Time for the Military to Provide Some DEI/CRT Answers

By Greg Salsbury
STARRS Board of Advisors

With the Pentagon requesting an additional $114M for more “diversity and inclusion activities” – the largest request of this type yet – it would seem to be a good time for greater clarity on how some of the key categories of diversity are being established.

The great Thomas Sowell once observed that most of the arguments of the Left fall away by simply asking for definitions – which is why clever Leftists often loathe providing them.

In the book that has become the bible for the Critical Race Theory movement, “How to Be an Antiracist,” author Ibram X. Kendi offers the following laughably tautological definition of racism:

“Racism is a powerful collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity and are substantiated by racist ideas.” This is as illuminating as defining a tree as “one of a powerful collection of tree-like objects that have the appearance, composition, and functionality of trees, and are often surrounded by other trees.”

But Kendi is smart enough to know that virtually any objective definition of racism he provides will invariably describe some of the very behavior and actions that he supports for supposedly being “anti-racist,” (punishing some people while elevating others based on nothing more than race) and produce the deserving charges of hypocrisy.

Accordingly, he simply refuses to do so, and clings to the ridiculous position of essentially contending that racism is whatever he says it is.

Not only is Mr. Kendi unable to provide any coherent definition of racism; it appears that after receiving more than $50m in funding as head of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, he is unable to point to any completed research from the Center despite the disappearance of nearly all of that funding – which has predictably resulted in layoffs. The school seems to be scrambling to assure people there is nothing unusual about this.

This recognition and aversion to the inconvenient limitations of definitions explains why Leftists love the phrase “my truth.” They realize that objective reality and truth are simply not what they wish them to be, and this makes their positions too easily dismantled by simple evidence, science, and logic.

Alternately, embracing the concept of 6 billion-plus individual “truths” makes any position unassailable.

This relativist fantasy allows them to pretend that:

Men can menstruate and give birth;
humans can switch genders as easily as deciding to do so;
all differences in outcomes in any arena are a function of systemic racism and white oppression;
white police officers are killing thousands of black suspects each year;
COVID originated naturally from a pangolin somewhere – and the vaccine will prevent people from contracting it;
the world will cease to exist in a handful of years from anthropogenic climate change;
the current inflation is only transitory and the economy is just fine;
defunding the police has not resulted in an explosion of crime;
a military that puts DEI and CRT ahead of war-fighting readiness and lethality makes the country stronger;
or any other fairy tale that suits their purpose for fomenting chaos, or otherwise paving the way to further Marxist oppressed/oppressor policies.

Despite heavy support from their media friends in promoting these narratives, and to their great frustration, the majority of the public is simply not buying in and remains opposed to many of them – demonstrated in both polling and voting (when they get the chance).

Unfortunately, one vital area of national concern where majority opinion and voting are inapplicable pertains to our national defense and military.

The Military Leadership Diversity Commission was created at the end of 2008 by the Congressional Black Caucus (without debate), and in 2011 that commission produced its final report: From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st-Century Military. The report points out that color and gender blindness, and goals of assimilation are actually unfair and argues for proactive steps to deal with differences (aka – active discrimination).

More recently, the Biden administration put in place the DEI strategic plan for the military (see Department of Defense Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plans: Fiscal Years 2022-2023). In 2022, the Department of Defense established the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion to promote DEI within the Department of Defense (DoD), with a primary focus on military personnel.

Pour through these documents and you will see dozens of objectives and initiatives with the underlying assumption that race, ethnicity, gender, color, and sexual orientation are now critical characteristics that should be sought, praised, promoted, and certainly tracked – all under the unquestioned and amorphous goal of improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

In doing so, these commissions, committees, and policies are destroying meritocracy and combat readiness, obliterating recruiting efforts, damaging morale, and putting the security of our nation in grave danger.

Senator Cotton recently accurately identified these policies as nothing less than an attempted Marxist take-down of our military.

Hundreds if not thousands of questions can be posed about the many dimensions surrounding these DEI concepts, but it might be helpful to start with the methodology that is currently used for establishing many of these variables.

It is not a DNA or genetics test, not a blood quantum test similar to what some Native American tribes require, but self-reporting. Each individual service member is allowed to identify his or her gender, race, and color.

From a recent AFRICOM DEI presentation: https://www.dhra.mil/Portals/52/Documents/DACODAI/TAB-A_Briefing_US_Africa_Command_Diversity_and_Inclusion_Revised.pdf provided to DACODAI meeting, https://www.dhra.mil/DACODAI/Reports-Meetings/

In other words, all of these characteristics live not in the person’s genes, DNA, or appearance, but in his or her head. It is a psychological construct. Accordingly, the military is really pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion of these psychological constructs.

Can true diversity be obtained in this fashion?

Here’s a thought experiment: Hypothetically, if we have a given military group that is comprised 100% of people who are genetically male and Hispanic, but some 50% of them self-report as female, and 90% of them self-report as some race other than Hispanic, is that a racially and gender diverse group?

Are genetics and DNA really irrelevant in making this determination? Would, for example, the military care if this self-reporting contradicts actual DNA (similar to Elizabeth Warren claiming Native American status with less than 1/1,000^th of any DNA to support that)?

If they do care, does the military intend to require DNA testing on all personnel? And if yes, exactly what percentage of a given racial make-up will be required to qualify as any given race? A majority? A plurality? Some? Who should make the decision regarding racial category if someone is exactly 25% of four different races?

And if they don’t care, then surely much of the emphasis on appearance (i.e., color) will need to be reconsidered, as some people who may appear to be Caucasian (even pale Caucasian) may self-report as a “persons of color.”

And if this is the case, will employees be able to change their racial classification any time they choose – similar to gender and sexual orientation?

If not, why not? After all, services such as 23andMe make it easier than ever for people to learn new information about their backgrounds – some of this pertaining to race.

Furthermore, extensive DEI training has undoubtedly opened new windows of self-awareness for many people. If they discover new information, either DNA-based or self-identification-based, should they report this change to their superiors? In fact, are they required to do so?

Suppose that a service member, previously listed by his employer as Asian, Hispanic or Caucasian writes a letter to his appropriate personnel officer saying something like the following:

“After personal research and self-reflection on my own genetic and racial background, I have determined that my race is Black or African American, and that I am a ‘person of color.’ I thought that these distinctions should be noted in my records for any Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion purposes. Please reflect this accordingly in my personnel file.”

Will the military make such changes as requested? Why or why not?

As the emphasis on the gender, race, and color of a given candidate for award recognition, promotion, and compensation purposes increases, it stands to reason that such proclamations of newfound identity, whether DNA or psychologically based, or manufactured, similar to college applicants, will become more commonplace.

Indeed, one controversial survey determined that 34% of college applicants today, claim racial minority status, including some 48% who claim to be Native American. Is that okay? Does this still help us achieve the “tremendous benefits of diversity?”

Secondly, how will the military define color? Clearly it is not synonymous with race or ethnicity – otherwise the thousands of references to it would be redundant. All of the aforementioned questions about race apply to this category as well.

At present, color too supposedly lives only in the mind of the individual. Will self-reporting continue to be the rubric used for this category? If not, who will determine whether a given employee qualifies as a “person of color?” Will this be an individual? A committee? Will a color chart of skin pigmentation be applied?

These are but a few of the questions that barely scratch the surface in exposing the arbitrary lunacy and hypocrisy of the damaging Marxist DEI policies permeating our military today.

The biggest challenge would be getting any key military leader to answer any of these questions.

And if they did, the answers would no doubt be provided in Kendi-speak – “Our military’s greatest strength and most valued resource is its people – people who promote a diverse DoD workforce that reflects the diverse population of the United States. That is why we are committed to promoting and inclusive culture that enables differences among personnel to improve the DoD . . . blah, blah, blah.”

But they will likely stay far away from answering the specific ugly questions posed here about how that sausage is made, and the discriminatory decisions and treatment that stem from it.

However, by continuing to raise these fundamental questions, we can hopefully expose the faulty basis of the policies and hasten their abolishment.

—
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., was president of Western Colorado University from 2014 to 2020 where he secured the second largest donation in the history of the state for a new school of computer science and engineering in partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder. His 2006 award winning work But What If I Live? predicted the subsequent financial meltdown; and his follow up book Retirementology – Rethinking the American Dream in a New Economy topped Amazon’s “personal finance” category. He now lives in Florida.

Notes:

First published on American Thinker

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