Jennifer Barnhill is a columnist for Military.com writing about military families.
Moving may be a part of military life, but for families of color and other groups, military moves pose more than an inconvenience: They threaten their safety. That puts our nation’s readiness at risk.
“There’s an unspoken known factor of places that are red-flagged for people of color,” said Ellie Walker, a Coast Guard spouse who is one-half of an interracial couple. “The better relationship you have with your detailer, the better. … He tells new recruits coming in that too, [saying], ‘You know, there’s gonna be places that are not great for you, as an active-duty person or even as your family, and you need to advocate for yourself or else you’re just going to be at the mercy of wherever they send you.'”
Despite finding a safe and welcoming home near their installation, the moment the Walkers left their neighborhood, they were surrounded by unwelcoming messages. Their local gas station parking lot was regularly filled with pickup trucks adorned with Confederate flags as various groups used the central location as a meeting location.
The Walkers’ daughter was just four years old when she first experienced both subtle and overt racism. It started with her being physically separated from her peers, something her parents noticed on the school’s security cameras. It came from those peers, when two young boys and a young girl repeatedly asked her why her…
