VIDEO: CNO Gilday Message to Fleet on Race Relations in the Navy
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Shipmates, CNO Gilday here. Three weeks ago, I asked you to listen. Now, I am strongly encouraging every Navy leader – uniform and civilian, active and reserve – to start a dialogue at each of your commands.
As a Navy, we must seize this opportunity to engage in conversations about race relations and inclusion within our force. Now is the time to have open and honest conversations across our Navy.
Each of us should be thinking about how we can contribute in a positive way, and what we can do to better our Navy.
It starts with each of us…
To start that conversation, I’d like to share some personal experiences from a few of our shipmates.
To be clear…as Sailors, and as a Navy, we cannot tolerate discrimination or racism of any kind. We must work to identify and eliminate individual and systemic racism within our force. We are beginning that work now – examining our policies, ranging from recruiting and assignments, advancements and promotions, to our military justice system and other policies.
That is why we are standing up a task force designed to identify and remove racial barriers and improve inclusion within our Navy.
We must demand of each other that we treat everyone with dignity and respect. If you won’t do that, then our Navy is not the best place for you.
We are one team, and we are one Navy.”
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You've got your head shaved, and your first set of work uniform on. You look around in the barracks in basic training, and it is driven home that people from different races, religious belief, and social means have defended and died in the protection of our Nation.
Those facts can't be made any simpler.
And then it occurs to you...WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER! Nobody gets thru basic training by yourself
A backwoods kid from Athens, Georgia taught me some things that got me through survival training. I gave him a hand in getting through electronics school and sonar school.
We must demand of each other that we treat everyone with dignity and respect. If you won’t do that, then our Navy is not the best place for you.
Those words should be the mantra for every branch of the armed services.
Happy that they are addressing it. I was in the Army in 1959 and experienced one hell of a lot of racism. In fact, 3 of us were refused admittance to the USO club in Columbus GA. (Ft. Benning) because of our color and were told to go to the ''your peoples'' club.