Separate Water Fountains

2nd

Separate Water Fountains

July 2009

Bruce Fleming has been an English professor at the United States Naval Academy for twenty-two years and has served as a member of USNA’s Admissions Board. He has expressed concerns over the Academy’s admissions process which he strongly believes places too much emphasis on racial diversity at the cost of quality students. He explains these concerns as follows:

Here’s a question: would you rather be defended by the officer with high all-around predictors (including leadership and athletics in addition to grades and test scores), or low ones? I bet you think I’m joking when I say that at the Unites States Naval Academy, we let in the ones with the low scores and reject the ones with the high. As a taxpayer, I object to that.

We do this to ensure that we get students who self-identify as racial minorities. “Diversity is our number one priority” at the Naval Academy, as the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead and the superintendent of the Naval Academy Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler have both said. Of course, this is a technical use of “diversity,” having nothing to do with age, with skills, with temperaments, with gender or sexual orientation, but only with skin color. In June of 2009 came the stunning boast that the class of 2013 is the “most diverse ever” at 35% minority. At the same time I’m getting e-mails from the parents of stellar white students who have been rejected to make this possible. We tend to forget the ones who aren’t there: I don’t.

It’s a two-track system: whites have to excel to get in, non-whites don’t have to. They just have to be non-white. And their seat, once taken, is thus denied the stellar one. In the long run this has to dilute the quality of the Navy. That’s scary. It’s also immoral. At the Naval Academy in Annapolis and arguably in the military, we’re back to the childhood I remember on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, with separate water fountains for the “colored people.” Only the water fountains for non-whites now are much better than those for the whites. Is this the way our “post-racial” Obama society was meant to play out?

We let in students by two tracks: one is based on a basket of skills and is intended to get the strongest all-around candidates. Because this system would pull in very few minorities, we’ve instituted a second track whose intention is specifically to ensure the presence of minority midshipmen. Minority applications are briefed separately to the Admissions Board, let in “direct” to USNA over a lowered bar or sent to our hand-holding revolving door remedial school if really weak. We send them for tutoring, let them take courses over, and assign them to majors we think they can pass. Many graduate, though at about a 10% lower rate than the Brigade as a whole (which includes them, so the real split is greater). We’re in an “anything it takes” mode to get them, and in an “anything it takes” mode to keep them: success is defined as getting them and keeping them, at any price.

This elimination of the necessity to achieve high predictors echoes the case with the New Haven firefighters on which Judge Sonia Sotomayor issued her now-famous ruling that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week. If not enough minority applicants get over the bar, you lower it—or eliminate it altogether. That’s what we’ve done. USNA administration officials have said in public that “SAT scores are not good predictors for minority students.” But we do use low SAT scores (below 600) as a way to eliminate white candidates. Not the minority ones.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your military. In the wake of the AIG meltdown it seemed that American taxpayers suddenly became aware that what was okay on private money wasn’t okay on the taxpayer dime. Many people felt that the ones paying for it should get a say in how it was run. The military has always been run, 100%, on the taxpayer dime (or rather, the taxpayer’s hundreds of millions of dollars). In addition, unlike AIG, it exists for the sole purpose of defending those taxpayers. Yet all too often the military acts as if it thinks it’s working on its own money, and exists for itself. This business of affirmative action at the Naval Academy and in the fleet is such an issue.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the whole deal is that the military is lying to the taxpayers about what it’s doing—misdirecting by throwing up a dust screen of irrelevancies designed to get people off their track or out and out misstating facts.

The USNA Dean of Admissions was quoted in the Baltimore Sun last year as saying “we don’t lower standards for minorities.” I suppose if you twist that enough it’s just misleading, rather than a lie: we don’t “lower” (as a verb) because the standards for minorities are already “lower” (adjective). We’ll guarantee admission to a black candidate with B and C grades, no particular leadership or academics, and SAT scores of 540 on each part. A white candidate like that is voted “not qualified.” The black one is voted “qualified”. A “qualified” (to a lower standard) minority candidate has a seat reserved; a “qualified” white candidate competes with other “qualified” ones for the remaining seats. If they’re not even this qualified, we send them to Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS), which is overwhelmingly minority. Here they are ‘remediated’ for a year, and the system rigged to ensure they come to Annapolis, taking a seat the next year. There is almost no bottom to what we’ll take for minority applicants through NAPS.

All minorities are let in over a lower bar, and most would never be admitted competitively; some are far lower than the bar for white candidates. However this doesn’t mean that all minority midshipmen are weak; I’ve had some stellar ones in my career. However they all got in ‘direct’ (which white applicants don’t): lowering the bar doesn’t mean all needed it that low.

None of this is written down, it’s just the game rules I learned on the Admissions Board. We were told not to write anything down because “everything is “FOI”able”— it can be demanded under the Freedom of Information Act.

After being on the Admissions Board, I understood a lot of what I’d seen in the classroom. I realized that there was a close to 100% correlation between the students who just couldn’t get basic concepts and couldn’t express themselves and those who either had been recruited to play sports like football and basketball, or who had checked a box saying they were Hispanic or African-American.

The Naval Academy has engaged in blatant race-tracking for years, but never with any justification. Then in March of 2008 the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) issued a “diversity policy” that has been cited repeatedly when “affirmative action” is questioned. The document signed by the CNO is unexceptionable, and raises no eyebrows. Of course not. This is the written form of the intent, which here is being kept purposely bland: this could be easily challenged in court. The question then becomes, how is it understood and put into practice? Similarly, The CNO’s “diversity policy” begins as follows: “Diversity has made our Nation and Navy stronger. To derive the most from that diversity, every individual, military or civilian, must be encouraged and enabled to reach his or her full potential.” Who can disagree with that? But isn’t that just the opposite of race-tracking and separate water fountains?

Even if it’s illegal, it might be we could understand why it’s a good idea, somehow, in some form. Only the military isn’t good at providing justification. We’re told the navy has to “look like” the general population (i.e. non-white). But actually the enlisted corps already does. What they mean is, the officer corps has to be just as non-white as the enlisted corps. Why is that? Who says a black male soldier relates better to a black or Hispanic female officer than to a white male one? Does this mean that white soldiers need white officers? None of this is explained or justified, and the taxpayers are paying the military’s salaries to defend them.

This is the demand for justification that I’m issuing here. In the military, none of it happens. We decide what we’re going to do, keep it secret if possible and in any case “inside the walls,” as the military says. We assert loudly that what we do is serving the policy, and that’s the end of the story. Only it isn’t. The military is here to protect the Constitution. They need to be reminded that they can’t violate it.

For more about Bruce Fleming, his book about the Naval Academy “Annapolis Autumn” and the forthcoming “Bridging the Military-Civilian Divide: What Each Side Needs to Know About the Other, and About Itself,” visit his web site at www.brucefleming.net. A longer consideration of the Naval Academy experience from the perspective of students is currently on www.sftt.org.

Posted by CDRSalamander in Navy
Tags: usna
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Andrew Norris

To be fair, mind you, it’s _not_ just ‘whites’ (whatever the Hades THAT means, mind you… while I am considered ‘white’, I at best have about 40% ‘northern European’/Caucasian in me, if that much) getting the ‘trimming’ factor. Those Americans of Asian descent, in several areas (I do NOT know if this applies to the ring knockers, mind you, if it does, it’d not surprise me) are experiencing similar trends.

Now, the GOAL of the schools (USMA, USNA, USAFA) is NOT to provide the iron core of leadership via -every- single student. It’s to provide a core of tradition steeped officers who, can provide the basic core of tradition, history and honor to the rest of the non trade school officers, epically in wartime.

Now, lowering the standards? Mmm… No. Never should be done. As someone pointed out… grab the best enlisted and send them though. That IS why the age is up to 23, after all for admittance, simply so those outstanding junior NCO’s, who for one reason or another didn’t have the edge to find a congressman or senator to approve their entry can go. (And, given that they’d be cherry picked, they would already have shown the ability to excel, and lead, meaning a lot of the other markers wouldn’t be needed. If not ‘book’ smart, it would be trivial to send them to a course to get them up to speed, and let’s be honest, just by being tapped from the enlisted, for standing out, they wouldn’t fail at all.) They also provide an interesting take on the duties of an officer, which allows for an even broader view on the roles and duties of an officer. THIS would not only keep the iron core of the military strong, but strengthen it, instead of the current policies, which have the potential to weaken it.

Andrew Norris.
Curtis

The only thing all this diversity crap says to me is that it is official navy policy to discriminate purely on the basis of race.
It is official navy policy that merit and achievement stand for nothing when it comes to measuring the future of any candidate for promotion to higher rank or grade.
It is official navy policy that blacks are inferior to whites and asians and need a leg up in order to stay within visual signaling range of their peers.
I never expected the US Navy to openly come out and say these sorts of racist things or to admit that the navy I’ve served for the last 25 years is an openly racist organization.
The only way to end discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Bucherm

URR, I think you misunderstood me. I was saying that if the USNA is absolutely deadset on being more racially diverse(and indications are that the USN is touting the number of minorities at Annapolis “to better reflect our enlisted make up”as a goal in of itself), then in my ideal world we would increase the number of Mustangs coming out of USNA, rather than moving an 18 year old to the front of the list “Just because”.

I wasn’t saying anyone here is against having the USNA being more racial diverse, I was just saying how I would try to ensure more racial diversity at USNA without losing alleged quality.
UltimaRatioReg

Bucherm,

No, I agree with you. There are those who think any opposition to this policy means one does not desire diversity. You are correct in your assertions. And well-stated.
B. Keith Cossey

The comments by Andrew Norris (July 3 @ 10:55 pm) go “outside the congressional-appointment box” and raise an often-overlooked perspective—the openings at the service academies for junior NCOs already in military service. It is critical to get them when they are young and yet have some leadership experience.

“Mustangers,” Marine Corps officers who have received combat commissions (many of them out of the older staff NCO ranks) have tactical ability but, too often, lack the “presence” required of one who is to inspire his or her troops. Staff NCOs have too long been schooled in the mentality of “Don’t call me ‘Sir’; I work for a living.”

The role of a sergeant is basically “maternal” (the mother hen who is close to and protective of the chicks) while the role of an officer is more “paternal” (the more-aloof rooster who crows with proper grammar and who defines the day and its mission). A late-military career commission can be as painful [redeacted by admin]for both the leader and the led. It helps all involved to groom individuals for the officer ranks when there is stll something of the maleable chick in them.
virgil xenophon

Could an academic AND an ex AF fly-boy Fossil
put his “oar in the water” here? (gotta use as much H2O tech talk as possible) Grandpa Sailor brings up an interesting point about mixed race individuals and their refusal to be pigeon-holed as Tiger Woods has done. EXACTLY WHO is going to classify
these people for the purposes of “minority”
set-asides during the selection process? Is the Navy going to allow them to self-identify? Or is some faceless bureaucrat going to decide their fate? And if so, are we not headed back to the “supposedly” odious days of the “one-drop”
rule? I would remind all here that during the reign of the white minority in S. Africa during Aparthide, a the fate of mixed race individuals (the “Cape Coloureds”) was decided by the whim of lower-level bureaucrats who, by visual inspection alone,
determined the fate of such individuals in terms of employment and educational opportunities, etc., by classifying them as black or “coloured,” This aspect of the regime was regarded by we more “enlightened” “progressive” types in the West as one of the more signal malignant marks of totalitarian regimes. Yet we seem to be on our way to embracing just such a system in present-day America.

Secondly, I would mention one Robert Putnam by name; he of that ground-breaking study “Bowling Alone.” A study deemed so important bu this Political Scientist/Sociologist that President Clinton convened a special conference at Camp David with Putnam in attendance to discuss it’s implications for the fraying of the social bonds of society his study revealed. Putnam’s work fell on receptive ears within the “progressive” community on the left, suggesting, as it did, that we as a society should tend to the more “communal” aspects of our culture. His latest work, however, has been met with a deafening silence within that same community because of what it says about “DIVERSITY.” Putnam’s findings (the validity of which have yet to be challenged) demonstrate that the greater the cultural and racial diversity within a given society, the GREATER the MIS-TRUST between given groupings there is. Further, diversity even leads to greater mis-trust WHITHIN
HOMOGENEOUS groupings as a result of their interactions with the out-groups.

So much for “diversity” as Nirvana…..

PS: So……it’s GOOD to foster “mistrust”
on board submarines equipped with nuclear missiles?
virgil xenophon

erratum: Apologizes: It’s GraMpa BLUEWATER Sailor!!

And “Apartheid” viz “Aparthide”
virgil xenophon

ADDENDUM: As someone old enough to have lived through “Jim Crow”, I am intimate with separate drinking fountains and the effects such policies have in the real world. And then, of course, all that was followed by my experience serving on active duty in the highly integrated thing called the armed services. So I have both an academic AND an experiential background from which to
to base my comments.
Grampa Bluewater

VX: That’s “Grampa Bluewater”. I have several lovely little girls and one strapping young buck who only know me as Grampa (so far). “Bluewater” because some folks who have sailed over less of it than I’ve wrung out of my black wool socks at 0415 seem to think that the words blue water and Navy put together are a bad thing, and find “littoral thinking” all chi-chi over canapes.

To me it’s shallow thinking by another name.

But I prefer the company of deckapes over canbeans to warmed over bigideas over canapes, so what do I know. To me, they all need more salt (the bigideas, not the light pupus).

“Sailor” is just a compliment, so thanks. Like others of the breed, sometimes I stir the pot to see what bubbles up.

A poetic helot this time, or so it appears.

Anyway, glad somebody got my point, although I suspect URR was studiously ignoring me (again). My theory is he’s just jealous (well, green and tough too) because the sailors got the navy beans and the marines got the limas (or whatever they call ‘em) for all those years. Navy and Marine traditions, it’s not just about MRE.
Grampa Bluewater

VX:
P. S.:

In submarines (regardless of propulsion machinery) “Life is simple, you’re either Qualified…or you’re not.”

In academe…complicated.
UltimaRatioReg

Aww, Grampa,

Ignoring? Perish the thought. To your eloquence and unimpeachable good sense, I can think to add nothing.

Except maybe that the concept itself, legalized discrimination, will know NO bounds, save those defined by who holds favor and office.

Situational ethics abounding. Discrimination. We once called it wrong, and still do, in certain instances. In fact, we will consider the idea of reparations to the descendants of those who suffered from the pockets of the descendants of those responsible, unfair and un-American as that is.

Yet in other instances, we now call it right, provided it benefits the politically advantageous victim group or minority.
UltimaRatioReg

*Burma Shave*

I use the terms “those who suffered” and “those responsible” very loosely. Those groups will have to be defined by gross generalizations based entirely on skin color. After all, isn’t that the way to end racism?
ChrisInVA

As an organization which is seeking the best and brightest to lead our sailors and marines into harms way, should not the USNA and the USN as a whole put aside racial identity as a qualifier? The USN needs to take charge in this “post-racial” era and remove all reference to race or gender in the application process. The standards of performance have been established, and should be the same for all who apply. How are mixed race applicants to be accounted for under the current process? Will they receive the same bias against them as white applicants?

Did not MLK seek a day when skin color no longer mattered? It would appear the “diversity” policy is setting us back rather than moving us forward.
Grampa Bluewater

URR:

You forgot some native languages, some sexual preferences, some religions, some gender/transgenders, some collections of surnames correlated to some nationalities or social classes within some nationalities and some people with some of the above as some of their ancestors. I think that about somes it up, don’t you?

Describe the only class not currently a protected class under the law (Oops, you can name the covered classes, but not the noncovered one. My mistake.)

Diversity for all, except for some! Forward, diverseketeers!
LT Brine

1. Professor Fleming: thank you for speaking out and standing up for standards. We all ways gave you trash for being and ostentatious individual, but you made us think, which is a professors real job, and this is one of those bitter truths that need to be spread. Maybe, one of these years, I’ll make it back and tell you how it’s been going.

2. People are asking about the predictors of performance, if you look they are used very heavily in NUPOC and other accesion fields that are directed towards similar “tip of the spear” fields like nuclear power. (If you don’t know why NUC officers are tip of the spear wake up and look out the periscope.)

Good luck to those who get in based on a lower standard for those with the right boxes checked, to reword a phrase: it’s hard, and it’s harder if your not as smart as the next guy. If you succeed well then you are welcome to my wardroom, we all bleed red, and work together to make sure our sailors don’t have to. IMHO I want the best guys going in, cause it’s more work than I have time for to fire a someone who can’t meet standards.
http://www.cdhaggard.com Curt

Given the choice between being led by:

-1- The top 1% (measured how you please) or

-2- The top 10%, taking into account any 25-30 or so factors (backgrounds or predictors) to ensure that the Leaders and the Sailors are not too dissimilar…

I would choose the latter.

I don’t think we sacrifice any readiness at all by having the wardroom staffed with those who were not valedictorians or all-state quarterbacks.

Curt
ETCM(SS), Ret.
Natty Bowditch

“Diversity for all, except for some!”

Pity the poor white male. For generations, he has had to struggle and claw his way forward with the odds stacked against him.

I could provide anecdotal evidence from my own class at a service academy, but it’s anecdotal. Of the top 10 academically, only one served 20+ years–the others hit private industry after 5. The first to gain flag rank was in the top half of the class, but just barely. Of course, this is anecdotal.

Prof. Fleming claims his concern is the Navy and Marines. But he leaves out the really important evidence: how does class rank correlate to future performance? The data is extant but Fleming stays away from it like it’s radioactive. Why?
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com CDRSalamander

Natty,
You have a lot of anger you need to pray on there Shipmate. Your second paragraph I hear often in these conversations. Let me bring this up.

What about the young sailor who came here from Bosnia, why should he be evaluated under different circumstances from the Sailor who grew up in Jamaica?

We are talking about a fair and equal treatment for young men and women born mostly in 1991. Many of them, if you believe in transgenerational punishment, do not even have a connection to pre-64 discriminatory practices – much less slavery in this nation.

Many of those we classify as “African American,” like the mixed-race General Powell (both parents from Jamaica) and President Obama (father from Kenya), have absolutely zero link to America’s history of slavery and institutional racism – though individual racism, of course. General Powell as a young man and junior officer did receive the tail end of the Jim Crow era attitudes and structures in NYC, but it sure didn’t impact his path to success in a pre-Affirmative Action era.

We could go one for thousands of words on specific, real-world examples.

A system of separate criteria is beyond paternalistic racism, but establishes a corrosive structure of a tribalistic ethnic spoils system founded on anger, frustration, envy, and a desire to avoid addressing the core problems that create different results for different socio-economic groups. Problems, BTW, that are neither the fault of the Navy or, beyond the extra effort of JNROTC cadre in schools, the ability of the Navy to correct.

The only way to avoid a system of ethic based spoils system (see the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Kenya and Belgium for the usual results of such systems – not to mention the problem of self-identification fraud/inaccuracy) is to have a set of rigorous, and impartial system for selection hiring, promotion that include written examinations (does not have to be a SAT/ACT BTW).

Those are the two choices you have. As John Derbyshire says;

Either you have a spoils system built around bullying, intimidation and the question, “Where’s our piece?” or you have a rigorous … selection system involving written exams. That is your choice. Take your pick.”

“Ethnic Spoils System” may seem like a rough description, but it is an accurate description if you are going to establish as your #1 priority breaking your Sailors, accurate or not, into ethnic groups with unequal treatment between them.

Such systems always, always, end poorly.
ChrisInVA

Natty: I do not believe anyone here is suggesting we “pity the poor whites”, however when it is suggested a barrier to white applicants be created in order to allow minority applicants in that is unjust. Is that any more fair than what was done by some whites against minorities in history past? Answering injustice with injustice does not create a positive and enlightened result, as history has evidenced across the globe.

How does one successfully engage in a selection process which rewards skin color over a myriad of traits present in successful leaders throughout the centuries? How does such a system address applicants of multiple ethnicities or races? Does Applicant A get to be a “minority” because his paternal grandparents are, even though his maternal grandparents are white of German decent? How about Applicant B with one black grandparent and three white? What is the standard for identifying an applicant’s race? Can I claim to be black because my great-grandmother’s grandmother was black?

Truly, I would suggest, the only way to right the wrongs of racial injustice is to remove all reference to race in applications and performance evals / fitreps. Set “The Standards” for all to know and aspire to, then advance an applicant because he/she demonstrated an academic ability to learn and think critically, as well as exhibited leadership potential. Would you disagree?
Grampa Bluewater

Natty:

You are right. No white 18 year old who ever owned a black slave should be admitted to the USNA. Any black 18 year old who was a slave to a white man in the USA should be admitted via the prep school. Mmmm, that would make the cutoff about 1883.

How about no white 18 year old born before the Civil Rights Act admitted, any black male born before same admitted. Ahh, cutoff date would be 1987. Guess we’ll have to find some other criteria.

Let’s try this. A generation is generally accepted as twenty years. Make the rule apply to anyone who became eligible to apply less than a generation after the Civil Rights Act. Oh dear, that cut off would be 2007. Well, we could at least give a general discharge to all white 1/c and 2/c Mids forthwith.

Would you consider an exception for those with no more than 1/32 “confederate” ancestry? Wasn’t 1/32 “impure blood” acceptable to the SS/Gestapo? Or was it 1/64?

What about all the rest of the blocks on the form? Well, it’s all about the sins of the white race, isn’t it? They would benefit too.

Personally, I think racial hatred is a curse – bad for those hated, worse for those who hate. Who would promote such a thing, year after year, generation after generation. In the words of the Church Lady: “Could it be…Satan?”.

Why not just jettison this nonsense, and go for bright, ambitious, promising kids, patriotic and enthusiastic? No other criteria?

By the way, thanks for the clear cold breeze of reality, Master Chief. Refreshing. (Greek Chorus: “Correct as usual, Master Chief”)
Natty Bowditch

Something or someone ate my post in my response to CDR.

To recap, citing Derbyshire is odd since he once advocated killing Chelsea Clinton. Colin Powell doesn’t work as an example since he is an advocate of AA and says he was a beneficiary.

Again, the system you claim is so fouled up and creating such divisions is really working for white males. In the early 80′s the Navy’s officer corps was about 7% minority–as of last year, it was 8%. So, I’d offer white males aren’t exactly being cashiered en masse.

This is about opportunity, not outcome. If you believe admission to USNA is an outcome, then no argument will sway you. But if you are truly concerned about the quality of the USN/USMC–you’ll have to look at actual service. The historical data is out there; we know that in any given USNA class-about 25-30% of its grads will serve the minimum active duty requirement.
UltimaRatioReg

“If you believe admission to USNA is an outcome, then no argument will sway you.”

I might phrase it thus: “If you believe limiting opportunity specifically because of race or ethnic origin, either for or against a particular group is not discrimination, then no argument will sway you.”

Or perhaps: “If you believe that special and preferential treatment (or exclusion) of a group or individual based solely on the color of that person’s skin is not racism, then no argument will sway you.”
Grampa Bluewater

CDR S.

General Powell’s sterling career, capped by becoming the first ROTC graduate to rise to CJCS, notwithstanding, I would point out that of the first 13 black kids admitted to OCS, Admiral Gravely made flag on time, thank you very much. How does that compare with USNA Class of whatever who were in the RADM(LH) zone last year? Pretty good, I’ll wager.

Did all right after that, too; as I recall.

I’m standing pat on – skin color has no relationship to ability, achievement, virtue or villainy.
ChrisInVA

Grampa Bluewater,

I could not agree with you more! Skin color has never been a proven metric of success or failure!

Natty,

How is setting a lower standard righting the wrongs of the past, or creating an equitable environment? Personally, I would be offended that you would think so little of my peers and me as to set a lower bar of achievement!

It used to be the “American way” to work hard to overcome the challenges of life, to break the chains of poverty, racial/ethnic stereotypes, education, and regional origins to better one’s station and rise above it all, regardless of skin color. What happened along the way?
Natty Bowditch

ChrisinVA:

Several false premises in your questions. It’s easy to claim a lower standard is being set but where’s the evidence?

“It used to be the “American way” to work hard to overcome the challenges of life, to break the chains of poverty, racial/ethnic stereotypes, education, and regional origins to better one’s station and rise above it all, regardless of skin color. What happened along the way?”

Nothing. Your “American way” is largely a myth. Donald Trump touts himself as a success story–but how difficult is success when you inherit $40M on your 21st birthday? For the vast majority of Americans, the socioeconomic conditions of your parents will be yours. (Cue the stories about walking 6 miles uphill, both ways, in the snow to school). If one or more of your parents went to college–chances are better you go to college than someone whose parents didn’t. If you grew up in a white collar home, chances are good you enter the white collar ranks. You might want to do some research on economic mobility.
Grampa Bluewater

Natty:
“It’s easy to claim a lower standard is being set but where’s the evidence?”

Check the court cases about medical school admissions. Or just read the Washington Post article that started this little verbal jousting match.

“You might want to do some research on economic mobility.”

I have, actually.

1) Economic mobility and college don’t have a one to one correlation. You clearly don’t spend much time with successful painting, plumbing, roofing, or AC & R contractors. Or anybody who owns a McDonald’s in a small southern town. Or the guy who started Krispy Kreme.

3)White collar does not mean wealthy and blue collar does not mean poor. The woman pressure washing your house in the mid atlantic ‘burbs more often than not used to be a teacher or a nurse until she figured out she can do way better with a pickup, a p washing rig, some ladders and a young guy working his way through night school to handle the other end of the ladders. As for the kid, in fifteen years he might be a District Attorney or a tax lawyer.

If you did the research I’ve done you would know it’s all about avoiding drugs, drunkeness, dropping out, out of wedlock pregnancy, divorce, absentee fathers, revolving boyfriends and the dole.

Success comes with hard work, thrift, family first, due diligence taught in the home starting with homework and chores, high standards from loving Fathers who are committed to their kids and willing to discipline carefully and fairly and who show (live) the utmost respect and loving concern for their wives. Ditto Mothers about their husbands. These people imbue their kids with love of learning, craftsmanship, and the value of commitment and personal honor. Not to mention a love of God and Country.

The protestant (and jewish and Catholic and Orthodox and Mormon and Sikh and Hindu and Buddhist and Moslem) work ethic, for lack of a better term.

Then another syndrome kicks in. The rachet effect, one or two clicks a generation. Not that there’s anything wrong with families with generations of firemen, or cops, or whatever. Money isn’t everything, and certainly isn’t the first thing. “Candide” didn’t get it all wrong, and Donald Trump doesn’t get it all right. I can’t think of a sadder existance than Howard Hughes, poor devil.

How do I know? I read, a lot, have traveled, a lot, worked white and blue collar, and I have lived a long time, and I have a large and far flung family. Personal research and observation, if you will.

There are no guarantees and no easy road, but that’s the way to bet. Best odds going.

And I didn’t mention snow or long walks to school (they use big yellow buses these days, you really should get out more.)

But we digress. Back to the admissions process at certain trade schools in Maryland…
ChrisInVA

Natty,

I hate to break your stereotype mythos, but I did just that. I grew up poor, so much so that we lived on food stamps and my parents made choices to buy food or pay bills time and again. We lived in a trailer park. Both of my parents graduated high school, but that’s where their education ended. They compelled me to work hard, to study hard in school, and they spent their time teaching me a strong work ethic and passion for service.

I grew up watching F-4s flying on their way to then NAS Millington, TN, and decided that was what I wanted to do.

I did not let my poor, small town Tennessee upbringing shape what I was to become. My parents could not afford to send me to college. I did not let a lack of funding for college deter me from my goals. I researched my options for college, and chose to enlist in the Army because they offered more than the GI Bill. I fulfilled my obligation, found a university and started immediately following my end of service. I worked full time my first year in school, studied hard, and never lost sight of my goal of flying. I applied for an NROTC 3-year scholarship, was accepted and commissioned upon graduation. I started flight school that Fall.

So, Natty, I overcame the circumstances of my existence. I only recently finished paying back college loans, and now I am working towards my Graduate degree. There was a will, and I made a way.

I will not accept the premise that people cannot overcome their “lot in life”, or cannot do better than the circumstances from which they are raised.

The individual has the power to establish goals and do all that is required to meet them. That, sir, is what I meant by the “American way”. All have this power, and reliance upon the State and its institutions is the surest way to dependency and its resultant lowered expectations.

While I respect your assertion concerning economic mobility, I do not accept it as an inevitable consequence.
ChrisInVA

Scratch “consequence”. . . I meant result!
ChrisInVA

Grandpa,

Wow, you said it all so much better than I did! Your wisdom is indeed showing!

Well said, sir.
UltimaRatioReg

See, Grampa?

How can I comment after THAT? It would be like going on after Tony Bennett…
Grampa Bluewater

Chris in VA and URR:

You flatter me, sirs (I will cherish the moment, as only old men do).

Robin Williams walked up to Jerry Lewis one night, clicked his heels and did a quarter bow and said “Maestro”.

Takes one to know one, gents.
AT1 B

Natty,

You need to study up more on your American history sir. The idea that a poor immigrant can pull one’s self up by their boot straps has been alive and well since the end of the American Revolution. Although a good portion of it was built up by the American Media (pulp fiction writers, newspaper men, etc) they based it on real life peoples. Such as John J. Astor, a man who immigrated with nearly nothing to his name was able to build himself a fur empire and become a multi-million heir in the period of twenty years.

A. Lincoln, a man born to uneducated farmers rose to become the President of the United States of America.

Andrew Carnegie, a Scotch-Irish immigrant to the US, whose family background was of weavers. Turned around and built Pittsburgh to be the leading steel town that it was and then turned around gave all his money back to charity.

J. Rockfeller, A man whose father was a traveling salesman and if one believes the history possibly even a con-man. Ended up creating Standard Oil.

Bill Cosby, former corpsman, grew up in South Philly, father was a cook, used the GI bill to become a Doctor in children’s education from U of Mass. Also a graduate of Temple U in Philly.

Oprah Winfrey born into abject poverty in Mississippi. Media Empire Mogul.

To list some of the others is immaterial to this debate. Benjamin Disraeli said something to the effect that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. It looks like you got trapped in that.
You cite that the officer corps is only 7% minority. Yet according to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the truth of the matter is that the number of officers in the US military completely comes in around 17.58% if you don’t count those people who consider themselves mixed of two or more races or don’t know how to classify themselves, link: http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/PopRep2007/appendixb/b_25.html.
The stat that you cite is strictly for blacks, if you include the Asians, Asian Islanders, Native Americans, Hispanics, and those that identify with two or more racial backgrounds then you reach the correct stat of around 23% are minority in the US Navy alone. Then add in those Warrant Officers (I am sure for a Ring-Knocker like yourself you discount the CWO’s as “true officers”) and you actually come out to something close to 30% of all officers in the US Navy are of a minority. There are plenty of them out there the junior personnel just need to look around and see what those officers are doing. They sure aren’t looking around huffing and puffing that the world owes them something. Rather these officers are working hard to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
mark scease

This quote from Natty above concerns me. Even when the deaths of newly commissioned are taken into play, if this is the number then the USN isn’t left with many worthwhile candidates regardless of race, creed, or religion “This is about opportunity, not outcome. If you believe admission to USNA is an outcome, then no argument will sway you. But if you are truly concerned about the quality of the USN/USMC–you’ll have to look at actual service. The historical data is out there; we know that in any given USNA class-about 25-30% of its grads will serve the minimum active duty requirement.”
I’m not sure naval traditions are being moved along given these numbers.
Comment?
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http://aquilinefocus.blogspot.com/ Juan Caruso

“And their seat, once taken, is thus denied the stellar one.”

In my opinion, the larger scandal committed upon taxpayers is admission of many candidates who are in all probability well-connected caucasion men and females with no serious intention of making the Navy their career!

Taxpayers are indeed being ripped off by this admissions lkaxity gaming to the tune of about $300,000 a seat. Retention rates for military academies are anything but stellar these days measured against historical norms. How many great generals and admirals have been turned away so Suzy can get a terrific education at taxpayer expense, serve the requisite minimum, and then go to law school?
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