The two enlisted Team 4 members are being punished for developing racist memes targeting a Black sailor in their platoon and circulating them in a group chat with other team members, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of an ongoing investigation. The memes depicted the sailor as a slave, according to visuals viewed by The Associated Press.

According to the official, the sailor who was targeted reported the incidents this year, but they took place beginning in 2022 and the memes circulated for years. The sailor had been in one of the SEAL Team 4 platoons but had his qualifications and SEAL trident revoked last year. He alleged that his failure to remain a SEAL was due to the racist treatment.

  • shawn1122@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    You have to be below a subaverage intelligence level to join, not dissimilar to law enforcement, CBP or ICE so this is not at all surprising.

    • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 days ago

      Some people have no way out of poverty besides military service. Don’t diss every service member for being stupid for joining.

      • shawn1122@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        That itself is an indictment on the US.

        Also, that is less than half of those in military service. Many of them, regardless of their income level, get radicalized towards white nationalism due to the culture of the institution.

        Don’t get me wrong there are good people that have served and I don’t doubt that the US government has taken advantage of their desperation.

        But normalization of a culture that portrays a black colleague as a slave or downplays sexual assualt is unacceptable in my view (regardless of tax bracket).

        • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          These sorts of things happen in every work environment I have been in. There’s always going to be some bigots in the work place regardless because they exist everywhere. Of course there are professions like the military where these attitudes are more common and that is unfortunate. My opinion is if you see it take place in any profession, call them out on it.

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      7 days ago

      That’s more a wisdom issue and it is not even close to the same thing as intelligence. Also, many people have specialties outside of infantry and never come close to combat or even leave their home base.

      • tamman2000@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        You’re spot on about wisdom, but it’s not like people in non combat jobs aren’t there to support the mission of killing people the government wants killed. Just because they aren’t holding the gun, it doesn’t mean they aren’t sharing responsibility for the bullet