US air force academy chief delivers stirring speech telling racists to 'get out'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/air-force-academy-general-racism-jay-silveria

The superintendent of the US air force academy in Colorado Springs addressed a direct message to those who left racist graffiti at the academy’s preparatory school earlier this week.
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“If you can’t treat someone from another race or a different color skin with dignity and respect then you need to get out,” said Lt Gen Jay Silveria, before encouraging the assembled academy of more than 4,000 cadets and staff to take out their phones and record him saying it again.

“You keep these words, and you use them, and you remember them, and you share them, and you talk about them,” Silveria said.

He was responding to a report in the Air Force Times that five black cadet candidates at the preparatory academy had had the words “go home nigger” written on the whiteboards outside their dorm rooms.
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“If you’re outraged by those words then you’re in the right place. That kind of behavior has no place in the United States air force,” Silveria said. “You should be outraged not only as an airman but as a human being.”

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Silveria said that some of the recent high-profile racist incidents in the US had influenced his decision to speak out.

“We would be naive to think that we shouldn’t discuss this topic. We would also be tone deaf not to think about the backdrop of what’s going on in our country. Things like Charlottesville and Ferguson, the protests in the NFL,” he said.

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