A retired rear admiral with the U.S. Maritime Administration gave what Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, described as an “insufficient” answer to his question about a U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) official’s controversial tweet about White males.
During a hearing Thursday before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure about the shortage of U.S. mariners, Babin grilled Rear Adm. Ann Phillips (ret.) about a June 2020 tweet from Anton Tripolskii, who was hired at the Kings Point, New York, academy last year as its $142,595-per-year sexual assault response director.
“We don’t have forces who do right by survivors of intimate partner and sexual violence because we don’t have forces who don’t abuse Brown and Black people,” Tripolskii wrote in the tweet. “Same forces, same reasons. Misogyny and racism grow from the same white, male root.”
Tripolskii also retweeted a user in October 2020 who suggested that “White men with a history of domestic and sexual violence” are more inclined to become “radicalized terrorists.”
Tripolskii’s Twitter activity prompted a scathing letter from four members of the U.S. House’s Anti-Woke Caucus to USMMA Superintendent Vice Adm. Joanna Nunan earlier this week.
“He has made it clear that he believes that White males – the same White males that make up the majority of the U.S. Merchant Marine – are to blame for sexual violence in the United States,” said Babin, who was one of the members of Congress who signed the letter to Nunan. “In fact, Mr. Tripolskii, who is White and male, has made these kinds of comments repeatedly.”
Noting how the USMMA should have been aware of his Twitter activity before hiring him, Babin asked Phillips if she agrees with Tripolskii that misogyny and racism “grow from the same white, male root.”
Phillips acknowledged the USMMA’s receipt of the letter from the Anti-Woke Caucus, but she noted that Tripolskii’s tweet was “several years old” and that she and Nunan “are looking towards the future” by “building an environment of value that includes inclusiveness” and values people’s participation based on their professionalism and skill. . . . . (read more on Fox News)
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