I'm a VMI Parent (who wishes to remain anonymous in that regard) so my FB groups have been blowing up since early this morning after my cadet messaged me with information that GEN Peay had just resigned - seemingly out of the blue.
I assumed that similar to when Jackie Sherrill was the Texas A&M Football sacrificial lamb to the NCAA, GEN Peay was probably offered up to the Gods of Racism.
It looks like that is exactly what happened.
Brief timeline of the relevant events here:
Halloween 2017, there was the "Trump's Wall" costume which caused a big controversy because one Black Cadet Mother who sees racism everywhere she looks made a big deal about the fact that somebody had graffiti'd the wall with the phrase "No Cholos".
https://roanoke.com/news/virginia/trump-wall-costume-causes-a-stir-at-vmi-halloween-party/article_e78148fc-2b33-57d2-bda7-10a89a0b114d.htmlJune 2020, two former football players who had finished their 4 years of football scholarship decided to get in on the race grift in the after math of the George Floyd death by doing a tell all interview with the local Roanoke paper about how pervasive and systemic racism is at VMI. One of the key incidents they cited was the Trump Wall costume.
We've got the continued crusade against statues and of course VMI has plenty of them. Since the school was founded in 1839 and in fact fought for The South at the Battle of New Market as a cadet unit and had 10 cadets killed in action, there is no escaping VMI being intertwined with the Confederacy and General Stonewall Jackson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_MarketOne of the things the cadets do every year is to have the Rats (incoming freshmen) re-enact the charge at the Battle of New Market. One of the football players cited a complaint that when he was a Rat, he had gotten back late (he said 3am, I believe) from a football trip and then had to be up at 5am to take the bus to New Market. So he didn't get any sleep and the only purpose of the charge re-enactment was slavery...
Another complaint was that students had to salute the statue of Stonewall Jackson whenever they would leave barracks to go to class. Obviously this was racist for Black cadets since Stonewall Jackson was a Confederate General so, circa 2016/2017, they made this optional.
But, the American flag and the Stonewall Jackson statue were co-located so, you had to salute the American flag which was right next to Stonewall Jackson's statue. So, in effect, you were still saluting in the direction of Stonewall Jackson.
Here's that article:
https://roanoke.com/news/virginia/vmi-black-alumni-speak-out-about-racism-demand-changes-amid-swell-of-racial-justice-protests/article_12dbae31-7cba-5b8a-b948-1b932b6c435b.htmlOver the summer of 2020, VMI took some major action as racism grew across the USA. GEN Peay issued a 7 page letter describing all that VMI was doing. Among the actions were:
1 - They would no longer do the Battle of New Market Charge re-enactment. And when they toured it, it would become optional for Black cadets.
2 - They left the Stonewall Jackson statue in place but moved the Flagpoles to a new location.
https://www.breitbart.com/education/2020/07/30/vmi-superintendent-says-college-will-not-remove-confederate-statues-rename-buildings/Last Week, the Washington Post ran another article about racism at VMI. And Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam (aka - "Coonman", aka - We'll keep the babies comfortable until their mother decides whether to keep them or not) called for an independent investigation into racism at VMI.
The charges in this WaPo article were that one of the Black cadets was told that he would be lynched by a white cadet during a "Hell Week" physical training session. And that one of the professors remembered in fond terms, her family legacy of being in the Klan.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/at-vmi-black-cadets-endure-lynching-threats-klan-memories-and-confederacy-veneration/2020/10/17/3bf53cec-0671-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html Friday, Governor Northam sent a letter to GEN Peay - 17 year Superintendent of The Institute, Vietnam Veteran and 101st Airborne Commanding General during Desert Storm. In the letter he told GEN Peay that he had no confidence in Peay's leadership.
Monday (today), GEN Peay, took his 4 Stars and resigned. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this.
This is definitely something for us Aggies to take heed of as our vocal critics raise their concerns on the campus of Texas A&M.
I assure you that cadets encountering racism at VMI is a very rare occurrence. Now, if they wanted to pursue a social topic that is a big problem at VMI, they should explore Lesbianism.