West Point administrators have dropped a motto that had become a part of the fanfare surrounding the Army football program since the mid-1990s after officials discovered that the phrase traced back to white supremacist biker and prison gangs.
Starting in the mid-’90s the phrase “God Forgives, Brothers Don’t” became a slogan embedded in some of the Army Black Knights official iconography, particularly a black skull-and-crossbones flag which contained the acronym “GFBD” inscribed on the upper lip of the skull (flag shown in image above).
The phrase, administrators learned in September, originated with white supremacist biker gangs and the infamous neo-Nazi prison gang, Aryan Brotherhood.
In response, the administration and athletic programs took immediate action, pulling all references to the loaded slogan from any official school displays and promotional materials.
“West Point officials and members of the athletic department said they were unaware that the phrase links to motorcycle gangs and Aryan Brotherhood sects until that connection was brought to their attention in September,” ESPN reported Thursday.
Upon learning about the origins of the phrase, Army Head Football Coach Jeff Monken addressed the team in September, Athletic Director Mike Buddie told ESPN. The slogan, Monken told the players, was being removed immediately.
Monken, said Buddie, was “mortified” to discover the roots of the motto, while the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy described the whole thing as “embarrassing.”
“It’s embarrassing, quite frankly,” said Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, as reported by ESPN. “Once I found out about this goofiness, I asked one of our most senior colonels to investigate,” he added.
Nicole Fridling/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Image above: Army West Point head coach Jeff Monken sings the alma mater following the game between the Army West Point Black Knights against University of Massachusetts Minutemen on November 9, 2019 at Michie Sadium in West Point, New York. (Photo by Nicole Fridling/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Prompted by Williams’ order, military officials conducted a two-month investigation into how the racially charged phrase came to be used by the school.
As detailed in the executive summary of the investigation, officials concluded that it was introduced without any knowledge of its problematic origins and thus its inclusion since the ’90s in the school’s programs was “benign.” Use of the motto had nothing to do “with the views or beliefs of white supremacist groups or any other disreputable organizations with which they might also be associated,” the report stresses.
According to investigators, the slogan was first used by players in the early ’90s simply to symbolize “toughness, tenacity, camaraderie and accountability.” Some of the players appear to have picked it up from a film starring famous former NFL linebacker Brian Bosworth titled “Stone Cold,” which tells the story of an undercover cop who joins a Neo-Nazi biker gang from the south called “The Brotherhood.”
Investigators were able to track down the cadet who first used the phrase and he told them that he wasn’t aware of the phrase’s white supremacist origins. While the phrase appeared on a few T-shirts in the early ’90s, it wasn’t until 1996 that it first appeared on an official team flag, the report states.
Top image: Jeff Monken, Head Coach of the Army Black Knights waves a flag in the locker room after defeating the Navy Midshipmen at Lincoln Financial Field on December 8, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)