Posted on Jan 20, 2023
Did you experience racism or sexism while serving and if so was it a rare or frequent occurrence?
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Posted 2 y ago
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Sure did! U.S.S. Pawcatuck had a racist mess deck Chief Petty Officer who gave me so much hell I went from a Rm3 to SR in about 3 months. He wrote me up for getting sick not being able to handle a wall full of roaches after pulling the wood panel off the wall where you returned the dirty food trays. I kid you not. The mess decks were so infested you had you guard your food tray at the table and roaches would even drop from the overhead into your chow. Even when eating you had to pick your food carefully cause you might eat a piece of the bugs. Back to that wall.....it was about 20 feet wide with a window opening in the center to empty throw away food. There was not a place on the wall empty of roaches. We used ap shovel and 30 gallon trash can to scoop the dead bugs up after they were sprayed. On our ship we had no black officers so you can imagine. This was in the early 70's. How did I get to work on the mess hall being a radioman? When I first boarded the ship they told me it was initiation for new sailors for a month.....why did they keep me there for two months ? You guessed it.
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SA Donald Nance
SGT Alan Martinez I tried to explain everything going on to the Captain of the ship....but that got me sent to Naval Air station Jacksonville Florida. I was processed for an early out. After 40 years and checking my military record I found out they discharged me with an immature personality disorder. Now although I have a top secret clearance to go to radioman school, had a background check and never had a problem before March 1973 this was their way of discharging me without correcting their problems. I have read and even congress has had hearings that this practice was done to thousands of vets..to not allow them benefits. Its amazing as long as humans have been on earth they are still mistreating people because they are brown?
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SGT Alan Martinez
SA Donald Nance Do you have any advice to go give someone dealing with a similar sitation?
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The military is very sensitive to racism. I remember one time at NTC I was a CPL Medic at the time assigned to a new company and we were unloading storage containers. Due to how the containers and the trucks were situated, only one Soldier could move the equipment from the container to the truck at a time. Therefore we took turns being the person to unload it. Our group was very ethnically divers and multiple jokes were made such as: "Sure make the Mexican do all the work..." or "Sure make the Asian do all the work..." or "Sure make the White guy do all the work..." and all of these jokes while of poor taste were taken by the group as just that: jokes. There was no perceived harm and no one was offended (though maybe we should have been). Then after hours of unloading, the joke was made "Sure make the Black guy do all the work...". This caused a huge uproar, several people almost received UCMJ, and we were subjected to EO training for hours along with several other adverse actions. While such adverse action was likely warranted as a result of each of the jokes, it wasn't until a black person was the subject of the joke that it became an issue that almost warranted UCMJ and required all of the adverse action that our group received. This situation, in which the ramifications of the joke went from light hearted to rather grave for only one ethnicity of Soldiers is by definition racism.
This level of racism was not a common occurrence for me, but I did witness several instances of similar situations. I would say that in my experience racism in the Army is rare.
This level of racism was not a common occurrence for me, but I did witness several instances of similar situations. I would say that in my experience racism in the Army is rare.
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SGT Alan Martinez
When I went through boot camp (1996) I was made aware that all women Marines were no longer "WM's". Marines are Marines but they would still refer to skin color through the various shades of green. For me it was difficult to get that right so I just used rank and last name which ended up working out pretty good. What shade of green do I describe a white guy as? It was just easier to call a person out by their name and rank.
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SFC Kelly Fuerhoff
You definitely can't be confident that there was "no perceived harm and no one was offended." Do you know how many times I had to "laugh off" sexual harassment early in my career as a female soldier? Do you know how often women "laugh off" sexual harassment? Or even sometimes being groped? Civilian or military...it's just expected in society we have to take it. That can go the same for POC - that they nervously laugh off things that are supposedly "jokes" but are just microaggressions or flat out racist comments. It's a defense mechanism. One that generally white hetero men don't have to ever deal with.
Racism in the Army or DoD is not "relatively rare." At all.
And this is the issue I'm talking about that certain people should stop talking about racism as if it doesn't exist, as if it's rare. As if it's a joke. And yes I can say people shouldn't say those things. It doesn't mean you can't...but maybe some people should educate themselves. Like stop saying "I doN't SeE cOlor!" If you don't see what is inherently a part of a person, you aren't seeing the person. It's that simple.
Racism in the Army or DoD is not "relatively rare." At all.
And this is the issue I'm talking about that certain people should stop talking about racism as if it doesn't exist, as if it's rare. As if it's a joke. And yes I can say people shouldn't say those things. It doesn't mean you can't...but maybe some people should educate themselves. Like stop saying "I doN't SeE cOlor!" If you don't see what is inherently a part of a person, you aren't seeing the person. It's that simple.
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CPT (Join to see)
SFC Kelly Fuerhoff - As I said, the "jokes" were in poor taste. I actually was offended, but since I'm a hetero white man, I don't have the right to be offended by things like that so I had to, as you said, laugh it off as a joke. See the person making the "jokes" was a black Soldier each time except the time it was about him. He was the one making the "jokes" and all of the rest of us were uncomfortable with it (I would submit that they were the very microaggressions of which you speak), but due to the stigma of racism, we couldn't really say anything. In our society it is not appropriate for any other ethnicity to tell a black person to stop being racist. Then when he was the subject of the "joke" suddenly it was different. Suddenly it was racist and he was offended. My point here is we are all of one color and that color is Green. I don't need to see the person. I see the Soldier. I see a brother or sister in arms. We are all brothers and sisters in the Army. We are all equal to our peers of the same rank and position. I have found that in my experience in my 15 years in the Army, I have not witnessed many cases of actual racism. Obviously, even one case is too many, but more often than not (which does not mean in every instance, just more than half of them), in cases where I have seen it, the racist behaviors didn't happen at all until after the one claiming racism pissed off all of his or her peers by first making everything all about racism.
Now everything I said above is all from my personal experience and perspective. I'm not saying it is necessarily the case as a general rule across the Army. For all I know, my experiences were all unique to the specific units I served in and the rest of the Army is completely different! For all I know, every unit I didn't personally serve in or observe was completely racist and racist atrocities were committed on a daily basis! The above are simply my personal observations as a guy in the trenches. See, I have a research doctorate and I am well aware of the effects of selection bias, publication bias, and confirmation bias, as well as a whole slew of other biases that we all as individuals cannot hope to be free of. Perspective is a fickle thing, and that is one of the problems in our current society. We fail to take into account the individual perspectives of other people including famous authors and influencers and we fail to recognize that they each have their own personal biases that influence their view points as well. No one is perfect. Not one person or group has a monopoly on truth. Personal observation and conjecture is all anyone actually has (including the high profile "experts") unless they are conducting research that is "blinded" with factors in place to mitigate confounding variables in their research and thus decrease the effect of their own personal biases. Unfortunately, most social "experts" don't even know what a blinded study is. Anyone claiming to know the whole truth is simply naïve. They claim to be more "educated" (yet I find very few of them have ever been or know what it means to be hooded into the society of scholars) and they look down their noses at anyone who doesn't agree with their perspective all while being completely ignorant of the fact that they are just as guilty of all of the above listed biases to their own perspectives in their own lives.
Now all I claim to have provided above is my personal perspective from my own personal observations in the Army. If you claim to be making a point from an educated perspective, show me your research, or cite your sources and tell me how they accounted for bias in their perspectives. Otherwise, your educated perspective amounts to no more than anyone else's personal perspective drawn from either their own personal experiences or a biased collection of the perspectives of others rendering it no more credible than anyone else's biased personal perspective drawn from similar evidence. Notice I am not arguing from a position of authority on racism, only from the perspective of my personal experiences with it since I am obviously not an authority on racism. I do have a research doctorate, though, so I can argue from a position of authority on research in general. If you claim to be educated and are arguing from a position of authority on racism, then cite your credentials and your research or you find yourself in an argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy. I would submit, however, that simply being a POC, as you put it (if you are one, which I obviously can't know), that in itself does not make you an authority on racism in general. It means you have a great perspective on how racism has affected you individually. And obviously if as you claim racism against POCs is not rare in the Army, if you are a POC, you are likely to be in a great position to tell us about it.
In other words you have a personal opinion that is no more educated than anyone else's that is based on your own experiences in this world or those experiences of others that you have chosen to believe. Your point of view is valuable, though, as it is your personal perspective and only through coming together as a society and sharing our perspectives with each other from positions of equality in order to find common ground will we make progress in this discussion. We each need to realize that our own individual perspective is not the whole truth and that the truth of the matter can only be found when we stop trying to bully each other by claiming to be the higher authority on racism or the more educated on racism and instead gather the perspectives and experiences of others and hold them of equal credibility to our own. We need to stop trying to make others see things our way, but instead try to come together and find common ground to build a new future on. We need to stop trying to stop our opposition from talking, but instead try to understand why they see things the way they do. Only once we can make them see that we want to understand and care can we hope for positive change.
In short: Thank you for your opinion. Maybe next time you can share personal experiences and comment on their frequency as requested by the original post. I personally think that would be more helpful.
Now everything I said above is all from my personal experience and perspective. I'm not saying it is necessarily the case as a general rule across the Army. For all I know, my experiences were all unique to the specific units I served in and the rest of the Army is completely different! For all I know, every unit I didn't personally serve in or observe was completely racist and racist atrocities were committed on a daily basis! The above are simply my personal observations as a guy in the trenches. See, I have a research doctorate and I am well aware of the effects of selection bias, publication bias, and confirmation bias, as well as a whole slew of other biases that we all as individuals cannot hope to be free of. Perspective is a fickle thing, and that is one of the problems in our current society. We fail to take into account the individual perspectives of other people including famous authors and influencers and we fail to recognize that they each have their own personal biases that influence their view points as well. No one is perfect. Not one person or group has a monopoly on truth. Personal observation and conjecture is all anyone actually has (including the high profile "experts") unless they are conducting research that is "blinded" with factors in place to mitigate confounding variables in their research and thus decrease the effect of their own personal biases. Unfortunately, most social "experts" don't even know what a blinded study is. Anyone claiming to know the whole truth is simply naïve. They claim to be more "educated" (yet I find very few of them have ever been or know what it means to be hooded into the society of scholars) and they look down their noses at anyone who doesn't agree with their perspective all while being completely ignorant of the fact that they are just as guilty of all of the above listed biases to their own perspectives in their own lives.
Now all I claim to have provided above is my personal perspective from my own personal observations in the Army. If you claim to be making a point from an educated perspective, show me your research, or cite your sources and tell me how they accounted for bias in their perspectives. Otherwise, your educated perspective amounts to no more than anyone else's personal perspective drawn from either their own personal experiences or a biased collection of the perspectives of others rendering it no more credible than anyone else's biased personal perspective drawn from similar evidence. Notice I am not arguing from a position of authority on racism, only from the perspective of my personal experiences with it since I am obviously not an authority on racism. I do have a research doctorate, though, so I can argue from a position of authority on research in general. If you claim to be educated and are arguing from a position of authority on racism, then cite your credentials and your research or you find yourself in an argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy. I would submit, however, that simply being a POC, as you put it (if you are one, which I obviously can't know), that in itself does not make you an authority on racism in general. It means you have a great perspective on how racism has affected you individually. And obviously if as you claim racism against POCs is not rare in the Army, if you are a POC, you are likely to be in a great position to tell us about it.
In other words you have a personal opinion that is no more educated than anyone else's that is based on your own experiences in this world or those experiences of others that you have chosen to believe. Your point of view is valuable, though, as it is your personal perspective and only through coming together as a society and sharing our perspectives with each other from positions of equality in order to find common ground will we make progress in this discussion. We each need to realize that our own individual perspective is not the whole truth and that the truth of the matter can only be found when we stop trying to bully each other by claiming to be the higher authority on racism or the more educated on racism and instead gather the perspectives and experiences of others and hold them of equal credibility to our own. We need to stop trying to make others see things our way, but instead try to come together and find common ground to build a new future on. We need to stop trying to stop our opposition from talking, but instead try to understand why they see things the way they do. Only once we can make them see that we want to understand and care can we hope for positive change.
In short: Thank you for your opinion. Maybe next time you can share personal experiences and comment on their frequency as requested by the original post. I personally think that would be more helpful.
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Yes on both accounts. The military is huge, each base is a city unto itself. While we recruit the best we can screening each candidate for just such issues it is impossible to weed them all out. It will never totally go away.
But unlike the private sector we have tools to better deal with such issues, weeding them out after the fact. So the military is still a better place.
But unlike the private sector we have tools to better deal with such issues, weeding them out after the fact. So the military is still a better place.
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SGT Alan Martinez
Hey Garza, Not sure if you can see the comment to you stating thanks for sharing and then I gave an account of my experience. A person responded stated that "I could not say" something about my own personal experience. It was not directed to you at all. It was to her. And you are right this is totally a topic that should be discussed. We can't be a well oiled machine if we cant accept differences in our sex or skin color.
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SFC Kelly Fuerhoff
SGT Alan Martinez - It's not rare just because you haven't seen much of it or experienced because your skin color affords you privilege it doesn't afford others. Trust me my eyes were completely opened to the world after being in the Army and that I myself had some bigotry, lots of internalized misogyny, etc.
Have a day.
Have a day.
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SGT Alan Martinez
SFC Kelly Fuerhoff Yeah, I respect the experiences you have had. That is what I wanted to hear about. I am unsure why there is animosity directed toward me by you. I shared my experience. I said my experience was that it was rare. I did not say that my experience represents the experience of others in thd entire armed forces. That seems to be something you are implying. Thank you for sharing you experience. I yhink it is important for people to hear.
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