Not only is the CNO's state of suzerainty to the Diversity Industry wrong headed - it is expensive and destructive to unit cohesion. I don't know what Navy he serves in - but it isn't the one that I saw from the deckplates for over two decades.
Case in point, at the end of JUL, the CNO spoke to the 32nd Annual Black Data Processors Association (BDPA) Conference.
In it he stated,
What a huge insult to everyone who has ever served in a recruiting billet in the last few decades.
If you are concerned about people not being reached out to - how about those who you are actively rejecting? Drop me an email so I can put you in touch with a retired CAPT whose son was told to his face, in summary, "We already have enough white males. Sorry, we're not interested." He is just one of thousands.
And as for your last paragraph; when you visited the group of Sailors I was with in AFG, we were almost a majority minority group - but there you were eight feet from me preaching to us about how important Diversity was when you walked in with an all Caucasian personal staff. We are there. We don't care. Leave us alone.
Case in point, at the end of JUL, the CNO spoke to the 32nd Annual Black Data Processors Association (BDPA) Conference.
In it he stated,
In past years I’ll be perfectly honest, we have not reached out to all the people who could help. When I sit in a meeting with senior officers and senior government civilians on a daily basis, I value their perspectives but I can also look around the table and look around the room and I can see that some perspectives are absent, and I know that because of that absence good ideas are going unheard as a result.Speak for yourself. This isn't about you, and as our Fleet disappears in front of us due to a lost decade of poor leadership a the top, you are using your tax-payer funded position to subsidize your personal therapy apology tour. You are not describing the 21st Century Navy. In any event, for last two decades reaching out is all we have done. Maybe when you were a pup they didn't - but in the last two decades it has been regular practice.
Over the course of my career, I’ve learned first hand the value there is in having people of different backgrounds, different experiences working toward a common goal. And I see it as an absolute requirement if we are to take the Navy where it needs to go into the future.
What a huge insult to everyone who has ever served in a recruiting billet in the last few decades.
If you are concerned about people not being reached out to - how about those who you are actively rejecting? Drop me an email so I can put you in touch with a retired CAPT whose son was told to his face, in summary, "We already have enough white males. Sorry, we're not interested." He is just one of thousands.
And as for your last paragraph; when you visited the group of Sailors I was with in AFG, we were almost a majority minority group - but there you were eight feet from me preaching to us about how important Diversity was when you walked in with an all Caucasian personal staff. We are there. We don't care. Leave us alone.
Speaking of narcissistic myopia; chew on this for a bit.
For those of you who are in the information world, this year it’s been my great personal pleasure for me as I welcomed into the ranks of our Navy admirals, a former shipmate, a great African American officer by the name of [Rear Admiral] Will Metts. He was selected for admiral this year. He was a close and personal friend, a consummate professional, who served with me in the Pacific Fleet, who later commanded the Navy Information Operations Center in Hawaii in a delightful little part of Oahu called Wahiawa. And in his first assignment as an admiral he will be the Director of Intelligence at the new U.S. Cyber Command.Note the bold.
Besides the cringe-worthy tone-deafness of "some of my best friends are black" part of it, I bet that everyone who was competing with Will loved that feeling of objectivity. Zero sum game and all.
No, that doesn't meet the defintion of fraternization - but it sounds bad, doesn't it?
Do we need to even go over the costs of the CNO doing this trip and others like it - costs on top of the millions already being spent?
I can't wait until the CNO speaks at the Left-Handed Lithuanian-American Lesbian Laser Calibrators of Louisiana convention. Talk about a group of people the Navy hasn't reached out to.
19 comments:
Is there somehting in the DC water that is a strong derivative of the recently discovered element Guiltium?
That's sad. I guess he was once blind, but now can see...that the President has a definite like of those who love him.
Posturing at the expense of readiness of the National Security.
too early....not enough focus. That guest was me.
I am in a touchy-feely profession and what amazes me is the absolute idiocy of the statements.
<span>"but <span>I</span> can also look around the table and look around the room and <span>I</span> can see that some perspectives are absent"</span>
Does he mean that someone will actually sit there and say, "As a black data processor, we see the information coming out of Al-Qaeda differently. 300 years of bondage allows us a unique perspective on the irrational Muslim mindset." WTF?
Love your suggestion re: the Lithuanians. Way underrepresented and probably pretty ticked off about it.
SUCKA!
I PITY THE FOOL!
Everytime the CNO speaks about diversity, I am reminded of Ross Perot on the Arsenio Hall show (I was in 6th grade at the time) speaking about "you people."
You had me on the first paragraph, but I fell off my chair in laughter with the left handed lithuanian lesbians... who sez Lex is the only one who can spin a yarn!
On the surface, the CNO's statement isn't wrong...he doesn't SAY anything about race or ethnicity.
He's right, when he looks around the table all he sees are CRUDES SWOs and F-18 Aviators who have MBA's or Finance degrees. If he had, say, an amphib sailor with experience in irregular warfare or a Helo driver with two deployments chasing drug smugglers under her belt, or maybe a guy with a grad degree in History or Sociology he might hear different things. He might have greater insights into how to approach maritime asymmetric threats or 21st century naval warfare.
Diversity doesn't have to be related to race or gender. But ducks pick ducks in the promotion system, and the Navy continues to have an education policy that is focused on producing the next batch of civilian management specialists and business leaders. The race/gender issue is a red herring so they can ignore the greater problem that the Navy risks producing a leadership full of group-think.
You bring an interesting focus to the discussion, one that CDR has harped on for some time [see this weeks FBF]. However please put a pseudonym or name to your posts, it is just good form.
I think the difference is that she actually believes that tripe. He sounds more like he is trying to sound empathic, hence the "I" at the beginning of almost every sentence.
"Be he agent, or be he principle...."
guest,
you make too much sense. many in this forum think the only form of diversity is white and non-white. they think in the starkest terms possible, but diversity may arrive in the most personal form possible when their kids bring home 'diversity' to meet the parents ;)
uncle ruckus
"<span>many in this forum think the only form of diversity is white and non-white"</span>
Au contraire. Read all of Phib's posts and the comments on them. Quite the opposite. The porch-dwellers here get what diversity of thought and backgrounds truly consists of. And they get that achievement, and not self-identification or politics of preference, is the true discriminator.
The CNO and DoD in general have posited just the opposite. Racial and ethnic categories, and the politically-defined victim group du jour, has been how Roughead and the others have drawn the lines.
Guest,
I don't know what blog you are talking about ... but it ain't this one.
Guest, put down the pipe and slowly step back away from it.... let me ask you a question: do you know the race or ethinicity of Phib's regulars, those of us who have comfortable chairs on his Front Porch?. Thought not. Since you don't have a clue and you only have a pre-formed opinion, suggest you open a box of shut the hell up and start eating.
Hey guest, WTF are you talking about?
I personally brought "diversity" home to meet my parents and they agree she's smoking hot. And soon we'll be engaged.
Phib married "diversity" and his wife gave birth to a few kids.
The examples from the front porch go on and on and on. And it is documented.
So don't lecture us.
and more so, we actually agree and LIVE BY Dr. King's words of "not judging by the color of skin...but by the content of character."
What do you imagine are the "right qualities"?
Race?
Ethnicity?
30 years of solid performance at all levels as an officer?
It's not at all easy to try to diversify the flag officer corps with hundreds of appointments but when it boils down to CNO..... That's just 1 of 1. He or she had better be the very best with a solid track record.
No pictures. No mention whatsoever of race should ever be present at a promotion board. Promote on merit alone. Let those chickens come home to roost. It can be hard. I had some outstanding subordinates who didn't promote because their leaders did not know how to write a FITREP. It wasn't by malice. It was ignorance.
Therapist1...sorry about missing my callsign. I'm poor at navigating these different comment sections and thought I had to have some kind of login set up.
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