Mr. Scorpio
Mr. Scorpio's Journal
The Few, the Proud, the White: The Marine Corps Balks at Promoting Generals of Color
Col. Anthony Henderson, center, receiving the Legion of Merit award at Camp Pendleton in California in 2016.Credit...Lance Cpl. Tyler Byther/United States Marine Corps
By Helene Cooper
Aug. 31, 2020
WASHINGTON — All things being equal, Col. Anthony Henderson has the military background that the Marine Corps says it prizes in a general: multiple combat tours, leadership experience and the respect of those he commanded and most who commanded him.
Yet three times he has been passed over for brigadier general, a prominent one-star rank that would put Colonel Henderson on the path to the top tier of Marine Corps leadership. Last year, the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, even added a handwritten recommendation to Colonel Henderson’s candidacy: “Eminently qualified Marine we need now as BG,” he wrote.
But never in its history has the Marine Corps had anyone other than a white man in its most senior leadership posts. Colonel Henderson is Black.
“Tony Henderson has done everything you could do in the Marines except get a hand salute from Jesus Christ himself,” said Milton D. Whitfield Sr., a former Marine gunnery sergeant who served for 21 years.
Proud and fierce in their identity, the Marines have a singular race problem that critics say is rooted in decades of resistance to change. As the nation reels this summer from protests challenging centuries-long perceptions of race, the Marines — who have long cultivated a reputation as the United States’ strongest fighting force — remain an institution where a handful of white men rule over 185,000 white, African-American, Hispanic and Asian men and women.
“It took an act of Congress last year to get them to integrate by gender at the platoon level,” said Representative Anthony G. Brown, Democrat of Maryland and a former Army helicopter pilot. “And now they continue to hold onto that 1950s vision of who Marines are.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/us/politics/marines-race-general.html
'You're disgusting': Biracial family in the Northland welcomed to KC with racist attacks
BY MELINDA HENNEBERGER
AUGUST 31, 2020 05:00 AM , UPDATED 3 HOURS 59 MINUTES AGO
It started as soon as her family, along with all of their belongings and their dog Kingston, arrived in Kansas City from Southern California not quite two months ago, Maureen Roland says: The smiles that froze and then disappeared when her new Northland neighbors, near Parkville, caught a glimpse of her Black husband and biracial children. The woman down the street who put her hand up and said, “No, thank you,” when Maureen introduced herself. The slurs shouted from across the way, the pointing, the pretending to retch.
“Kansas City nice” is real, but so is Kansas City not-so-nice. There are people in our town who yell, “You’re disgusting!” at the Rolands’ house as they walk by, and who have gotten out of line at the Best Buy to avoid them.
The Rolands have lived all over the world, so it’s not a revelation that there’s racism in it. But “I have not experienced it to this degree,” she says. “I have not experienced it this much. I have not experienced it this vocally.”
Her husband, Jamari Roland, is a 37-year-old U.S. Army veteran, originally from Los Angeles, who works for the State Department. A special agent to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, he’s here for a year of training at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth.
Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/melinda-henneberger/article245332925.html?fbclid=IwAR1-xKQHjzXU6b_Pw7212QdeSPD5opWYpV2e_ywjCO1kjdl_lkUJqB512wo#storylink=cpy
On a dark desert highway...
Cool wind in my hair.
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself:
"This could be heaven or this could be hell"
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year)
You can find it here
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted
She got the Mercedes benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain:
"Please bring me my wine"
He said: "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They're living it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said: "We are all just prisoners here of our own device"
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax," said the night man
"We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave"
September...
For anyone asking me to have faith in the majority of white voters this November...
In spite of everything that Trump and the Republicans have done, well...
Good luck with that.
As far as I’m concerned, The Whitelash still abides.
This election is going to come down to the bleached white majority who looks at Trump and sees “Their President” that they’re willing to uphold at all costs and a Rainbow Coalition of everybody else who are both appalled at him and willing to do what it takes to remove him from office.
We’re in for a hard time to remove him, as Trump, his cronies and a compliant press are willing to normalize all of the fascist behavior that supports him. Our democracy is crumbling right now, thanks to white nationalists both in and out of uniform. Simply voting Trump out of the White House is the very least we can do. We need to rebuild our democratic institutions from the ground up. We need to face down all of fascism burning up America. I just don’t have faith in the white majority of this country to support all of this, because in their minds, “Democracy for all” works against their own interests.
These people people need to be actively depowered and their sense of entitlement rendered inert. They’re not going to take it lying down, just looking at the apoplectic responses of all those Trump voting Karens and Kevins out there, triggered by their mere proximity to non-white Americans and simple requests to wear masks. Look at all the police departments that respond to peaceful protests against police brutality with even more police brutality and the white majority who support them, some of them even becoming vigilantes and toting guns in that support.
So, I have to say that asking me to believe that white America will come to its senses is a tall order, especially when these people cannot see the same objective reality as any person with any Gawd damned common sense can. These are people who believe that Trump’s gibberish is great oratory, that cops murdering innocent Black people is law and order and that America is made and maintained in their own white image.
They have both a man in the White House who comforts them with that belief and talking heads on their TVs to reinforce it.
In spite of the polls, I possess my own singular existential imperative to not give all of that the benefit of the doubt.
Convince me otherwise.
Don't think of "creeping fascism" taking over America, it's already here
https://twitter.com/mr_scorpio/status/1300775143099301888I know that strikes many of you as somehow wrong. So let me challenge you for a moment. How much experience do you really have with authoritarianism? Any? If you’re a “real” American, you have precisely none.
Take it from us survivors and scholars of authoritarianism. This is exactly how it happens. The situation could not — could not — be any worse. The odds are now very much against American democracy surviving.
If you don’t believe me, ask a friend. I invite everyone who’s lived under authoritarianism to comment. Those of us how have?
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