Who played the
race card in the Webster Smith case? Was it Commandant of Cadets Doug
Wisniewski and CWO2 David French? Or was it Webster Smith’s defense team? Could
it have been the news media? Someone certainly did, because the race of the
accused was reported before the trial began.
Excerpts from
The Day newspaper said as follows:
Defense lawyers say race is a factor in the case.
Smith is black, his accusers are white, and defense attorneys suspect the women
conspired to bring false accusations against him.
If race wasn't a factor when six women accused Smith of sexual misconduct,
Merle Smith said, it might have been when a seventh woman came forward and the
academy added new charges. Most of the sex-related charges have been dismissed.
"...as this thing has continued to evolve, I guess, as the first 16
charges didn't appear to be going well, I guess they had to find another eight
to see if they could make that case," Merle Smith said.
Academy officials have said they will not comment on specific allegations
before the trial.
The jury of Coast Guard officers included four white men, one white woman,
three black men and a man of Asian descent.
Admiral Allen
is correct. In his State of the Coast Guard address he said, "We have
never been more relevant and we have never been more visible to the Nation we
serve".
We are more
visible because we have received more publicity. For some people craving
recognition, all publicity is good. It is free advertising. Not for an old and
venerated service. For an old public service, bad publicity can be dangerous
and disastrous.
There was
security in our obscurity. Publicity is a blessing and a curse. You can no
longer be hidden and presumed to be ethical, and competent. Now you have to
demonstrate that competence, and you have to demonstrate the high moral
behavior that you claim to have and want to instill in those coming after you.
You cannot just talk that talk; now, you have to walk that walk.
The Smith case
is the first court-martial of a cadet in the academy's history. The Smith case
brought a lot of sudden attention.
The end of Van
Sice's military career is more difficult news for the Academy. It has experienced
a series of cadet run-ins with the law. The first and most prominent incident
happened under Van Sice's watch. He is the father of the Webster Smith debacle.
The Commandant of the Coast Guard would have gone a long way toward restoring
public faith in the Coast Guard and in the Academy, if he had punished Admiral
Van Sice more appropriately and if he had been more forthcoming with the
details of his misconduct and the type of punishment.
Smith's attorneys, who raised the possibility that the charges could be
racially motivated, said they were pleased by the jury's diversity. Smith is
black and the accusers are white.
In a January
21, 2006 article in The Day newspaper it was reported that from 1993 until the
spring semester of 2005, the Coast Guard had 10 reported incidents of sexual
misconduct, according to information provided by the academy. Of those, six
incidents resulted in dismissal of the accused and two ended in resignation. In
the remaining two cases, there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.
One of the other two complaints, stemming from the first semester of 2005-06,
resulted in a confession and the Dec. 15 dismissal of a first-year male
student, who departed immediately, according to Chief Warrant Officer (CWO)
French. He stated that a female cadet reported nonconsensual sexual advances
from a freshman male in the Chase Hall barracks, the dormitory where all
students reside.
No criminal charges were filed, French said. (Notice he said nonconsensual
sexual advances. Is this what CWO French calls rape, when it is done by a white
cadet?)
It is safe to
assume that none of the male cadets involved were African American, because
whenever a Black male is involved the news report very explicitly points out
that the male was black, as was reported in the Webster Smith case. Smith, a
linebacker on the academy's football team, was charged Feb. 9 under military
law with rape, assault, indecent assault and sodomy against female cadets, said
CWO David French, an academy spokesman.
The Associated Press reported on February 25, 2006 that a cadet was kicked out
instead of prosecuted. (Note 3)
A prosecutor
said he was reviewing how information is exchanged with the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy after learning a cadet who admitted sexual misconduct wasn't prosecuted
but kicked out of school last year.
New London
State's Attorney Kevin Kane would not say whether he believes he has
jurisdiction in the case.
An academy
spokesman said he could not comment on the case, citing privacy rules.
"It was fully investigated and handled appropriately," Chief Warrant
Officer David French said.
According to
an academy discipline summary, the male cadet was expelled in December after
admitting to sexual misconduct that was determined to be nonconsensual.
So, there were
10 reported cases from 1993 to 2005, and not one resulted in a court-martial.
The first report of sexual misconduct involving a Black cadet resulted in a
General court-martial. It was not just any court-martial, but the type reserved
for murder, treason, and assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm.
The Coast
Guard Academy had 982 students, nearly 30 percent of whom were women. If a
report involving sexual assault or misconduct is made to the chain of command,
CGIS must examine it.
“The commandant of cadets, CAPT Douglas Wisniewski, took immediate action to
initiate the investigation into these allegations”, CWO2 David French said.
French declined a request for an interview with Commandant of Cadets Capt.
Douglas Wisniewski. The Coast Guard Academy largely limited its responses to
brief written statements delivered by e-mail.
Captain Doug
Wisniewski, who graduated from the academy with the last all-male class, was
replaced by the first woman to hold the post, Captain Judith Keene, who graduated
in the second class to accept women.
“Sexual
misconduct at the academy is defined as “acts that disgrace or bring discredit
on the Coast Guard or Coast Guard Academy and are sexual in nature”, including
lewd or lascivious acts, indecent exposure or homosexual conduct. But the
definition also includes consensual acts that are prohibited on academy
grounds, such as holding hands, kissing in public or sex. This does not include
rape, because rape is not a consensual act.
If the Academy
disposes of 10 cases of sexual misconduct without a court-martial, but on the
11th case of a report of sexual misconduct it convenes a General court-martial,
is that playing the race card? What if all 10 of the first cases involved only
white cadets, but the 11th case involved a Black cadet? One has to ask why the
Black cadet was singled out for a court-martial.
In the beginning there was the crime of sexual assault at the Coast Guard
Academy, and the crime was white on white in Chase Hall. Then darkness moved
upon the soul of Douglas Wisniewski, and Doug wanted to paint the face of the
crime black. In those days there came a young, charismatic, and well liked
cadet named Webster Smith, a cadet greatly favored by the coaching staff and
the fairer sex. Webster Smith was a dreamer and he was black. Come now, said
Captain Doug, let us slay this dreamer and we will see what happens to his
dream of being a Coast Guard officer. So, Wisniewski court-martialed Webster
Smith and all the world wondered why.
Is it wrong
for Black people to ask if there is a double standard? Would that amount to
paranoia on the part of Black people? Or would that be considered playing the
race card simply to inquire? Is it absurd to believe that anything more than
pure chance resulted in the court-martial of Webster Smith? The fact that he
was court-martialed speaks to a social reality that African-Americans are
acutely aware of in America. Race is not a card to be dealt, but it determines
whom the dealer is and who gets dealt a losing hand. In this case Doug
Wisniewski dealt the cards, and he dealt from the bottom of the deck
Whites are
generally reluctant to acknowledge racism, but they are quick to accuse Black
people of playing the race card. The tendency for whites to deny the extent of
racism and racial injustice is reflected in the opinions solicited in Norwich
on the day that Webster Smith was found guilty and later sentenced to six
months in the brig. White comments were generally that this was a reasonable
conclusion to the entire sorry affair. An Academy employee said that this is
good. It shows that the Academy took timely and effective action. This was
evidence of white denial and total indifference to Black persecution.
Unbelievably,
Admiral Van Sice went out of his way to talk to Belinda Smith, Webster Smith’s
mother, during the trial. He kept assuring her that everything was going to be
alright. On several occasions he told her that as soon as the trial was over,
everything was going to be alright. For whom? Was Admiral Van Sice in denial or
did he think that Belinda and Cadet Webster Smith were expendable?
Perhaps this
is why, contrary to popular belief, research indicates that people of color are
actually reluctant to allege racism, be it on the job, or in schools, or
anywhere else. Far from playing the race card at the drop of a hat, it is
actually the case that black and brown folks typically stuff their experiences
with discrimination and racism, only making an allegation of such treatment
after many, many incidents have transpired, about which they said nothing for
fear of being ignored or attacked.
So says Tim
Wise, activist, lecturer and director of the new Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE). Tim Wise works
from anecdote rather than academic argument to recount his path to greater
cultural awareness in a colloquial, matter-of-fact quasi-memoir that urges
white people to fight racism 'for our own sake.' Wise is the author of two new
books: White Like Me: Reflections on
Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in
Black and White. In White Like Me, Wise offers a highly personal
examination of the ways in which racial privilege shapes the lives of most
white Americans, overtly racist or not, to the detriment of people of color,
themselves, and society.
Precisely
because white denial has long trumped claims of racism, people of color tend to
underreport their experiences with racial bias, rather than exaggerate them.
When it comes to playing the race card, it is more accurate to say that whites
are the dealers with the loaded decks.
Read more at http://www.amazon.com/Judge-London-Steverson/e/B006WQKFJM
Labels: Cadet Webster Smith.
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