That's the school on the banks of the Severn where the best and brightest and most morally upright young men and women come from all over America to become the officers of the US Navy and the Marine Corps. They are hundreds, chosen from among thousands of applicants, who receive a top-notch education over four years, and graduate as commissioned officers to lead the Navy and Marines into the future. They command the battleships, fly the jets, and make the decisions crucial to the world's security.
That's why they don't take just any old High School Harry with a spotty attendance record and a grade point average that has kept him a stranger to the Honor Society assemblies. They want the best and they deserve the best, and frankly, they can afford to be choosy.
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| Colter |
So maybe someone should have clued former Midshipman Ted Colter to that wisdom. He's the one sent packing last month because he was found to be using that slur of all slurs in an online group chat, and was cautioned about it, only to use it again. When he was finally half contrite about it, as only a recalcitrant 18-year-old can be, he changed he word to "ninja." Very clever, son, but someone complained, someone who does not care to serve as an officer with a trash-talking wise kid.
And that's going to be Colter's defense! He's hired an lawyer from Annapolis, an Academy graduate name of Jeff McFadden. His brilliant stratagem for getting Colter reinstated is to point out that the young man hails from New York City, and...
“When viewed in its proper context, the speech underlying the violations is, however facially or subjectively ‘offensive,’ simply the repartee and patois of a generation of street-tough teenagers from one of the most racially diverse parts of the country.”
Let's look it over here. The kid comes from Queens. To me, a racially diverse part of any town is a part of town where people treat each other with a certain regard, at least outwardly. But lawyer McFadden is going for the cheap defense (and it's really the only straw he can grasp for) that says that Colter is just using the street talk that he hears the lower classes employ, the invective of the small-minded.
The whole point of training young men and women to be leaders in the service academies is to make sure the services are led by decent people of better quality, not rakehells and ne'er-do-wells.
Cmdr. David McKinney, an academy spokesman, said,"We have high standards for dignity and respect here at the Naval Academy and Midshipman Colter did not live up to those high standards.”
McFadden replies to that by saying "Colter’s use of the word was a joke in bad taste and lacking judgment,” but “similar to the numerous other vulgar and bawdy acronyms used throughout Bancroft Hall.”
Are you like me in enjoying seeing a grown lawyer using the same defense I used when caught smoking a cigarette down behind the barn? "A lot of other guys do it!" I hollered, to my friend Noah Vale.
I was 11, and that weak defense of "I'm not the only one" didn't get me off the hook, and it should be enough to tell Colter to tell his story walking back up to Queens, where he ought to try his language out on the streets to see how the residents of Hollis feel about it.
The Rev. Stephen Tillett, president of the Anne Arundel County branch of the NAACP , said the "n" word is always a vile slur as used by non-African-Americans.
“You don’t get to reinterpret it and say because African-Americans in the rap industry use it, it is no longer disrespectful or pejorative,” Tillett said.
We expect future leaders of the armed services to know that. If they don't at age 18, it's way too late, and who knows what other indignities lie within their hearts?
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