Air Force General Addresses Racial Slurs on Campus: ‘You Should Be Outraged’
- 7 years ago
Air Force General Addresses Racial Slurs on Campus: ‘You Should Be Outraged’
The head of the Air Force Academy delivered a resounding message on Thursday in response to racial slurs
that were found on the academy’s campus, saying that if students could not treat their peers of different races with respect, “then you need to get out.”
In a five-minute address in front of the academy’s 4,000 cadets and 1,500 staff members, Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria affirmed the Air Force’s belief in “the power of diversity” and insisted
that “small thinking and horrible ideas” had no place there.
He said that these events formed a backdrop that had to be addressed, and that to think otherwise would be “tone deaf.”
After calling for a civil discourse, he spoke of the power of various forms of diversity, evoking “the power
that we come from all walks of life, that we come from all parts of this country, that we come from all races, we come from all backgrounds, gender, all makeup, all upbringing
“I would be naïve, and we would all be naïve, to think that everything is perfect here.”
He then explicitly linked the discovery of the slurs to events like the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists marched with torches in August,
and Ferguson, Mo., where the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a police officer in 2014 set off protests across the country.
Though the slurs were discovered at the prep school, “it would be naïve” to think the episode
did not reflect on the academy and the Air Force as a whole, General Silveria said.
He was responding to racial slurs that were found on the dormitory message boards of five black students
at a preparatory school on the academy’s campus on Monday, said the academy, which is investigating.
The head of the Air Force Academy delivered a resounding message on Thursday in response to racial slurs
that were found on the academy’s campus, saying that if students could not treat their peers of different races with respect, “then you need to get out.”
In a five-minute address in front of the academy’s 4,000 cadets and 1,500 staff members, Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria affirmed the Air Force’s belief in “the power of diversity” and insisted
that “small thinking and horrible ideas” had no place there.
He said that these events formed a backdrop that had to be addressed, and that to think otherwise would be “tone deaf.”
After calling for a civil discourse, he spoke of the power of various forms of diversity, evoking “the power
that we come from all walks of life, that we come from all parts of this country, that we come from all races, we come from all backgrounds, gender, all makeup, all upbringing
“I would be naïve, and we would all be naïve, to think that everything is perfect here.”
He then explicitly linked the discovery of the slurs to events like the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists marched with torches in August,
and Ferguson, Mo., where the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a police officer in 2014 set off protests across the country.
Though the slurs were discovered at the prep school, “it would be naïve” to think the episode
did not reflect on the academy and the Air Force as a whole, General Silveria said.
He was responding to racial slurs that were found on the dormitory message boards of five black students
at a preparatory school on the academy’s campus on Monday, said the academy, which is investigating.