, white faces honoring the divisive rhetoric of Glenn Beck. Some military children will be helped. Charity staff will get paid for another year. And the propaganda of the white racist will be spread just a little bit further.