The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Danger41]

On 10/30/2020 at 3:52 PM, di1630 said:

I’m all for diversity in the ranks but I doubt we are suddenly going to find a ton of missed high-end recruits in the inner city.

I’ve said before, I could find better recruits by stopping the BS academic and chess club qualifiers that get kids into UPT.

I’ll take medium-intelligence type A recruits any day over the super-high-intelligence weenies I see filling the cockpits.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

“Give me a committed B student with a boiling will to win over an A-plus scholar with a careerist agenda, and we’ll be on our way.”

Dan Pedersen in his book “Topgun” about his founding of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.

[dream big]

On 10/30/2020 at 1:25 PM, torqued said:

Maj Gen Ed Thomas: Too many white guys are pilots. 
 

https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/86-of-air-force-pilots-are-white-men-heres-why-this-needs-to-change-155046366.html?guccounter=1&__twitter_impression=true

And? (From a non-white pilot) 

[gearhog]

6 hours ago, dream big said:

And? (From a non-white pilot) 

You didn't specify your gender. Why?

 

[Guardian]

He/him. Why does it matter that there are too many whites? Does he have a point that correlates to mission effectiveness? Or does he think we should be equal in all measurable differences? And how does he plan to implement and track this ridiculous statement?

Or is he just unknowingly a giant racist?

Equality of outcome is systematically racist and sexist and needs to stop.

[Prozac]

 

29 minutes ago, Guardian said:

He/him. Why does it matter that there are too many whites? Does he have a point that correlates to mission effectiveness? Or does he think we should be equal in all measurable differences? And how does he plan to implement and track this ridiculous statement?

Or is he just unknowingly a giant racist?

Equality of outcome is systematically racist and sexist and needs to stop.

It matters because when you have an institution that does not reflect the society it represents, you have problems. You could argue that the military is different. You’d be right to say, for example, that the majority of the population is obese and that doesn’t work for the military. Those kinds of arguments hold no water when it comes to race though. Like it or not, the US military has made racial equality a priority since the Eisenhower administration. One of the reasons the American public has a high amount of trust in their military is because it, at least in theory, represents a cross section of themselves. The faith of the American population is a key factor in long term combat effectiveness. If you look at the big/long term picture, we are playing chess not checkers. 

[Prozac]

One point to add to my prior post:

I’m not saying we can’t have a discussion on the best way to accomplish racial equality. I happen to believe that affirmative action programs are a key part of a broader overall strategy that includes investment in education and community outreach. There are certainly many valid strategies or combinations of strategies out there, but just accepting that our pilot force is racially misrepresented is the wrong answer. 

[Blue]

Quote

 

To be clear, the Air and Space Forces are not setting quotas based on race or gender. We will, however, focus intensely and concentrate our efforts in traditionally underserved communities. It wouldn’t be legal or productive to hold recruiters accountable for bringing in a certain number of recruits from various demographic groups. But if we see that we’re not hitting recruiting targets that mirror the qualified population in those categories, we will adjust to concentrate on areas where we can get a more representative balance in our applicant pool. To use a fishing analogy, recruiters must not only cast a wide net but ensure we are spending time in the right fishing holes.

And by measuring those targets, we’ll employ the old management axiom that what gets measured gets done. And we’ll get it done.

 

I love this article.  "To be clear, we're not going to have quotas.  Instead, we're going to...........................have quotas."

[DosXX]

1 hour ago, Blue said:

I love this article.  "To be clear, we're not going to have quotas.  Instead, we're going to...........................have quotas."

To be fair, there's a big difference between saying that 30% of pilot slots are reserved for minorities and implementing recruitment policies that try to close the gap.

[TreeA10]

I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again.  The phrase, "Special consideration should be given to women and minorities and minorities for possible past discrimination" was given to promotion boards in the mid 90s.  In 1994, the promotion rate target to Major was 73% of all eligible officers.  The promotion rate for minority women was 94%. This did no favors to the reputation of those promoted or the Air Force itself with the AF losing lawsuits as a result.

[gearhog]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

One point to add to my prior post:

I’m not saying we can’t have a discussion on the best way to accomplish racial equality. I happen to believe that affirmative action programs are a key part of a broader overall strategy that includes investment in education and community outreach. There are certainly many valid strategies or combinations of strategies out there, but just accepting that our pilot force is racially misrepresented is the wrong answer. 

Say you have a room of 100 pilot candidates that exactly represents the demographics of the USA. They all have different resumes and the resumes don't specify race or gender.

What would your selection process be if you needed to choose 20 of them to fly aircraft in combat?

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by torqued

[Guardian]

Prozac. Are you being serious? The colors and genitalia in the military must as closely match the civilian world? Obviously not a direct quote but that is what you said boiled down. Dude....why? That’s a very racist thing man. Seriously. You are discriminating against some by the color of their skin or their sex organ. That’s what we are trying to eliminate.

I hope you’re just kidding around.

[FLEA]

13 hours ago, Guardian said:

Prozac. Are you being serious? The colors and genitalia in the military must as closely match the civilian world? Obviously not a direct quote but that is what you said boiled down. Dude....why? That’s a very racist thing man. Seriously. You are discriminating against some by the color of their skin or their sex organ. That’s what we are trying to eliminate.

I hope you’re just kidding around.

I like to ask in these conversations if it's also important that the racial makeup of players in the NBA should also be representative of society, why or why not?  

[Guardian]

Great point. We need more representation from minorities and majorities in the NBA. They don’t represent the community they play in.

[jazzdude]

I'll preface my post with this: having traveled around the world and enjoying most of my travels and cultures I've visited, there's no where else I'd rather call home besides the USA. But just because we're the best doesn't mean we don't have flaws, or shouldn't strive to become better. And we need to do that as Americans, not as Republicans or Democrats throwing spears at each other, otherwise, our enemies will use that divide to weaken us or tear us apart. The great power struggle doesn't just exist militarily, but also politically and economically between nations.

I like to ask in these conversations if it's also important that the racial makeup of players in the NBA should also be representative of society, why or why not?  

One is a private organization, and one is a public institution. That's the difference. And no, I don't think matching percentages in different populations should be the end goal for either organization.

The NBA went through its transition long ago dealing with race, to the point where the race of the player doesn't matter now, just their performance, because that's what sells tickets (an exciting game), and makes money. But they got past the hurdle of integration and quotas/caps long ago

The military strives to be a meritocracy, but there are still biases that exist that favor some groups and hinder others. For example, the army ran an e where they removed the official photo from the promotion package, and got a surprising result.

"From taking a careful look at the data we collected from that experiment, our study finds that when you remove the DA photo ... voters took less time to cast the votes on each individual file, and then the outcomes for minorities and women improved," Wojtaszek said.

The study showed that using official photos led to decisions from board members that appeared to reveal unconscious bias, Army officials say.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/06/25/inside-armys-decision-eliminate-photos-officer-promotion-boards.html/amp

I think it's right we get after any unfairness in the system based on things that shouldn't matter (race/ethnicity/gender) to allow the best to rise through the ranks and so everyone is treated fairly, especially if we want to be a meritocracy.

It's also easy to point at the recruiting pool and say there aren't enough qualified from X group, but issues could go earlier than that. Educational/academic opportunities, athletics, clubs, etc in K-12 schooling, that lead up to being eligible in the recruiting pool, especially on the officer side. That's not DoD's problem, but a societal issue that merits looking at from other parts of government (or our society, which should be reflected in government). In a sense, the military (especially the officer corps) may already be reflective of the country based on opportunities available, whether that's just educational/volunteer opportunities that combine into an attractive package (sts), or just familiarity with the military growing up and it being a realistic/attainable goal. It'll likely take a generation or two to fix, but that requires groundwork to be laid now to create a better future for our kids, and we likely won't see any benefit in our careers.

It's less about making percentages match up (though there are people that believe that), but ensuring that if people want to compete, they aren't having to overcome additional barriers based on the race/gender, because they shouldn't have to.

[Guardian]

It’s about the person concept. Not the color of their skin or what’s between the legs.

[Prozac]

On 11/5/2020 at 11:36 AM, torqued said:

Say you have a room of 100 pilot candidates that exactly represents the demographics of the USA. They all have different resumes and the resumes don't specify race or gender.

What would your selection process be if you needed to choose 20 of them to fly aircraft in combat?

 

This is a valid question and a tough one. At best “affirmative action” is a deeply flawed short term bandaid applied to an issue that requires a far broader and more nuanced response in the long run (see Jazzdude’s post above). I think it’s sort of a necessary evil in the current environment. Others will disagree and have some valid reasons for doing so. To answer your question directly I’ll be (admittedly) somewhat hypocritical in my response: If I am picking the people that I will have to fly in difficult conditions with, you’re goddamn right I’m going to pick the most capable regardless of race, sex, etc. If, however, I am a policy maker responsible for the long term health of a military service, I’m likely going to apply some artificial selection criteria to help ensure some level of diversity for all of the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Like I said, it’s a flawed and temporary solution. But sometimes a flawed solution is better than no solution. 

[herkbier]

4 minutes ago, Prozac said:

To answer your question directly I’ll be (admittedly) somewhat hypocritical in my response: If I am picking the people that I will have to fly in difficult conditions with, you’re goddamn right I’m going to pick the most capable regardless of race, sex, etc. If, however, I am a policy maker responsible for the long term health of a military service, I’m likely going to apply some artificial selection criteria to help ensure some level of diversity for all of the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Like I said, it’s a flawed and temporary solution. But sometimes a flawed solution is better than no solution. 

And that.. is bullshit. The men and women who volunteer to risk their lives and commit acts of violence on our behalf deserve the best available, most capable Americans on their side without any biological qualifiers. 
 

If policy makers or the American public thinks our current force make up isn’t diverse enough, then they need to find ways to develop the under represented and under preforming communities so 18-22 years from now those kids grow up to be the best available and most capable Americans willing to serve. 
 

The wrong answer is any sort of lowering of standards or preferential treatment for under represented groups. 

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, herkbier said:

And that.. is bullshit. The men and women who volunteer to risk their lives and commit acts of violence on our behalf deserve the best available, most capable Americans on their side without any biological qualifiers. 
 

If policy makers or the American public thinks our current force make up isn’t diverse enough, then they need to find ways to develop the under represented and under preforming communities so 18-22 years from now those kids grow up to be the best available and most capable Americans willing to serve. 
 

The wrong answer is any sort of lowering of standards or preferential treatment for under represented groups. 

Perfectly reasonable response. I think you’re wrong and you’re thinking tactics not strategy, but I absolutely understand where you’re coming from. I think I would enjoy a conversation over a beer or six with you on the topic. 🍺 🍺 🍺 

[jazzdude]

It’s about the person concept. Not the color of their skin or what’s between the legs.

Completely agree.

But if someone in a position of authority IS considering those factors when they shouldn't be, whether consciously or unconsciously, wouldn't it be appropriate for leadership to recognize it is happening, step in, and put a stop to it? Otherwise you disenfranchise a segment of the population, reduce the pool of people willing to volunteer for service, and limit the pool of talent and experiences our nation has to draw from.

Let's remove race and sex from the issue for a moment. How many gripes about the promotion system, school selection, strats, etc are there on these message boards? I'm pretty sure 69% of this board is just complaining about injustices "the man" levied on the line pilot hacking the mission. How many commanders still track masters degrees on their strat matrix? Or the perception (or reality) of favorite golden childs being selected as mid level Captains and being groomed as a future GO, and given opportunities to accelerate their career and check all the boxes? Most guys I've known flying the line build up a resentment towards the system that says it rewards hard work and excellence in primary duty, only to see someone who may not have been hacking the mission get rewarded for organizing the Sq holiday party and the AFAF/CFC drive. We've all probably had a bad commander or supervisor that played favorites, or emphasized the extracurriculars outside of the mission, or at the very least had the perception of doing so by some out on the line. Maybe you could decide to play the game and do the extracurricular stuff to get recognition and opportunities. Or not, the ball is in your court to decide; you own that choice and the consequences of that choice.

It sucks, people get mad and punch out of the Air Force, and if their experience was bad enough, probably would warn others away (like their kids, friends, kids of friends, etc). This hurts the Air Force twice- first for the loss of an experienced aviator, and then again in the future with it's ability to recruit. Military service is becoming much more of a family tradition, with people joining because of the positive experiences of family or close friends, especially in the officer corps.

Now throw in an immutable fact about yourself that you can't change (race or sex, though I guess you could change the latter but that opens a whole other can of worms...), and that POS commander could derail your career, especially at critical points in your career, just because they "don't like your face." That individual doesn't have the choice to play the game to do what is valued by their (crappy) leader; that choice to be in the game or not was taken from them based on something they can't change. It hurts the individual, who then may go back into their community and discourages service, reducing the pool of talent our nation has to pull from.

I think most of us want the best that the country has to offer fighting to defend our freedom, regardless of race/sex/whatever. The problem isn't just a military problem, but a societal one that also impacts the military. Quotas aren't the answer, but doing nothing just ignores the issue and may exacerbate it as time goes on.

[herkbier]

3 hours ago, Prozac said:

Perfectly reasonable response. I think you’re wrong and you’re thinking tactics not strategy, but I absolutely understand where you’re coming from. I think I would enjoy a conversation over a beer or six with you on the topic. 🍺 🍺 🍺 

Fair enough I guess, I’ve got the first round. 

[ViperMan]

12 hours ago, Guardian said:

Great point. We need more representation from minorities and majorities in the NBA. They don’t represent the community they play in.

I also agree. And would like to pile on with we need more women in prison. Men are systematically discriminated against by the justice system, and the prison population doesn't represent the broader society. Therefore, we need more women in prison.

Edited November 7, 2020 by ViperMan

[Guardian]

I’d like to see more women in the oil fields. And I’m tired of being the one getting up at night to go check out the random noises in the house. That’s not equality!

[Grabby]

3 hours ago, jazzdude said:

Completely agree.

But if someone in a position of authority IS considering those factors when they shouldn't be, whether consciously or unconsciously, wouldn't it be appropriate for leadership to recognize it is happening, step in, and put a stop to it? Otherwise you disenfranchise a segment of the population, reduce the pool of people willing to volunteer for service, and limit the pool of talent and experiences our nation has to draw from.

Let's remove race and sex from the issue for a moment. How many gripes about the promotion system, school selection, strats, etc are there on these message boards? I'm pretty sure 69% of this board is just complaining about injustices "the man" levied on the line pilot hacking the mission. How many commanders still track masters degrees on their strat matrix? Or the perception (or reality) of favorite golden childs being selected as mid level Captains and being groomed as a future GO, and given opportunities to accelerate their career and check all the boxes? Most guys I've known flying the line build up a resentment towards the system that says it rewards hard work and excellence in primary duty, only to see someone who may not have been hacking the mission get rewarded for organizing the Sq holiday party and the AFAF/CFC drive. We've all probably had a bad commander or supervisor that played favorites, or emphasized the extracurriculars outside of the mission, or at the very least had the perception of doing so by some out on the line. Maybe you could decide to play the game and do the extracurricular stuff to get recognition and opportunities. Or not, the ball is in your court to decide; you own that choice and the consequences of that choice.

It sucks, people get mad and punch out of the Air Force, and if their experience was bad enough, probably would warn others away (like their kids, friends, kids of friends, etc). This hurts the Air Force twice- first for the loss of an experienced aviator, and then again in the future with it's ability to recruit. Military service is becoming much more of a family tradition, with people joining because of the positive experiences of family or close friends, especially in the officer corps.

Now throw in an immutable fact about yourself that you can't change (race or sex, though I guess you could change the latter but that opens a whole other can of worms...), and that POS commander could derail your career, especially at critical points in your career, just because they "don't like your face." That individual doesn't have the choice to play the game to do what is valued by their (crappy) leader; that choice to be in the game or not was taken from them based on something they can't change. It hurts the individual, who then may go back into their community and discourages service, reducing the pool of talent our nation has to pull from.

I think most of us want the best that the country has to offer fighting to defend our freedom, regardless of race/sex/whatever. The problem isn't just a military problem, but a societal one that also impacts the military. Quotas aren't the answer, but doing nothing just ignores the issue and may exacerbate it as time goes on.

Funny, I read your entire post and agreed with almost everything about it, until the last paragraph.  Then I realized you were indicating minorities and women are not given a fair shake in today's military.  I can't think of a single example of a minority or woman being squashed by a superior due to their race/sex in the 21st century.  I have seen them given preferential treatment though.  

If you don't desire quotas, but support quotas in the interim to fix a perceived problem, can you very simply state what that perceived problem is?  

Edited November 7, 2020 by Grabby

[jazzdude]

Funny, I read your entire post and agreed with almost everything about it, until the last paragraph.  Then I realized you were indicating minorities and women are not given a fair shake in today's military.  I can't think of a single example of a minority or woman being squashed by a superior due to their race/sex in the 21st century.  I have seen them given preferential treatment though.  
If you don't desire quotas, but support quotas in the interim to fix a perceived problem, can you very simply state what that perceived problem is?  

I will give you that there's probably not a lot of overt racism/sexism anymore.

I don't support quotas for the long run, and I'm not sure that quotas in the near term are necessarily the right answer either (if anything it should be a tool of absolute last resort except maybe in recruiting efforts/goals, and I don't think we're anywhere near needing to be that heavy handed for promotions or retention).

Hate to quote my earlier post, but going to do it anyways...

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/06/25/inside-armys-decision-eliminate-photos-officer-promotion-boards.html/amp

"From taking a careful look at the data we collected from that experiment, our study finds that when you remove the DA photo ... voters took less time to cast the votes on each individual file, and then the outcomes for minorities and women improved," Wojtaszek said.

The study showed that using official photos led to decisions from board members that appeared to reveal unconscious bias, Army officials say.

Those are the kind of fixes we should be after, not necessarily mandating quotas, which would likely lead to resentment on both sides of that quota.

But the military does like to promote a certain appearance, whether we like to admit it openly or not. Why else would every package to be an exec, or aide de camp, etc, or any job that generally can fast track your career, all require a photo in the application package? Naysayers will say it's because we don't want any fatties, but if they meet height/weight standards, why do you need a picture? Especially when requiring a picture introduces biases into a decision based solely on what a person looks like and not what their abilities are? Fix the weight standard if you're worried about overweight airmen in uniform.

As an analogy, musical orchestras used to be dominated by white men. Everyone would audition, and the "best" would get selected, which happened to be white men. When they started moving to blind auditions (person auditioning is not seen by the reviewers, isn't identified by anything but a number, and doesn't talk during the audition) to prove they were being fair, the number of women and minorities making the cut significantly increased. Now it's a pretty standard practice to do blind auditions in order to hire the best musicians, and remove any racial/gender biases based on what the musician looks like.

Then there are some easy kills, like fixing our dress and appearance AFI to allow hairstyles that accommodate people of different ethnicities. It also spelled out what was considered faddish, narrowing the definition since airmen provided feedback on getting counseled based on the whims of a someone who outranked them thinking their appearance was "faddish." Or extended shaving waivers, etc. But all that took way longer to fix than codifying pilots pushing up their flight suit sleeves (which arguably, who cares? We were going to push our sleeves up regardless).

There's also been a trend to accommodate where we can. Uniforms/equipment sized for women so they can be comfortable. Researching solutions for a female piddle pack so they aren't tactically dehydrating themselves for flight. Stuff that makes their lives easier so they can focus on hacking the mission without having to compensate for things that don't fit, improving their performance. Hell, we just recently updated what anthro standards are going to be used for future aircraft to accommodate a wider set of the American population, and now accounts for typical female ranges for anthro measurements. How long have women been flying jets to when that standard was updated? That opens the door for a bigger pool to draw from to find and train the best aircrew, and no longer eliminates a large portion of women from pilot duties based on being an average sized woman.

If I were king for a day:
- Fix mentorship across the board. Knowing the game is half the battle, and it can be difficult to either reach out to someone for career guidance, or to get honest feedback, especially if there's a perceived (or real) cultural barrier. Can't just be pencil whipped like OPR midterm feedbacks (only had 3 in my 14 years so far). At the very minimum, you should have access to direct feedback from not only your rater, but your additional rater as well, who should serve as a check/balance against what your rater's assessment of your performance is.
- Reassess how we hire into certain jobs, and be on guard for biases (based on race/gender) creeping into the decision making process, especially any time interviews are conducted. Get rid of photos in hiring packages full stop.
- Consider masking names, gender, race, ethnicity on PRFs.
- Continue with community outreach, and encourage recruiting in communities that are less represented in the military. This has to be supported by other government functions to provide education which paves the way for other opportunities. The other piece is public messaging -the military isn't a career of last resort, but can a meaningful and fulfilling experience and/or career.

The goal is to remove barriers for people across the board, not to give any particular group an extra advantage in the name of diversity. Though some barriers may only exist for particular groups. And I think the AF has been on a good path on that end in recent months.

[ViperMan]

Is it just me, or does choosing people based on race, sex, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic quite literally tokenize them?