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By Brandi Jones
Organizing Director at Secure Families Initiative
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Growing up as a Black woman in America, I have always understood that Juneteenth represented freedom—from slavery, yes, but from oppression more broadly. As the spouse of an active-duty Marine, I have also come to appreciate the U.S. military's legacy with Juneteenth—the holiday originated in 1865, when Union soldiers delivered the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved persons in Texas, the last bastion of the Confederacy.
Black Americans today are unable to enjoy the fullest freedoms afforded to us by the Constitution—to include something as basic as feeling safe in our own homes. This year, I am commemorating Juneteenth by holding the family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson close to my heart, and by advocating for policy changes that might have kept him alive.
A 23-year-old Black service member, Fortson, was shot and killed by a police officer in Okaloosa County, Fla. just last month while he stood in his own home.
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Nearly all the media coverage about Fortson's death featured photos of him wearing his Air Force uniform. This drew shock from some of my white neighbors—that racial profiling could still happen to someone in the military.
I may not have known Fortson personally, but my life is filled with many like him whom I long to protect. I am a Black military spouse and the mother of two Black children. We live in Monterey County, Calif., where just last month a man who shares the same complexion as my 17-year-old son was shot by police. The fact that my son's father is serving our country, that he has deployed twice to a war zone—I know that won't help keep my son safe.
My family is not alone. A recent military family lifestyle report published by Blue Star Families found that active-duty family respondents of color experience harassment and police profiling across all U.S. regions, both on and off installation, with 1 in 3 Black military respondents reporting being profiled by military or civilian law enforcement at least once since January 2020.
Proximity to military service isn't enough to shield military families of color from racism in America.
We still encounter racism in our children's education. All three of Kimberly Gladden-Eversley's military children have experienced micro- and macro-aggressions in school. Most recently, her 9-year-old son was regularly called "Black monkey" by his classmates. School administrators refused to intervene until her son defended himself, and only then did they take action to condemn him rather than his aggressors.
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We still encounter racism in our health care systems. Joi Brewster spent months trying to convince U.K. medical providers to take her pregnancy symptoms seriously when all she got in return was mispronounced names and patronizing explanations. It wasn't until she was flown to another country that her pain and concerns were addressed.
Not only do our military uniforms not shield us from harm—but in some cases, the military actually forces us into higher-risk situations.
Every year, about one-third of military families move to new duty assignments—a process called permanent change of station or PCS. We do not get to control where the military moves us, and our family's identities and compositions are rarely taken into account during that process.
Shalena Critchlow is an Indigenous military mother and former military spouse in an interracial relationship. She remembers in 2007 when her family got stationed in Birmingham, Ala., just seven years after Alabama became the last state to repeal its ban on interracial marriage. Their family faced racism from community members multiple times throughout their assignment. At one point, Critchlow got rear-ended by a white man on the road—later that day, his mother called her on the phone to yell at her: "You're just an illegal!" Critchlow's spouse tried to visit one of his recruits one day, but he was denied entry into the home because he was Black.
I can't help but think how much safer Critchlow's family would have been had they and their assignments team known more about how they would be treated in that new community.
No magic wand that can solve racism in America. But there arepolicy solutions that could give military families like mine a little more agency over our journey.
If our families had better access to data that could show local community safety outcomes, then we could make a more informed decision about how to navigate an assignment to that area. If our military school liaisons were better equipped to identify and mediate racism in classrooms, then our families would have a more reliable on-the-ground support system when things happen. Changes as simple as these could go a long way toward making families like mine safer.
As military families of color, we serve to protect our nation's security and democratic way of life. But what kind of message does it send when we are sent to communities where our rights and dignities are not upheld? It's like we're being asked to risk it all and sacrifice so much so that the rights of our fellow citizens can be protected—but to not expect those same rights for ourselves.
That's what happened to Senior Airman Roger Fortson. He was the legal owner of a firearm. The Constitution's 2nd Amendment guaranteed him that right.
I can't get over the cruel irony—that Fortson was killed for embracing the very rights that he served to protect for others.
Brandi Jones is the spouse of an active-duty Marine and the organizing director at Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan group of military families who support diplomacy-first foreign policy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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