Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports on racist behavior in Cheyenne

It was a cringe-worthy headline above the fold in Saturday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle: 

Air Force base leaders speak out against COMMUNITY RACISM

Yes, that last part was all caps and for good reason. Cheyenne's Warren AFB is home of the 90th Missile Wing and scores of nukes. Like most military bases, it’s self-contained to a certain extent but its airmen and airwomen and civilian employees interact with the community. 

Those interactions, lately, have been nasty. Missile Wing Commander Col. Catherine Barrington called for a meeting with community leaders after Black Air Force families reported racist incidents.

USAF dependents attend K-12 schools located around the county. Many are African-American because, well, it's the United States Air Force and not the Wyoming Air Force. As such, it is made up of young men and women from all over the U.S. and the world. Many have experienced multiple overseas deployments to far-flung bases and war zones. Some have been called racist epithets and discriminated against because of their color in Cheyenne, the place I call home.

The worst local offender reported in the article seems to be McCormick Junior High. This doesn’t surprise me as our daughter was terribly bullied when she attended McCormick. Its students tend to be white and from the mostly prosperous north side of the city where I still live. This doesn’t prevent them from being bullies and racists. 

[Col.] Barrington explained that multiple students have been bullied and called racial slurs at McCormick Junior High. A ninth-grade girl got off the bus the first day of the school year and was immediately called the N-word more than one time.

The girl opted to attend Cheyenne Virtual School rather than to be in this nest of vipers. Others were bullied and called racial slurs which led to fights where black students were suspended and fined. 

One wonders where these 13-year-olds might have learned such behavior. Look to the racist behavior of parents, those people you see at Trump rallies and ranting about Critical Race Theory and face masks at school board meetings. There are consequences for such loathsome behavior.

It's not only school children. One uniformed Black airman bought a gun at a local shop. When he returned in civvies to get the gun serviced, the proprietor said she didn’t have time to serve him.

“Other airmen have also experienced this,” said Warren's Command Chief Master Sergeant Nicholas Taylor. “And when they went in to buy ammunition, they would not sell ammunition to airmen of color at all. So they had to ask their Caucasian counterparts to go in and buy ammunition on behalf of them.”

Let’s be clear – in Cheyenne, we live at the intersection of Guns & Ammo. We have a couple dozen stores and pawn shops where you can buy shootin' irons. We have at least two outdoor firing ranges and one indoors. On Sundays, you can hear the Warren security detachment’s firearm drills. I would venture that everyone in my neighborhood owns at least one firearm. It’s not unusual to see gun stickers on front doors that read “This home protected by Smith & Wesson;” similar four-wheel-oriented stickers adorn pickups. Lest you think only conservatives own guns, you obviously don’t know any Wyoming Democrats. The Second Amendment is religion here, even among heathen Liberals.

So, when you hear that a Black airman cannot buy bullets in a Cheyenne shop when his latest deployment may have placed him armed with a fully-loaded taxpayer-funded weapon in a war zone, you have to say WTF or something similar.

James Peebles also spoke at the public meeting. He’s the director of the Sankofa African Heritage Awareness, Inc., in Cheyenne. His organization conducts seminars about systemic racism, the history of slavery, and the civil rights struggles. All things we desperately need to know about if racist behavior is to stop. Timely subjects during Black History Month.

Peebles described watching the social dynamic in Cheyenne change, with Black families leaving after experiencing racism. There also has been pandemic-driven anti-Asian rhetoric in the past five years.

After a recent ugly incident, Peebles added that “the last year was the first time he even questioned his safety here after living in Cheyenne for 12 years.”

Thanks to reporter Jasmine Hall for covering this meeting and a big thanks to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle for featuring it so prominently. We need our newspapers to show us when our neighbors behave badly.