DEI and military service

As I said last week, the goal of the Felon’s anti-DEI campaign is to restore mediocre white men to dominance. And to treat the accomplishments of anyone who isn’t a straight Christian white dude as self-evidently DEI — that is, tokenism, not a real accomplishment. Some of them, like the Defense Department’s Darren Beattie, think treating POC and women as equals is just coddling their feelings — obviously white men are superior! In their eyes, white male achievement is always earned.

Deleting references online to military heroes who are POC, LGBTQ or women fits that agenda: “[T]he cemetery’s public website has scrubbed dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the cemetery, along with educational material on dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and maps of prominent gravesites of Marine Corps veterans and other services.” It’s still disgusting.

Ditto wiping online information about baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s military career.

Or declaring Major General Charles Calvin Rogers, a black Medal of Honor recipient, received a DEI medal.

Or erasing information about the Navajo Code Talkers. Which Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot dismissed as a problem: “As Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. … We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.” Turns out this got enough blowback Ullyot’s been reassigned (not, I gather, fired).

So apparently any reference to the great achievements of non-white non-men is DEI now. I’m sure it makes Pete Hegseth feel more secure in his white manhood to tell himself their achievements, so much greater than his own, don’t count. Fighting for your country was long held up as a measure of citizenship and equality. And for just as long, white bigots have resented POC and women who assert themselves that way.

“The history of Arlington National Cemetery is a story of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness,” historian Kevin Leman writes. “This history ought to be embraced by all of us and front and center at places like Arlington.” Instead, the cemetery is now covering it up. And the Pentagon’s spokespeople are asserting that “anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, frankly, incorrect.”

It’s the equivalent of the white male whiners who freak out because Star Trek’s Voyager had a female captain or the third Star Wars trilogy had a female lead — dammit, they want the fantasy of imagining themselves as the hero! How can they do that now? Of course, lots of series, including Trek and Star Wars, have male heroes they can look up to, but that’s not enough — they have to have all the heroes! Similarly, way too many white men want to believe all accomplishment is male. It isn’t.

On the upside, Leman suggests “the sweeping nature of the changes that we are seeing right now is itself an admission that the Trump administration will ultimately fail. It’s not unlike the attempt on the part of certain states, who have taken steps to pass legislation preventing communities from removing Confederate monuments. The fact that the legislation is necessary at all is an indication that their time has passed.”

See also this look at how The Felon is giving bases named for confederate leaders their old names — sort of.