by
Ron Scott
Colonel, United States Air Force, Retired
The video below is a rebuttal to the United States Air Force Academy football coaches' public support for an organization
and its movement that are contrary to what America is about.
I do not
reject that racism exists (it will always exist given human nature and it
should be called out when it happens), but the evidence shows that we have
evolved well beyond the systemic racism that existed going into the
1960s. A growing number of prominent blacks already ardently support this
assertion.
Are minorities catching up? Yes. But these types of
changes take a generation or two to be fully mature and normalized.
Unless we check the Black Lives Matter propaganda, we will be normalizing another form of
systemic racism (and apartheid) in America. What is taking place is a
political movement to benefit a political party and to transform America.
History repeats itself. Please listen to my arguments in the video and join me in fighting for America.
Old Gadfly. When I saw the Gazette article, I was compelled to watch the video. "Disappointed" was my word as well--except with an "Extremely" in front of it. Why our beloved FB team would want to wander into an issue that would be perceived by many as "political" is beyond me. Say--"we have been committed to eliminating racism in our institution and our sport for years and we know we can still raise the bar" or something along those lines--say "Black Lives Matter" and you put yourself and your team squarely in the middle of a political debate raging across America. You are not the first fellow graduate I have heard from on this!
ReplyDeleteI don’t really get it. A part from unsubstantiated and un-cited claims such as “black lives matter was founded by ‘trained marxists’” it seems like a random collection of anecdotal evidence and quotes supporting a disjointed hypothesis (which I guess is that BLM is going to destroy America).
ReplyDeleteRegardless, if you knew the coaching staff you’d know that they are good people who are simply trying to support a large portion of the American community (not to mention their own team) who have been oppressed for a very long time. That doesn’t seem so bad (or political) to me.
Mark,
DeleteI wonder if you know the difference between an anecdote and evidence. "Anecdotal evidence" and data are not the same thing. My article does not relate a narrative based on stories. It walks the reader through screen shots and quotes that provide far more than anecdotal evidence. Further, "anecdotal evidence" of racism does not equate to "systemic racism."
I do not deny the existence of racism and I rebuke it when it occurs. Jim Crow laws represented systemic racism. America got rid of them.
Most of what we are experiencing is called social construction such as critical race theory. I have studied this evolution as an academic, and I can assure you it is a variation of critical theory which derives from Marxism.
This manifested ideology is as dangerous as Nazism and its demonization of Jews and other humans as lesser creatures below the Aryan race.
Hi again, Gadfly,
DeleteSo I watched your video for a second time and read your response. My understanding is that you don’t support what you perceive as the coaching staff and team taking a stance for a political organization. I don’t believe they were intending do this. In the video they actually state that it was not meant to be a political endorsement.
What I took particular issue with, other than simply disagreeing with your argument, is that at the very beginning you write “why does the coaching staff care?”. You assert that it is either because academy leadership forced them to do it, or that they were ignorant to the political nature of Black Lives Matter. To me, that is both too narrow and too conspiracy-theory-like. To me, it is quite obvious why they care. They care because they deeply support both the players on their team and a group of Americans who have been (and still are) oppressed.
For you and me, as white men, it seems like concepts such as “separate but equal” were dissolved. However, if you don’t accept that African Americans are still disadvantaged then I don’t believe you are doing a good job of listening to what current African Americans are saying - either the ones at our great academy nor the ones in the public domain.
Mark,
DeleteThank you for engaging in a good conversation on this topic.
I agree with you that the coaches truly believed their message was based on a reasonable understanding of circumstances. This is why, when I taught regional security at Arizona State University, I prefaced the semester session with the notion that when we realize their are cultural and governing differences between various countries, those differences could be contradictory, contrary, or complementary. It requires a serious examination to more accurately derive one of those three classifications. The notion of racism and the extent of any systemic racism requires a similar analysis.
Thomas Sowell, Walt Whitman, Shelby Steele, and other black scholars have done such a deep analysis. Their understanding of today's circumstances are not congruent with those, such as BLM and others, proselytizing racism and systemic racism.
The Democrat Party, the party of slavery, KKK, Jim Crow laws, and leadership over large metropolitan cities (and their inner cities) have exploited human nature in the interest of power. This is why this party has not rebuked the rioting and looting taking place in the name of racism.
I am glad our current leadership has called out critical race theory and its "re-educational" effort in fundamentally transforming America.
Having said all of the above, I do believe we still have a lot of work to do to transcend corruption. That takes leadership and good example.
Best,
Gadfly
I categorically reject the notion that African Americans are an "oppressed" group. That is the language of victimhood, racial identity politics, and Marxism ("oppressed vs. oppressor").
DeleteThere is a Marxist revolution currently underway, in the guise of a race war. Useful idiots are serving as pawns. Once police are "reimagined" out of existence/relevance, there will be no one to protect the "capitalist pig dogs" when the violent mob comes calling. Standard Marxist playbook. Time to wake up.
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ReplyDeleteAcademy classmate and exceptional fighter pilot John Mann offered the following Facebook comment to another classmate who essentially defended current racial animus:
ReplyDeleteOkay, here are my two cents worth.
1). This is more an issue of zip codes than an issue of skin color. 2). The injustice that George Floyd experienced did not occur during 9 minutes of his arrest; they occurred over his lifetime. Likewise for all the others who have suffered arrests that have gone south. They all experienced the injustice of unequal opportunity over a lifetime. All because of where they were born.
People born into the ghettos of Chicago’s south side and other major cities do not have equal opportunity for education, for living in a nuclear family, or for growing up in a positive, secure neighborhood. The culmination of a lifetime of that deficit ends up being a confrontation with the justice system, either at the point of arrest or in the courtroom where they can only be assisted by a public defender.
If you are ten years old, and the only adults with cool clothes and a hot car are the drug dealers, that’s where your aspirations will go.
My problem with all this hype over “racial injustice” is that it focuses only on the end game where the individual meets the justice system, not the root cause that created that encounter. We can defund police, and take away whatever tools the beat cop has. That doesn’t fix the neighborhoods that create the culture that eschews the nuclear family, hard work, or generally kind behavior. Defunding police won’t eliminate crime.
NFL players can kneel or link arms. Same with NBA. The USAFA football team can make stupid videos. None of that fixes the neighborhood that creates violent adults. It’s merely a bunch of fortunate, gifted athletes taking a few minutes out of their gilded lives to make a token gesture. Then, back to their normal routine.
And After all the gestures, these super athletes go back to their extraordinary lifestyles and righteously claim they’ve “done something”; but the lives of the kids in the ghettos are unchanged.
Today’s injustice isn’t based on race; it’s founded on the zip code where you are born. It’s not about race; it’s about the social system you’re forced to live in. The fact that one skin color is prevalent in the ghetto is correlation, not causation.
The solution won’t come from Washington; Washington wouldn’t recognize a solution to a local problem even if it came down from heaven.
Solutions will only come from local leadership when it is enabled by choice schools, safer neighborhoods, local abilities to create local businesses, and eventually the ability for communities to wean themselves from dependence on the Masters in Washington DC.
Or, we can continue the policies of the last 50 years, and wait for hope and change to occur.
Well said. Like Ben Shapiro said, this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture.
DeleteThis video is spot on. Sad to see so many institutions, including those within our own government, kowtowing to BLM insanity. They kneel, like Ephialtes before Xerxes, thinking surrender will save them, that it will bring "peace for our time." But the Marxist revolution will not stop until our great Nation is destroyed. They have made their intentions clear. Now is the time for moral courage, not fear of the "woke" mob.
ReplyDelete