The Air Force's Black DEI Myths

This is an excerpt from the chapter entitled: "The Myth of Colorblindness: Everyone Has the Same Air Force Experience":

There’s a popular expression, “Oh, I don’t see color.” Have you ever heard it? On the surface, it sounds like it could be a good thing. However, the notion that color blindness is beneficial is a myth. To not see color, to be color blind if you will, is to be blind to important differences in culture, upbringing, and norms. As it pertains to minorities, it means being blind to their different experiences, pressures, and disadvantages. Even worse, the color blindness myth says that if I can’t see the differences and their corresponding disadvantages, they don’t exist. More specifically, under the myth of color blindness, majority-race Airmen are blinded to and led into denial of the disadvantages that minority Airmen experience.

 The survey results from the Air Force’s RDR examined in this chapter clearly show that nonminority and minority Airmen can have different Air Force experiences. The survey results support the premise that the Air Force culture and systems can impact minorities differently than they affect nonminorities. 

The fact that minorities experience the Air Force differently is not solely a function of the Air Force’s processes and regulations but of its people and culture. In the RDR excerpt below, the writers point out that no bias was found in the Air Forces personnel and legal guidance:

“AFI Review no inherent, systemic, or procedural biases were found in the twenty 36-series (personnel) guidance documents or the 51-series (legal) publications pertaining to discipline.” (Force, 2020)

The Air Force, in diversity study after diversity study, tries to find solutions by fixing processes and regulations. However, one area of real blindness for the Air Force is its corporate inability to recognize that the Air Force, as a collection of human beings, is, without question, a reflection of American society and culture. As a result, unfortunately, the Air Force reflects the current ugly part of the majority culture that refuses to accept that minorities have a different “American” experience. For example, an “unruly” George Floyd and an “unruly” group of mostly white people storming the Capitol on January 6th vividly highlighted that African Americans often experience the police and justice system differently.

The following RDR excerpt shows how widespread the racial disparities are for black Airmen and civilians. The disparities are so pervasive and are of such magnitude that it is mindboggling to conceive that they could not be linked on a cause-and-effect basis with bias and racism (*underlining added for emphasis).

“HIGHLIGHTS

This Independent Review confirmed racial disparity exists for black service members in the following areas: law enforcement apprehensions, criminal investigations, military justice, administrative separations, placement into occupational career fields, certain promotion rates, professional military educational development, and leadership opportunities. While the data show racial disparity, it does not indicate causality. Data alone do not address why racial disparity exists in these areas. Examples of disparities identified include:

Military Justice and Discipline – enlisted black service members were 72% more likely than enlisted white service members to receive Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 15, commanding officer’s non-judicial punishment (NJP), and 57% more likely than white service members to face courts-martial.

Administrative Disciplinary Actions and Discharges – young black enlisted members are almost twice as likely as white enlisted members to be involuntarily discharged based on misconduct.

Investigations – black service members are 1.64 times more likely to be suspects in Office of Special Investigations (OSI) criminal cases, and twice as likely to be apprehended by Security Forces. Based on limited data, black service members are investigated and substantiated for Military Equal Opportunity (MEO) sexual harassment cases at a higher rate than white members. No racial disparity was identified in IG reprisal and restriction investigations, and the DAF does not maintain demographic data on Commander Directed Investigations.

Accessions – enlisted black service members are overrepresented in accessions when compared to their proportion of the eligible U.S. population. Black service members are underrepresented in operational career fields and overrepresented in support career fields, which may affect their promotion opportunities.

Professional Military Education (PME) – since 2015, black officers have been overrepresented in PME nominations but underrepresented in designations to attend. The gap between nomination percentages and designation percentages is larger in Senior Developmental Education (SDE) than Intermediate Developmental Education (IDE). Enlisted PME are all “must attend” courses based on rank and promotion date.

Promotions – black service members are underrepresented in promotions to E5-E7 and O4-O6. Additionally, black officers are underrepresented in Definitely Promote (DP) allocations for O5 and O6. Black, permanent, full-time civilians are underrepresented in GS-13 through Senior Executive Service (SES) grades.

Retention – across the enlisted population, the data revealed no consistent disparity in retention rates by race. Within the officer population, the data revealed black officers were slightly overrepresented in separations at 5-15 years of service and underrepresented in separations at 16-20 years of service.

AFI Review – no inherent, systemic, or procedural biases were found in the twenty 36-series (personnel) guidance documents or the 51-series (legal) publications pertaining to discipline. Edits to enhance clarity were recommended.

The Voice of the Airmen and Space Professionals – black service members voiced a consistent lack of confidence in DAF discipline processes and developmental opportunities compared to their white peers. For example, of the 123,000+ DAF IG Survey respondents:

• 2 out of every 5 black enlisted, civilians, and officers do not trust their chain of command to address racism, bias, and unequal opportunities

• 1 out of every 3 black service members said they believe the military discipline system is biased against them

• 3 out of every 5 black service members believe they do not and will not receive the same benefit of the doubt as their white peers if they get in trouble

• 1 out of every 3 black officers do not believe the Air Force and Space Force provide them the same opportunities to advance as their white peers, and

• 2 out of every 5 black civilians have seen racial bias in the services’ promotion system” (Force, 2020)

In one section of the RDR, it says, “Thousands of black service members and civilians reported experiencing issues ranging from bias to outright racial discrimination.” Those experiences were interpreted as “isolated individual acts of racism” that “may contribute to the racial disparities identified in this report.” Thousands of incidents of bias and discrimination were reported, but not considered cumulatively as evidence of widespread bias and discrimination. (Force, 2020) 

Another RDR quote says something similar: “The Voice of the Airmen and Space Professionals.  – black service members voiced a consistent lack of confidence in DAF discipline processes and developmental opportunities compared to their white peers.” (Force, 2020)

Here again, the preponderance of black military and civilian people in the Air Force said that the wide-ranging disparities confirmed by the RDR are caused by bias and/or discrimination. Why isn’t that enough to “indicate causality?” Are the actual experiences of tens of thousands of black Airmen and civilians not valid? Do they have to be verified by someone who is not black to be valid? Wasn’t that the message of George Floyd’s death? That police brutality wasn’t real until White America saw it?