When my “skin” is on the line, i care about the courage of your heart, the strength of your back, the skill of your hands, and the sharpness of your mind, not the color of your skin. Honestly, I do not care about your skin color outside of some relatively minor genetic / metabolic issues but thats a medical issue not a DEI issue
Whoever inserted or allowed identity politics in the Navy needs to be horsewhipped. It began in the 1970s with the UPWARDS seminars. While the goals of the seminars may have been lofty, the execution was dogmatic, arrogant, and close-minded to any POV not embraced by the facilitators. Just my opinion here, but it was shared by most who attended.
Yeah, I remember a literal fight in the classroom over 'which' instructor was supposed to be giving one of the lectures... Most of us blew it off anyway.
We were encouraged to participate. I was an E-6. I participated. They were talking about racial stereotypes and gave an example of property values declining when Blacks moved in. I thought about that for a few seconds and raised my hand to participate. I said, "Now suppose a Black doctor with a nice family moves in to a segregated neighborhood and the White residents are appalled. They panic into a White Flight scenario and put their houses up for sale. They accept a low bid so that they can get away as quickly as they can. Now, didn't the property value just decline? Through no fault of the Black doctor or his family, but because panicked people responded badly. Am I right?" No, I wasn't trying to be a smart-ass. I was just poking holes in stereotyping. The facilitator accused me of having a racist bias about Blacks. Well, color me shocked. I had no such thing, never had. What did I learn? That the people who picked the UPWARD facilitators had their heads up their butts. I sat down and shut up. Was happy I escaped without some kind of retribution for my alleged racism. I promoted to Chief a year later. Whew!
When my “skin” is on the line, i care about the courage of your heart, the strength of your back, the skill of your hands, and the sharpness of your mind, not the color of your skin. Honestly, I do not care about your skin color outside of some relatively minor genetic / metabolic issues but thats a medical issue not a DEI issue
Amen, sir.
Whoever inserted or allowed identity politics in the Navy needs to be horsewhipped. It began in the 1970s with the UPWARDS seminars. While the goals of the seminars may have been lofty, the execution was dogmatic, arrogant, and close-minded to any POV not embraced by the facilitators. Just my opinion here, but it was shared by most who attended.
Yeah, I remember a literal fight in the classroom over 'which' instructor was supposed to be giving one of the lectures... Most of us blew it off anyway.
We were encouraged to participate. I was an E-6. I participated. They were talking about racial stereotypes and gave an example of property values declining when Blacks moved in. I thought about that for a few seconds and raised my hand to participate. I said, "Now suppose a Black doctor with a nice family moves in to a segregated neighborhood and the White residents are appalled. They panic into a White Flight scenario and put their houses up for sale. They accept a low bid so that they can get away as quickly as they can. Now, didn't the property value just decline? Through no fault of the Black doctor or his family, but because panicked people responded badly. Am I right?" No, I wasn't trying to be a smart-ass. I was just poking holes in stereotyping. The facilitator accused me of having a racist bias about Blacks. Well, color me shocked. I had no such thing, never had. What did I learn? That the people who picked the UPWARD facilitators had their heads up their butts. I sat down and shut up. Was happy I escaped without some kind of retribution for my alleged racism. I promoted to Chief a year later. Whew!
As I recall, the most strident of the UPWARD team weren't the two LTjg's. See the top left picture. The experts, an E-4 and E-3. https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv19-73/057.jpg