The Consequences of the CRT/DEI Agenda

Our Service Academies teach and promote the Critical Race Theory/Diversity Equity and Inclusion agenda, offer minors in this, and include leftist courses like “Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality”, “Social Inequality” or “Gender And Sexuality Studies”. But beware, this is where it leads:

Don’t “Decolonize” the Classroom (Heritage Foundation, 16 OCT 23)
Since the summer of George Floyd, education organizations, from the National Council of Teachers of English to the National Education Association, have promoted the concept of “decolonizing” education.

Unlike other leftist buzzwords flying around in education policy debates, this one has received insufficient attention. Perhaps the reaction to Hamas’s recent atrocities can provide a teachable moment.

As news emerged of slaughtered concertgoers, raped women, and beheaded babies, a viral tweet by Najma Sharif took aim at those on the Left who felt squeamish:

“What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers.”

This tweet garnered over 100,000 likes, including one by Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. When called out for this, Attiah declared:

“Seeing a strong backlash against black/African people, especially black/African women, speaking of oppression, liberation in any way.”

This is your moral brain on critical race theory.

Approve calling people losers for feeling squeamish about beheading babies, then call them racist when they object to your sentiment.

Decolonization may have sounded like just another benign buzzword when national education organizations were pushing it into our schools, but trendy terms often mask evil goals.

Of the many pro-Hamas student statements issued in recent days, one from the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter of George Mason University, the university with the highest DEI per faculty in America, was admirably clear on this point:

As university students, it is crucial to have a genuine understanding of the true nature of decolonization. Decolonization is not just a term studied within the confines of a classroom, and it is not just a term analyzed through political theory and social literature. Rather, it is a term that entails resistance in the face of a colonizer. Decolonization entails the struggle for liberation of a colonized people from the grasp of their colonizers. This struggle for the much-sought-after liberation from the colonizer is not meant to be metaphysical—but material. . . . . (read more)

Civilizational Suicide (Christopher Rufo Substack, 13 OCT 23)
. . . . One needs only to browse the current Harvard course catalog to see how deeply the rhetoric of “decolonization” has been embedded.

One course, “Global Rebellion: Race, Solidarity, and Decolonization,” draws on critical ethnic studies, a subfield of critical race theory, and promises to promote “Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous radicalism”—that is, left-wing ethnopolitics for everyone except whites and Jews. The goal, according to the course description, is to “discuss how BIPOC communities forged cross-racial, internationalist solidarities to rebel against global white supremacy.”

Another course, “Colonialism and its Postcolonial/Decolonial Afterlives,” features readings of Lenin and Frantz Fanon, the latter of whom argued that “violence is a cleansing force” that “frees the native from his inferiority complex” and “restores his self-respect.”

The rest of the course description is a repetition of slogans from the old Third World revolutionary fronts, promising to “explore the relationship between empire and the rise of industrial capitalism, the significance of race, class, and gender in colonial extraction, and the modes of violence on which it was founded.” The solution? The usual metaphors: “refusal,” “resistance,” “postcoloniality,” and “decoloniality.” . . . . (read more)

The Cornell Connection

Cornell University professor calls Hamas terror attack ‘exhilarating’ and ‘energizing’ (New York Post, 16 OCT 23)
A Cornell University professor was caught on camera telling students Hamas’ terror attack on Israel — which has left more than 1,400 dead — was “exhilarating” and “energizing.” . . .

The “Exhilaration” of Massacre: Russell Rickford and the Radical Chic of Higher Education (Jonathan Turley, 18 OCT 23)
Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in The Messenger on the recent controversy over Cornell Professor Russell Rickford and his celebration of the massacre in Israel. . . . .

Diversity, Inclusion, and Unconscious Bias Training (USAFA News, 27 JUL 20)
The task force, in conjunction with headquarters staff, has finished post-production of a new video on unconscious bias to highlight bias mitigation strategies that will maximize talent and benefit the entire force. The task force is also working with Cornell University to enroll several members of the Department of the Air Force Barrier Analysis Working Group in an online Diversity and Inclusion certificate program. These leaders will be equipped with fundamental diversity and inclusion concepts and required to share this information with their respective teams as well as Airmen and Space Professionals at the major command and installation levels. The task force is assembling options for department leaders to determine their intent for how training will be rolled out to the forces over the coming months and years, and at what touch points in the talent management life cycle of Airmen and Space Professionals that training will be most effective.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION Cornell Certificate Program (Cornell University)

USAFA’s head of the Office of Diversity and Equity, ret. Col Joseph Looney, has a Diversity & Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University. (Dr. Joseph Looney)

The Cornell graduate (MS and PHD in Economics) USAFA professor (Dr. Cassandra Benson) addresses her white male cadets as “white boy 1,” “white boy 2” and “white boy 3” and adds “all you white boys look alike.” (see: The United States Air Force Academy’s White Boy #2)