My purpose in writing this article is not to throw stones. Most who read this are products of our Army system and have thrived under our system. Perhaps taking a moment to see things from the perspective of a black officer will help us to make the present system better.
The data from DCSPER, the GAO studies, Army Times articles, surveys, and personal interviews certainly indicate that a problem does exist. They show that black officers are failing. Black officers are not progressing in rank and responsibilities at the same rate as their white counterparts. If we proceed from the assumption that the cause is not simple racism, and I believe that assumption is correct, then perhaps the cause lies in the way our ROTC cadets are educated and assimilated, the way developmental assignments and OERs are managed, the need for better mentoring of young black officers, and our mutual shortcomings in terms of cultural awareness.
Might there be other explanations for the data? Perhaps. For example, it has been suggested that in the mid-to-late 1980s, when businesses were expanding and looking for ways to improve their racial mixes, the private sector may have taken from the Army the cream of the young black officer crop. I haven't the data to either prove or disprove such a contention, but it does not ring true in my opinion. Certainly some young black officers with good educations and leadership experience are attractive candidates to fill positions in the private sector, but based on my personal experience and anecdotal information from others, I don't believe that factor could account for the disparities in the data on promotions. To the contrary, I know of bright young black officers who are leaving the service and are scrambling to try to find jobs worthy of their talents.
So if the data are accurate and we are drawing the right inferences, the question then becomes, What are we going to do with this information? If we take the traditional approach, we will talk about it, study it, analyze it, and then hope it doesn't raise its ugly head on our watch.
One step forward would be for senior commanders to focus on performance and potential and to do what they can to minimize the workings of the old boy network. The only way this can be done is for standards to be set on how jobs are given. Once standards are set they must also be monitored. Any manipulation of the system that results in unfairness must be dealt with squarely and swiftly. If this happens, the playing field will automatically become more level. This problem has been commonly acknowledged but never dealt with directly. "Taking care of one's buddies" seems like a positive cultural trait within the Army, but most young black officers don't have anyone to take care of them, and they are thus left out of the old boy network to the detriment of the officers themselves and the Army as a whole.
Another important step would be to increase the stature of ROTC assignments, and thereby the quality of our instructors. Improving the racial mix of instructors would similarly enhance the ROTC experience of our soon-to-be lieutenants.
After accession, providing quality mentoring for young black officers is essential. The importance of this can hardly be overstated.
Finally, we can start educating our officers and senior leaders in cultural awareness. How that is done is important, though. Spending money and wasting time in pursuit of political correctness or some new catch-phrase would be counterproductive; it would annoy and aggravate rather than enlighten the participants. But actually making an effort to understand why blacks and whites react differently in military and social settings would be of great value in helping us to work together and understand each other. As professional soldiers we need to learn to communicate across cultural lines, not unlike the cross-cultural communication in which the US Army Special Forces excels in external scenarios. Army schools spend a lot of money on tools like the Myers-Briggs test to tell us what most of us already know about ourselves. That time and money would be better spent teaching us why soldiers act the way they do, why blacks and whites act differently, and why some are perceived to have bad attitudes. Teach us how to overcome some of our cultural biases, or at least make us aware that we all have some. Once we acknowledge that we have these biases, then we can start to work through them.
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