The United States Military Academy has ditched an acronym used by the Army Black Knights over the phrase’s ties to white supremacist gangs, officials said.
The acronym GFBD — “God forgives, brothers don’t” — was removed from merchandise and a team flag after West Point officials and athletic department administrators were alerted to the issue in September, ESPN reports.
Head football coach Jeff Monken was “mortified” when he was told of the phrase’s origin and addressed the team after learning of the connection, telling players it would immediately be removed from the program.
“It’s embarrassing, quite frankly,” Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, the US Military Academy’s superintendent, told ESPN. “We take stuff like this very, very seriously. Once I found out about this goofiness, I asked one of our most senior colonels to investigate.”
A two-month investigation traced the origins of the acronym to a cadet who initiated the use of it in the football program in 1996, but the unidentified former cadet said he was unaware of any connection to white supremacy groups.
Use of the acronym — which appeared on a black skull-and-crossbones flag, above its upper lip — was “benign” and had nothing to do with the “views or beliefs of white supremacist groups” or any other groups, according to a final report of the probe.
The slogan and acronym — which discourages snitching, per ESPN’s report — is associated with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a prison gang unaffiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.
The phrase is one of the gang’s “more popular slogans,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
A group of Army players, meanwhile, adopted the phrase after seeing it in “Stone Cold,” a 1991 action movie starring former NFL linebacker Brian Bosworth, ESPN reports.
In the film, Bosworth plays an undercover cop who joins a fictitious Mississippi biker gang called “The Brotherhood.” Bosworth’s love interest in the flick had a “GFBD” tattoo and a member of the gang said “God forgives, brothers don’t” during a key scene, the outlet noted.
In a statement to The Post, US Military Academy officials confirmed on Friday that use of the phrase has been immediately discontinued.
“The motto was originally used to emphasize teamwork, loyalty, and toughness,” the statement read. “The academy immediately discontinued using it upon notification of its tie to hate groups.”