Goldich: I meant what I said — and it is a problem really created by old white men

By Robert Goldich

Best Defense guest re-respondent

To "An African-American Academy Grad":

I am sorry you didn’t like my posting. But don’t tell me that when I said "all too many" African-American Academy football players I meant anything else than just that. I know what I said and that was what I meant. If I had thought — which I manifestly did not, and do not — that what I said was true of all African-American midshipmen, I would have said so.

I did not say what I said lightly. I have heard it from too many people for whom I have high respect and who are intimately familiar with the Naval Academy. My views are buttressed by a careful reading of, again, all too many accounts of various ways in which the mission of the Academy to commission Navy and Marine Corps officers of high quality has been compromised by excessive emphasis on football and football players of all races. 

I could not agree with you more that we as a nation must progress in the long, slow, and painful process of making up for 250 years in which African-Americans were held in chains, often literally, and treated as property. And essential to that progress, in striving for diversity at the Naval Academy, is selecting midshipmen based on their potential to succeed as officers of the Navy and Marine Corps and not as football players. Otherwise we have what has been called the soft bigotry of lowered expectations. If we start calling anyone who calls attention to problems related to race "racist," we get nowhere.

I should emphasize that I am all in favor of vigorous programs of both intramural and intercollegiate athletics at the Naval Academy and the other service academies. Competitive athletics are an integral part of inculcating physical endurance and performance under high pressure, and washing out those who cannot do so, in preparation for commissioned service. This is true everywhere but it is especially true for the Marine Corps, and especially for Marine infantry officers. I don’t question this at all. 

Finally, I should also note that if I condemn any group of people in this sorry situation, it certainly isn’t any midshipmen, African-American or otherwise. Rather, it’s the almost entirely lily-white cohorts of retired senior naval officers who exert incredibly heavy pressure on the Academy and the Navy generally to carve out special niches for football players. The African-American recruiting situation I describe is only one of these niches.