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MY POV - At Quantico this week, President Donald Trump stood before America’s top military leaders and delivered a line that stunned not because of its volume, but because of its casualness.
“There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them,” he said, right after warning that “nuclear” was not a word to “throw around.”
The room—filled with generals and admirals, mostly white men—showed little visible discomfort. A few chuckled. Some looked down. None spoke up.
It was a fleeting moment, but it told a larger story about Trump’s approach to race and power, and about the dangers of silence in the face of casual racism. In a space meant for sober discussion of military readiness, the president smuggled in one of the most historically loaded racial terms in the English language, wrapped in a joke. The message was clear: I can say this, and you will take it.
For Los Angeles, a city with one of the largest populations of Black, Latino, and Asian service members in the country—and a city where police and military responses to urban unrest have left deep scars—Trump’s remark hits differently. It echoes the normalization of racist provocation that often gets brushed off as “humor” or “political incorrectness.” But when it comes from the Commander-in-Chief, and when the nation’s top brass smirk instead of object, it becomes something much more corrosive.
The U.S. Military Oath of Office is explicit: allegiance is sworn to the Constitution, not to the president.
This matters for LA and cities like it. In the same speech, Trump cast America’s “inner cities” as part of the battlefield, even suggesting that troops could use urban neighborhoods as “training grounds.” To Angelenos, that language cannot be dismissed as rhetorical flair. It reflects a view of Black and brown communities not as fellow citizens, but as adversaries.
And the threats didn’t stop there. Trump told his audience bluntly: “If you do not like what I am saying, you can leave the room—of course there goes your rank and your future.” It was couched as another joke but the implications were clear. Dissent will be equated with career suicide. Compliance with complicity.
The danger lies not just in Trump’s words, but in the response—or lack thereof. When the nation’s senior military leaders treat racist provocation as a moment for nervous laughter, it signals to rank-and-file troops, many of whom come from working-class communities of color in Los Angeles, that racism in the chain of command is something to shrug off. The military may pride itself as America’s most diverse institution, but diversity without accountability is a fragile shield.
I truly believe that those who heard the treasonous undertones in Trump's speech should have walked out.
History has shown where this erosion can lead. In 1934, Hitler shifted the German military’s oath of allegiance from the constitution to himself. Trump is not Hitler, but the parallel is a cautionary one: when leaders test boundaries through racial provocation and subordinates meet it with silence, the door opens wider for authoritarian drift.
What makes the Quantico moment especially dangerous is its casualness. Trump didn’t legislate or shout. He didn’t even say the slur outright. He dangled it—like bait—and watched the room swallow its discomfort. That silence was its own act of complicity.
For Los Angeles—home to both one of the nation’s largest veteran populations and some of its deepest racial inequities—the stakes are real. When the Commander-in-Chief normalizes racial humor in the halls of military power, it reverberates all the way down the ranks, and all the way into communities where young men and women are recruited with the promise of honor and equality.
If Trump’s Quantico speech is remembered at all, it may be for its odd digressions—tariffs, Soros, Biden’s autopen, even black-and-white movies. But what deserves to be remembered most is the moment when a president tested the boundaries of racist speech and treason in front of America’s military elite—and no one dared to walk out.
In those smirks and blank stares lies the danger. Not because policy shifted on the spot, but because it showed how prejudice seeps quietly into the machinery of power. And when that silence is allowed to harden, it is not only the military that is at risk, but democracy itself.
(George Cassidy Payne is a journalist, poet, and essayist who writes on politics, culture, and social justice. He is a 988 Suicide Prevention Counselor, nonprofit creative strategist, and adjunct philosophy instructor. His work explores the intersection of ethics, community, and contemporary social issues.) The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of CityWatchLA.com.
