← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · confederate_commando
Thread ID: 18609 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-06-10
2005-06-10 02:42 | User Profile
:tank:
Complaints of bias stir South Carolina National Guard
BY WAYNE WASHINGTON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
COLUMBIA, S.C. - (KRT) - For Thomas Mackey, it was always about something more than the weekend training or even the extra cash, nice as that was.
Military service was a chance to scratch that itch of adventure, to see the world beyond the small Lancaster County, S.C., town of Heath Springs. But the love affair that started when Mackey was drafted into the Army in 1968 and continued in 1974 when he joined the South Carolina Army National Guard has soured over the years.
Mackey and other black former Army Guardsmen in South Carolina said discrimination stained their service in the Guard, where they allege that blacks face impediments to promotion while a good old boy network protects and promotes white soldiers.
The military remains an important career option for many people, particularly in South Carolina, and Guard membership often brings in an important second income.
An examination of statistics provided to the state by the Guard shows that its enlisted ranks are racially diverse but that most of its black officers are junior officers. And a strikingly small number of black officers have positions in a special program that helps run the Guard on a full-time, day-to-day basis.
Of the 87 officers in that program, six are black. None are ranked higher than major.
The 2005 edition of the National Guard Almanac, a national review of the Guard published each year by a private firm that uses Department of Defense statistics, describes a nationwide glass ceiling barring black guardsmen from the upper reaches of the officer corps.
The Guard's leadership in South Carolina denies that discrimination is a problem, pointing to unit surveys that do not indicate that black soldiers think they face barriers because of race.
Guard officials made several of the surveys available to the state, including one from a unit where a majority of those who responded identified themselves as black. Just under half of those who responded in that survey said they were satisfied with their service in the Guard. About 20 percent said a lack of promotion opportunities is their biggest trouble with the Guard, and 41 percent said a clique runs their unit.
That unit's responses were very similar to those given by members of another unit, where most guardsmen identified themselves as white.
The surveys are anonymous so guardsmen can feel more comfortable providing honest answers.
Still, several black Army guardsmen, convinced that their concerns would not be addressed through official channels, brought complaints about discrimination to the Columbia Urban League last fall and later took their allegations to the state. Most of those who complained were recently retired guardsmen with more than 20 years of military experience. Mackey expressed his concerns to the state before leaving the Guard in December.
Told the names of individual guardsmen who have been critical of the Guard, Lt. Col. Peter Brooks, the Guard's director of public affairs, said "there is definitely another side to the story."
He said that privacy rules prevent him from using the soldiers' military records to explain why they might be unhappy with the Guard.
The soldiers were honorably discharged and say they are not complaining about the Guard to settle old scores.
While the soldiers have individual circumstances where they feel they were not treated fairly, they also had more general allegations of problems with the culture of the Guard in this small state, where guardsmen are often friends, co-workers or fellow church members.
"If you're not in the clique, you're not in the clique," said Ernest English Jr., who retired from the Guard as a sergeant after 24 years.
He and other black guardsmen say black supervisors are few and that job openings are created for well-connected whites, who readily find mentors to help them make their way up the chain of command.
Maj. Gen. Harry Burchstead Jr., the Guard's deputy adjutant general, said units were once allowed to give preference to their own candidates for promotion. But he said that system was changed about 10 years ago to one where those who are promoted are chosen from a statewide field based on how many points they were awarded for criteria such as education, physical fitness and military awards and decorations.
"Our promotion system is adopted by 50 states," said Command Sgt. Maj. James Harris, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer in the South Carolina National Guard. "It is not unique. It's a points system; it's not black or white."
The 2005 national review of the Guard offered a stark assessment of where the Guard is and where it is attempting to move from.
"Over the past 30 years, the Guard has evolved from an era of segregation and exclusion to an era of enlightened leadership, affirmative recruitment efforts, valuing diversity, and equal opportunity for all," the review states in a section on diversity.
Still, some blacks feel the Guard in South Carolina is biased against them.
Frequent complaints include not being able to join a local unit at a particular rank and getting little or no notice about schools that have to be completed to get promotions.
Some promotions are tied to completing training schools within two years. The schools, frequently held outside of South Carolina, can last for several weeks.
When Wesley Dennis of Columbia, S.C., joined the Guard in 1997, he had served about 15 years in the military, two as an active-duty soldier in the Army and another 13 in the Army Reserve.
Dennis said he had reached the rank of E-6, staff sergeant, and wanted to join a Guard unit in South Carolina's Midlands region. But Dennis said Guard officials told him he could not join a local unit as an E-6.
"They were saying for me to maintain that stripe, I had to move up state or take a demotion," Dennis said. "They said they didn't have an E-6 slot."
Dennis joined up as an E-5 but never got over losing his stripe.
"They always create slots for people," said Dennis, who has retired from the Guard. "They've done it. I've seen it done. I know it can be done. I don't want to say it's a black-white thing, but it is. If you're white, they create a slot. If you're black, they don't."
Burchstead, who is white, said his brother had to accept a demotion to join the Guard.
Brooks added that the promotion system is structured so the Guard gets the top candidate in a particular job area. "Everyone competes in their own occupational specialty," he said.
Soldiers now regularly accept promotions that call for them to travel across the state to train with a new unit, the Guard's leadership says. Guardsmen don't have to move to the area where the unit is located, but they must travel to that unit at their own expense for monthly drills.
Looking at Burchstead, Brooks and Harris in his office, the Guard's adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Stanhope Spears, said: "There's not a person in this room who hasn't driven to hell and back to get (a) promotion."
Burchstead said the Guard adopted a policy two or three years ago mandating that promotion candidates be told about schools 30 days before they are required to attend.
Black guardsmen complained that their white counterparts were told about schools far enough in advance for them to make arrangements to attend, while they got little or no notice. Because of the length of the schools, guardsmen usually need time to make arrangements with family members and employers.
Burchstead said the Guard is working to make sure the 30-day notice policy is followed.
Without acknowledging whether race played any role, Burchstead said the notification issue "was a problem. I hope we addressed it."
A review of figures provided by the Guard shows that the overall racial diversity of its enlisted personnel far exceeds that of the state and the regular Army.
Just over 28 percent of those who have been promoted to E-7 are black. More than 22 percent of those at E-8 are black. E-7s and E-8s are senior-level non-commissioned officers.
But black commissioned officers in the Guard are twice as likely as whites to hold the lowest ranks. And as late as April, when the Guard supplied demographic figures to the state, no black guardsman had reached a rank higher than lieutenant colonel, while 39 white guardsmen had been promoted above that rank.
Since that time, Brooks said, at least two black guardsmen have been promoted to colonel.
Black guardsmen said they can recall few instances of being supervised by anyone who is not white.
"The black lieutenants do not get promoted like the whites do," Mackey said. "They're put on the back burner."
The 2005 review of the Guard confirms the problem on a national level and offers at least a partial explanation for why it exists.
"The major challenge continues to be the glass ceiling - the upper third of the enlisted structure and officer corps - where minorities are present in significantly lower numbers," the review states. "The pipeline presently reflects under representation of minorities in most positions that lead to key level positions."
With the national economy providing private-sector opportunities, Brooks said a smaller number of officers of all races are being commissioned through the various programs offered across the country, reducing the number of candidates the Guard has to choose from.
Rather than seeing the number of black second and first lieutenants as a problem, he said the numbers suggest the Guard's senior officer corps will be more diverse in the future.
"We weren't attracting black officers in the past, but I think it's a whole lot better now," he said. "It's encouraging for us. Our job is to mentor them so they will be senior officers for us."
Black guardsmen counter that such mentoring is rarely, if ever, provided to them, while white soldiers do get such help.
Complaints about favoritism in the South Carolina Guard have surfaced before, but they usually centered on the fact that South Carolina is the only state where the Guard's top leader, its adjutant general, is elected.
That system has led to adjutant general candidates accepting campaign donations from soldiers who serve under them. It has also spawned charges that soldiers who do not support the winning candidate suffer silent reprisals when they seek a promotion.
But in their complaints about the Guard, black soldiers said discrimination is just as big of a problem as favoritism.
One black former officer in the Guard said discrimination is "rampant" in the Guard.
"It is just like being on the plantation," said the officer, who requested that his name not be used.
He described a Guard where white enlisted soldiers offer black officers few of the informal niceties officers expect in other services. And he recalled passing by the open door of one Guard officer who had a large Confederate flag emblem on his office wall.
The black officer and other black former guardsmen said Guard units all but ignore required diversity training by merely setting up a table with brochures on it or by doing nothing at all.
Several black guardsmen allege that white guardsmen at local units simply complete the paperwork saying the training has taken place when it has not.
"Yes, that can happen," Brooks said. "Does it happen? I'm not aware of it ever happening."
Physical fitness tests and weight requirements are commonly used methods of removing blacks or preventing their promotion, several black guardsmen said.
Col. John Lee, the Army inspector general responsible for investigating complaints about the South Carolina Guard, said he did not feel comfortable discussing whether complaints of discrimination represent a significant portion of the cases his office handles. He referred questions to Brooks and Burchstead, who said pay and benefits questions take up the bulk of the inspector general's work.
Burchstead and Brooks said information about how to file a discrimination complaint is posted at Guard units, and the inspector general's office checks to make sure it remains posted and updated as necessary.
Several black guardsmen said they did not feel comfortable lodging formal complaints about discrimination in the Guard because supervisors are friendly with each other and could easily retaliate.
"Anyone that was black, anyone who was smart, got branded as a trouble-maker," Mackey said.
Guard policy calls for members to file official discrimination complaints with an officer in their chain of command. If the chain of command itself is part of the alleged problem, guardsmen can file a complaint with the inspector general's office.
Brooks said the Guard wants those who have a complaint to come forward.
"If you don't get it in the system, it's never going to get resolved," he said. "That's why the system exists."
é 2005, The State (Columbia, S.C.).
Visit the State at [url]http://www.thestate.com[/url]
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
[url]http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/11852733.htm[/url]
:whstl:
2005-06-15 22:56 | User Profile
The problem here is not the lack of negro officers, but that there are negros in the military at all.