DMac wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:30 pm
MDlax, you'll probably remember a couple/few years back the Navy did away with rate designations...radarman, signalman, sonarman, radioman, etc...everyone was going to be a generic sailor as it was just the right PC thing to do. 100% of the Navy people on here (which there were more of at the time) called it out for the horseschidt and chickenschidt move that it was. PC gone amuck. Many people who had/have no military experience came on and backed the move up, called it the right thing to do and tried to defend it.
It wasn't too long after when the Navy went back to rate designations just the way it always had been. They went back beause of the push back they got from the people actually in the Navy who took some pride in their designation, ribbons, and other pins they had earned. The ex military people here were completely in tune with the people still on active duty. 100% of the ex military people here call the white supremacy/white nationalist stuff as being prevelant in the military and/or being taught at the academies as fabricated horseschidt. Believe what they're saying.
I'm not ex-military (have quite a bit of military in my family though) and I'm not suggesting that it is "pervasive".
However, does it exist? You betcha. Of course.
What's the degree of such that it meets "prevalent"? As in "common or widespread"?
Well, it's probably "widespread" as in not concentrated in any particular service, but "common" is more subjective.
I do think we can fairly say that the belief set underlying white supremacy, ie the whites are superior, genetically, culturally, or otherwise, relative to other races and ethnicities is indeed pretty darn 'common' in our society, even in 2019. Not a majority, but not at all difficult to find.
It bubbles out into view in all sorts of ways, sometimes quite overtly, but usually in ways that are just ignorant. Of more concern, actually, are the intellectual arguments around "Western Civilization" or "American Exceptionalism" or more bluntly "America is a Christian Nation" or "Illegal Aliens or Mexicans are rapists and murderers". These are all masking various notions of superiority tied to ethnicity.
We have a long history of such in America.
So, sure, we're going to find these sorts of views in those entering the military.
I'd like to think that the military experience helps expose people to one another, in ways that they depend upon one another, that helps change minds. Certainly that's been the case historically. You'd likely be in a far better position to attest to how that may be working today.
And of course that sort of hate ideology is not being "taught" at the military academies. Funny thing is that I'm not so sure anyone actually claimed such other than perhaps with a big tongue-in-cheek. But you guys grind on it as if someone truly believed it to be the case.
As to "PC", clearly some such efforts are misguided, however well-intentioned as they may have been.
I didn't participate in the discussion about rate designations, really didn't ever even hit my radar screen. So, I googled.
Here's the initial explanation:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... -shake-up/
And here's the reversal less than three months later:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... tles-back/
Pretty darn quick turnaround.
Sounds like they had some larger goals in mind that were getting distracted by the pushback on this particular mechanism.
