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I've heard the very same thing from most people who've been in the military. That it's not about race, class, or sex...it's about PERFORMANCE. The military is the insitution where most racial barriers are broken down permanently because human beings are reduced to the same level during basic training and then built back up into a new mentality where everyone acts as a unit. The military is the place where the White supremist mindset is often destroyed because it's usually the first place a White person is taken from their priviledged environment and placed in the same environment as Blacks and Browns and begins to realize that humans are humans regardless as to what he's been taught all his life growing up. This, I believe is why so many Black people tend to do good in the military and it's also why you find so many Blacks and Latinos in the armed forces out of proportion than you find them in general society. It's one of the few institutions in this nation that the playing field is some what level. The rules are clear. The expectations are clear. And the results are self evident. I hope I don't sound like a hypocrite for saying this because I didn't serve in the military, however I personally believe that ALL young people should be required to be apart of some national service program after highschool for a few years just to instill the discipline and teach them the skills of life that they may not necessarily get from home or in school.

Pioneer I've often said that the military would be a good option for guys straight out of high school. I've softened my position because we are warmongers looking for a fight. It may have been this way of course in the past, but today it just feels more blatant in disregard to maintaining a strong military that can act, vs a military that always acts. Cynique, as sexist as your son sounds, I was with him. I was a part of the first Fighter Squadron VF-213, that allowed women to fly F-14s. I was completely against this as I worked on the jets and felt that women simply weren't strong enough to fly the jet. Some men had problems with older F-14s which were pneumatic, hydraulic and electronic flight systems vs F-18s which were fly by wire and much easier to control. I was getting ready to get out when the squadron began work ups (getting ready for cruise by flying to the ship to test out new crew). I told my chief and my shop that this new lady pilot was going to die. 6 months later here is the story: http://articles.latimes.com/1994-10-27/news/mn-55338_1_dagny-hultgreen My sister was in the Navy and I didn't have a problem with women being on ships or in the Navy, I just knew that certain jets shouldn't be flown by women. I also didn't think that a woman could be in certain aspects of Aviation because of the heavy labor, but we couldn't speak out and say much and today, I typically avoid the dialogue. Planes are easier to fly now. The F-14 is retired and most female pilots are assigned to fly-by-wire aircraft squadrons or as Rios or Navigators... but I wasn't wrong and if someone had listened to me when I was taking my terminal leave that lady would probably be alive. They trained her on F-14 Ds and sent her to a squadron with the oldest jets at Miramar...bad move altogether.

DONALD TRUMP IS GETTING SUPPORT FROM THE KU KLUX KLAN, ,SOME REPUBLICANS UPSET,, TRUMP ACTS LIKE HE NEVER HEARD OF KKK, NEO NAZI GRAND DRAGON DAVID DUKES//REPUBLICAN STEVE SCALISE ,WAS AT A WHITE SUPREMACY GATHERING SEVERAL TEARS AGO,GOT ELECTED,REPUBLICANS NOT TELLING HIM TO GET OUT/THERE IS A NEO NAZI IN PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICANS, HELPED GET ELECTED,KNOWING .HE ATTACKED A BLACK MAN,AND SAID JEWISH HOLOCAUST DID NOT HAPPEN//

Up until President Truman ordered the armed forces integrated in 1950, the Navy was considered the most racist branch of the military and the consensus was that Negroes in the Navy could never expect to serve in any capacity other than menial positions such as Aides or Sewards or Cooks which was what Dorrie Miller was, the heroic black sailor made famous for grabbing a machine gun and joining his crew mates in shooting down Japanese planes during the raid on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, my brother joined the Navy and quite a few people, a lot of whom were his friends, couldn't understand why, considering how prejudiced it was. Everybody else just waited to be drafted into the Army. I was just a kid then and I don't remember the reason he gave, but I think my father advised him to do so, something about enlisted men having more options(?). I do know that he scored very high on the tests given and was eventually assigned to the USS Mason which was the first vessel manned by an all black crew. I also remember him recounting an incident when he was stationed in Norfolk, Virgina, and was coming back from leave waiting for a bus to take him back to the base. When the bus arrived and he tried to get on, the driver told him the bus was so crowded that there was no room in the back of it which was where Negroes were expected to sit in the south, so he couldn't board it. According to my brother, what the bus was crowded with was a bunch of drunk sailors who became indignant about a fellow sailor being told to get off, and they rushed forward, threw the driver out, and one of them drove the bus back to the base. Later in the 1980s, my son joined the Navy and served on the USS Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier which spent 90 days on alert in the Indian Ocean during the Persian Gulf hostage crises. He never reported any racial incidents among the crew of about 2000, but he was among the great numbers of sailors and navy vets disgusted with the decision to integrate the sexes in the arm forces, something which resulted in women being assigned to the Eisenhower. He couldn't believe they'd allow females to trespass on this hallowed ground of male exclusivity!

Inspired by Clarence Thomas. http://www.cgoodwork.com/blog/2016/2/29/didnt-you-hear

Troy Right, Seeing the blonde hair whipping around with all the darker girls behind dancing kind of made mockery of the entire movement and sent subtle messages of White leadership even in a Black movement. And I also take issue with her Formation video because too may clips were flashed by with very little or no context behind them. Much of her audience had no idea what it means to see a woman on top of a car with flood waters all around and how it related to Katrina, nor do they have any idea of what message some guy in shades and a bowtie holding a paper is trying to convey besides showing MLK's picture. How many people outside of the 'hood have seen the brothers selling beanpies and Final Calls to even know what that scene means??? When you take into account that most of her audience is under 25 AND it's a world wide audience with limited access to the 24 hour news cycles that we in America are priviledged to get....... She's flashing all of these images to an audience who are either too young AND/OR too uneducated about the stories behind these images to firmly grasp whatever message she's trying to send. But it's not just her. It's the same with MOST of these entertainers who try to make political statements that either miss the mark or go right over the head of the audience. I blame it on the fact that most entertainers...being artists...tend to be more RIGHT-brained and because of this may not know how to communicate a serious message as effectively as a politician or political activist might. Sara Actually, as much as I use the terms "Black" and "White" for race, I actually PREFER using the terms "African" and "Caucasian" because i see them as more accurate. Now for the pictures you displayed and the question you asked....... With one exception, ALL of those pictured above appear to be, and indeed ARE Caucasians by race. It doesn't matter what their "ancestry" is.... THEY/THEMSELVES are for all intents and purposes WHITE. The only exception is Mindy Kaling, who is an East Indian of Dravidian ancestry. The only reason her and East Indians are classified as White/Caucasian is because of the Aryans who invaded Northern India centuries ago and now predominate in that area. They infact ARE Caucasians, but most of the people of India....especially those in the South are members of the indigenous population that dwelt in that region before the Aryan invasion and those people were as Black as any African but had different hair and facial features. I know under the U.S. racial system Indians are considered White. And so are Arabs...even the Black ones from Sudan. And some are pushing for certain Asians to be called White. Who cares? I could care less about some man-made "classification system" that is ever changing based on the whims and desires of those incharge with the purpose of manipulating the public and keeping them in a constant state of confusion. God blessed me with eyes and a brain to decide for myself how to interpret what I see.

It's just sitting in my computer. Started it years ago and never got around to finishing it once I became a professor. Now that I'm running this business, I don't write like that very often.

@CDBurns it seems as if you have an interesting story there! Have you already written a book about your service?

“Meanwhile, pardon me Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells,George Washington Carver, Hattie McDaniel , Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King , Julian Bond, Condoleeza Rice, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Jackie Robinson, Serena Williams, and alllll the rest! I’m just trying to squeeze past y’all so I can find a little seat in the back row.” THANK YOU! I'm trying to find a seat in the back rows also......