The Path Before I Rest

I shouldn't have to feel like I'm risking my career, or risking receiving vitriolic response to say all the things that I'm about to say. I am afraid to share, but I know that I should.

I had every intention of not talking about this. So much in my psyche is telling me to be quiet, to color in the lines, and avoid the cesspool of comments that this topic usually brings. But, my friend Daniel Hulter made it abundantly clear in his article “Miles to Go Before We Sleep” that I could not. In the article Daniel tells the story of a Black Airman who shared is experience of being uncomfortable around certain White leaders, and being more comfortable around Black leaders. His comments were met with defensiveness and deflection. The worst part is that this was done by a Senior Enlisted individual, whose responsibility involves, "...mentoring and developing junior enlisted personnel," and are supposed to have " a great deal of leadership experience" (Air Force Handbook (AFH)36-2618). I saw none of that on display in the part of the conversation I saw.

But what do I not want to talk about? You see, I’ve collected some data that I’ve labeled “The Doom Spreadsheet”, the naming of which relays my feelings on the discovery of a pattern. With the Doom Spreadsheet I look to see how represented Black military members are in DoD innovation organizations. The results are dismal but as the only Black person in a lot of meetings in these circles, I’m not surprised. No organization that I took data from, has a DoD representative population of Black and/or African American individuals. Meaning none of them met roughly 17-20% of the population therein. Note: Black People are slightly higher represented compared to the total eligible population on the enlisted side while underrepresented on the officer side (source).

I'll take some fair things into account for those who are going to go over this article with a fine-tooth comb, find a single error, and try to use that to make my entire point invalid (perhaps I'm even helping you). My method is not the most sound. I looked at organizations that have their leadership and/or team posted on a webpage or here on LinkedIn. My method was to visually identify as many potential Black people as I was able, a method of which I admit is flawed and potentially problematic, but as a Black person myself, I'll accept whatever fallout that may come from that. To back up this data I have personal experience.

Within the 8 last months, I've been able to find and network within the military innovation space. I’ve been in a myriad meetings from organizations throughout this space and have even joined the leadership of an organization within this sphere. There were only two or three instances so far, of dozens of meetings, where I ran into another Black person. This struck me as odd because in my everyday Air Force experience I usually don't have to go looking.

I need to take a second away from my main narrative to address a point that was not fully treated in Daniel's Article. The matter at hand is of white supremacy vs other forms of supposed supremacy, such as Black supremacy. Can Black supremacy as an ideology exist? Sure? Why not? Truth is, there is academic discourse around this topic that I am not equipped exactly to handle, but I'm aware of that fact. There are others, such as in the comments section of one of Daniel's recent videos, who are equally uninformed but have their Black supremacy cards ready as soon as someone mentions White supremacy. Can Black people be biased and/or prejudiced? Absolutely, and I don’t think any person of sound judgement is saying otherwise. But to decry so-called Black supremacy, and other forms of supremacy, in a video that talks specifically about the evils at play of White Supremacy is at best deflective and dishonest, and at worst an attempt to protect the ideals of White Supremacy (with, of course, a spectrum between those two). The logic inherent in the argument is also faulty. It's akin to saying to someone who suffers from depression that all types of mental health problems are bad. It is obvious, odd, and deflecting the point at hand.

So, why are there, potentially, so few Black people (or other groups in the so-called minority) in the innovation space? I don't have the answer, of course, and some of it can be a matter of interest, but I know the first place to look is in conversations like the one Daniel mentioned. The military innovation space is largely on a volunteer basis, and then opportunities offered while in those volunteer positions. Why would someone who experienced such a push back about their own experience volunteer their free time to a system that allows that?

Ultimately, this exchange has only made slightly more public what is a sentiment that most every person in the so-called minority I've met has experienced at some point; people are often dismissive about a person's experience around race (not to mention around gender, orientation, and beyond) and the systems in play around it. You can see it in the comments section of any military post that tries to address it. Recently the DoD posted an article on the website called "No Place in DOD for Extremism, White Supremacy, Officials Say", and in it they quoted an official as saying, “There has been a resurgence of white supremacy and white nationalist activity over the past five or six years." Yet the comments section, which I refuse to link to, was overfilled with comments in the vein of "you could have stopped at extremism".

At the end of the day, as an individual in the military, I feel uncomfortable knowing there are members within who are unwilling to make the obvious decision of decrying white supremacy.