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First Black Service Chief in U.S. Military History Shares Moving Message on Race in America

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. message must not be forgotten after one week. The general was confirmed to serve as a service chief in the U.S. military for the first time in a historic vote by the Senate 98-0 this month. As chief-of-staff of the Air Force, he spoke to a nation embroiled in deep emotional conflict over racial injustices following the deaths of currently several victims [not just one] of police brutality, including retired black officer David Dorn killed by looters.

Vice President Mike Pence presided over the historic 98-0 vote, who recently in a new interview repeatedly refused to say the words “Black lives matter,” instead saying that, “all lives matter in a very real sense.” Vice President Mike Pence, though presiding over this general’s historic nomination, in ignorance shows himself to be part of the problem. “Black lives matter” means all lives matter, but that Black lives matter also. “All lives matter” is a phrase that does not show solidarity, but is dismissive of issues and racial bias (What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work) in the judicial system, and falsely imply “Black lives matter” means “only black lives matter.” In fact, some people that often exclaim “all lives matter” often, add as an after-thought some period within their discussion, that “it was wrong that [such individual] died, and I pray for the people” . . . to minimize the rebuttal and appear in sympathy with the victim of the injustice, but never the cause. This issue is similar to 2014, when 100 people gathered in central New York City to face off against roughly 200 demonstrating against police brutality and wore opposed to ‘I can’t breathe’ shirts, wore ‘I can breathe’ t-shirts at rally supporting New York police officers. However, Right-wing pundits and citizens have rationalized the brutal force of the police by pointing to, e.g., George Floyd’s criminal and small-time porn record (Here’s Why Candace Owens Approach to the Black Community must be Rejected and Countered at Every Step Even by Republicans). As I had written in my Stance on Death of George Floyd and Police Brutality, NFL, Conservatives on the Protests, the protests have nothing to do with the character of the victims, the truth of which alone that person’s family know.

Upon the general’s nomination to be the first African American chief to lead Air Force, Brown said:

“I’m thinking about the African Americans that went before me to make this opportunity possible. I’m thinking about the immense expectations that come with this historic nomination, particularly through the lens of current events plaguing our nation.”

TRUE AMERICAN MINERVANS are arising at every hour.

AIR FORCE GENERAL ON BEING A BLACK AIRMAN AND ABOUT PROTESTS AGAINST INJUSTICE OF POLICY BRUTALITY

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