Institutional Racism In The US Military
Speaker 1: 00:00 As we just heard America is again, confronting the aftermath of a police shooting of a black man. This time seven shots fired into the back of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, ever since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police officers, this summer, many of America's police forces, schools, businesses, churches, and other organizations have been reevaluating their structures in an effort to confront and root out systemic racism. And it seems the U S military is engaged in that reckoning as well. Joining me is KPBS, military and veterans reporter Steve Walsh to give us a preview of two KPBS specials, evaluating systemic racism in the military. The first one takes place today. And Steve, welcome to the program. I'm Maureen. Now racism in the U S military has a long history, but even after overt segregation was abolished, the services knew they were dealing with ingrained racial bias. How have they tried to root that out in the past? Speaker 2: 01:03 Well, yes, this is not the first time that the U S military has looked at racial bias. There, there are a couple of different commissions out there right now. The DOD, the Pentagon is looking at racial bias and then each one of the surfaces are also looking at racial bias, including the Navy, which has something called the one that Navy taskforce. But as, but you're completely right, this is not the first time you can go all the way back to 1948 when president Truman desegregated the military officially, which was well before the modern civil rights movement of the 1950s and sixties. Um, they have had several runs at this, including in the 1970s, early 1970s, Admiral Zumwalt. Uh, the CNO from the time, uh, came up with a whole range of changes to try to make the Navy more inclusive. And he had, uh, a tremendous amount of backlash. So yes, this is not the, uh, the first time the Navy has looked at these issues and they've been collecting data on some of these topic areas for years Speaker 1: 02:06 Now in this most recent iteration of the military's effort to confront racial bias. What reforms, if any, have been put into place? Speaker 2: 02:15 Well, right now they are still looking at them. The Navy has a very ambitious deadline. They set up their task force in July and there, they expect to have a report due by December. And they're not just looking at, at racial bias. They're looking at bias in regards to gender, even religion, even age. So they have an incredibly large mandate. Some of the things that have come up so far, the DOD has a, the department of defense has looked at, uh, uh, banning photographs. When people come up for promotions that you just simply won't have a photograph, uh, for people to look at hoping that sort of weeds out some of those systemic prejudice. One of the reasons why you would want to do that is the Navy while they almost close to 20 of the enlisted are, uh, are, uh, in the Navy, our African-Americans, but only 9% of the officers. And then at the very highest ranks, the three and four star admirals, there are no African-Americans at all. Speaker 1: 03:13 Is that one of the major ways that racial bias is exhibited in the military in the fact that there are so few, uh, officers and judges and so forth who were promoted to higher ranks, Speaker 2: 03:25 You hit upon another thing that another major issue he has criminal justice, and there are no African American judges in the, in the Navy at this point. Um, and we know that there, the, uh, department of defense and the general accounting office have looked at some of the racial biases and found that, um, there are several areas where African Americans seem to be getting into the system far earlier and far more often than anyone else in, in the military though, when it actually comes down to a court martial, they're actually not convicted at any higher rate than, than anyone else suggesting that maybe, uh, people are filtering them into the justice system, rather than maybe just taking them aside and trying to talk. These, these things out Speaker 1: 04:08 KPBS is presenting to special programs about racism in the military today's program focuses on racial bias and Steve, your guests have a wide range of experience. Can you give us an idea who will be on the panel? Speaker 2: 04:23 So we have Don Christensen, who is the president of protecting our defenders. They sued the military to get some of this data on, uh, on the criminal and military criminal justice system. So he's got some of the real facts here, Stefan Williams, he runs a leadership training firm in Melbourne, Florida. He's a retired Marine who works with the department of defense to facilitate these conversations, the Navy and the other services have talked about wanting to have these conversations, you know, at the deck plate level, people should start talking about their, their biases. Well, how do you do that? Stefan Williams is an actual expert in how you do that. And so, and we'll also be kind of reaching out to folks in the audience to try to get us, you know, see if they want to contribute as well. We also have Admiral Harris who is with the national Naval officers association, which was a group formed back in the 1970s to try to create more diversity in the Navy. Speaker 2: 05:18 And he's also working with the one Navy task force. We also have a Michael Johnson who is with the, uh, the Munford point Marine association. This is a, uh, this is a group that formed in the wake of world war II when Marines first allowed African Americans into the service. They were segregated in these units. And, uh, then after the war, they were, uh, they were not as welcomed in some of the mainline veterans organizations. So they formed the Munford point Marines association to try to, uh, to try to give a place for African Americans to share their veteran experience. And we'll talk a little bit about like what the veteran community plays in, in these issues. Speaker 1: 06:01 Now, you mentioned, you're hoping to hear from veterans and members of the military who will participate remotely in this meeting, how will that work? Speaker 2: 06:11 Well, you know, this is the age we're living in. We are initially trying to do these as live events. We would have flown people in from around the country and rented the hall, but now we're trying to do all these things, uh, post pandemic, uh, via zoom. So people can log on and look at the panel, but also be able to ask questions. And we've got kind of a tight timeframe here of one hour, but we're hoping to bring on a couple of vets to share their stories as well. So yes, it should be pretty as interactive as we can make it. Speaker 1: 06:41 Well, the second of these special programs focus on Speaker 2: 06:44 The second one is going to focus specifically on white supremacy and rooting out white supremacy in the, uh, the U S military. We didn't want to combine these two groups. You know, the one that we felt that racial bias deserved its own. And then we're looking at, um, the rise of some of these new hate groups and how it went, why they are targeting the U S military and military service and what the military is doing and could be doing to root them out. Speaker 1: 07:12 And that is a week from today. The second program that's next Thursday. If you'd like to take part in the KPBS special on racial bias in the military, you can sign up at kpbs.org/events until four o'clock this afternoon. And the special begins at six before we go. There's news. Now that the fire aboard the USS Bonam Rashard at Naval base, San Diego last month was deliberately set. What do we know about that? Speaker 2: 07:42 We still know very little, this broke late yesterday, and I was able to confirm that yes, uh, Naval MCIs was, uh, is looking at arson now from this July 12th fire. And they've questioned at least one sailor. Um, you know, this just so people remember this fire happened, it burned for more than four days pier side at 32nd street. Uh, at the time the CNO came out and said that this, uh, the ship may be a total loss because of the extensive damage talked about how there had been multiple explosions, including one that we had heard as far as 13 miles away. Now they're looking at whether or not this might be arson, though, at this point, you have to caution, no charges have been filed, but this is where the investigation seems to be heading Speaker 1: 08:28 Well. I thank you so much. And good luck tonight, Steve, with your program, I've been speaking with KPBS, military reporter, Steve Walsh. Thank you. Speaker 2: 08:37 Thanks Maureen.
