George Floyd protests today: Live news and updates


George Floyd protests today: Live news and updates

Scott Bethmann, a member of the Naval Academy’s Alumni Association Board of Trustees, resigned after he and his wife accidentally broadcast a video on Facebook Live of a conversation between them that featured multiple racial slurs.

Bethmann, according to a Florida Times-Union report, used the n-word during the video, which was recorded for more than 30 minutes while he and his wife watched the news before realizing what was happening. In it, he complained about corporations sending out emails in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and about white people having to “say something nice” to black co-workers.

“These attributed statements do not represent the mission and values of the Alumni Association, the Naval Academy or the U.S. Navy,” retired Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, the association’s chairman, wrote in a post on the group’s Facebook page.

Vice Adm. Sean Buck, superintendent of the Naval Academy, wrote in a statement shared on Twitter that “we cannot tolerate racism or bigotry of any kind within our U.S. Naval Academy family.” Such behavior, he wrote, “completely violates our Navy’s core values, and does not support the Naval Academy mission.”

In a statement released to local media by family spokeswoman Ryan Wiggins, Bethmann apologized for his words and their impact on the Naval Academy and the community.

“There are no words that can appropriately express how mortified and apologetic my wife and I are about the insensitive things we said that were captured on social media,” he said. “There is never a time when it is appropriate to use derogatory terms when speaking about our fellow man. I know that an apology from us rings hollow on many ears in our community, especially in the current environment.”

He added that he and his wife were “committed to educating ourselves more on the racial inequalities in this country and being better people.”

The news came just days after the U.S. Marine Corps banned all displays of the Confederate battle flag in “public and work spaces aboard an installation,” including banners and bumper stickers. The flag has increasingly been pushed out of the public sphere in recent years after a shooting rampage that killed nine black worshipers at a church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 and a deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville two years later.

Each of the service branch chiefs has posted public statements condemning racism. On Monday, Kaleth O. Wright, chief master sergeant of the Air Force, the top enlisted airman in the branch, posted tweets in which he described his experience of being a black man trying to rise through the ranks.




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