Navy official says exposure to varied viewpoints improves sailors’ critical thinking skills – Critical race theory comes to the Navy
This “anti-racist” Professor Ibram X Kendi (who last year engaged in an openly racist attack on Justice Amy Coney Barrett) has had his book “How to be an Antiracist” land on the Chief of Naval Operations’ reading list. This book says that just not being racist isn’t enough. Being colorblind to race isn’t enough anymore. It also explains how America is a racist country founded on racism and everything we do is racist.
Other additions include Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and Jason Pierceson’s “Sexual Minorities and Politics.” I can find little about the latter, but the former is a book that posits that America’s criminal justice system is racist to black people. According to her Wikipedia article on the book;
Alexander argued the harsh penalty of how “people whose only crime is drug addiction or possession of a small amount of drugs for recreational use find themselves locked out of the mainstream society—permanently—and also highlights the inequality presented from the fact that “blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at a rate from twenty to fifty-seven times greater than that of white men”
It seems racist to me to suggest that black people can’t be expected to not break the law, but what do I know?
Unsurprisingly, there are those who think woke identity politics (that explicitly seek to divide people by racial groups, which never goes wrong, right?) don’t belong in the military. Three House Republicans have voiced their concerns in a letter to the CNO Admiral Gilday.
Fox News reports;
Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri on Thursday evening sent a letter to Adm. Michael Gilday expressing concern about the inclusion of the following books on the Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading Program (CNO-PRP) reading list: Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist,” Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and Jason Pierceson’s “Sexual Minorities and Politics.”
“All three books reinforce the view that America is a confederation of identity categories of the oppressed and their oppressors rather than a common homeland of individual citizens who are united by common purposes and fidelity to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and codified in the Constitution,” Lamborn and Hartzler wrote to Gilday.
A Navy official told Fox News that while not every viewpoint expressed in the books on the CNO’s reading list is endorsed by the CNO or the Navy, exposure to varied viewpoints improves the critical thinking skills of its sailors.
The congressional Republicans concluded their letter by requesting Gilday pull all three books from the CNO-PRP reading list; “verify” that the books are not being “issued, taught or otherwise endorsed at any Navy training or academic institutions.” In addition, they ask to “confirm” the Navy’s stance on the idea that the U.S. is systemically racist; and “confirm” the military branch’s opposition to “race-based discrimination.”
Their letter came several weeks after Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., a Naval Reserve officer since 2021, initially sent a letter to Gilday on Feb. 26 arguing that the views promoted in “How to Be an Antiracist” on the CNO-PRP reading program are “explicitly anti-American” and called on Gilday to explain the Navy’s decision to include it on the CNO-PRP list or remove it.
“The views promoted in ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ are explicitly anti-American. According to Kendi, the author, America is fundamentally racist, so anti-Americanism is a moral imperative,” Branks wrote in his letter. “… Cohesiveness and unity in our armed services is essential. Kendi’s ideas are divisive and will undermine morale and weaken our national security.”
Banks then called on Gilday to provide him “with a written response explaining how ‘How to be an Antiracist’ cultivates a culture of warfighting excellence,’ or remove ‘How to be an Antiracist’ from the CNO-PRP Reading List.”
“The Navy has received the letter from Reps. Lamborn and Hartzler, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, will respond directly to them. We appreciate the Representatives’ concerns regarding this issue,” Cmdr. Nate Christensen, the spokesman for the Chief of Naval Operations, said in a statement.
I wonder if inclusion of Mein Kampf would similarly be seen as “woke”. After all, while not every viewpoint expressed in the books on the CNO’s reading list is endorsed by the CNO or the Navy, exposure to varied viewpoints improves the critical thinking skills of its sailors.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Dumbass Bullshit, Guest Link, Navy, Politics, SJW Idiocy
Anybody who touts themselves as an anti-racist is the MOST racist person in the room. I’m old enough to remember when people weren’t supposed to notice the color of your skin, what ‘s between your legs, and who you sleep with. You’re just supposed notice THE PERSON AS AN INDIVIDUAL. Now the Race Hustlers like this clown and others tell you that race is the most important thing. That your opinions don’t matter unless you’re a certain race or are more important because of your race. You know the kind of the thing’s racists say and believe. In the past, racists came it you with hoods and raised power fists, but now they come at you with college degrees that are supposed to impress you. Fuck this guy and other clowns like him and the lemmings that think he’s smart…he’s not. I can’t wait for 2022 & 2024 when clean up from another failed Leftist experiment begins.
Individuality is “racist,” comrade– we must be “collective” and incapable of thinking for “social justice” and the greater good!
I wonder if anyone has checked with Rachel Dolezal lately?
Curious as to her opinion of these clowns.
She now identifies as as “transracial” and is going by the Nigerian name of “Nkechi Amare Diallo” and complained to the NY Post she can’t get a job.
Turned down applying for employment working in a casino and a hotel working as a maid, she’s been braiding hair, writing grants, painting and doing “pep talks” online.
She was in court for welfare fraud in 2018 for not reporting income such as 87k in book royalties, among others, she eventually plead guilty receiving probation and restitution of almost $9k to Washington taxpayers.
Future elections won’t fix shit. They will be as fraudulent as the last one, if not more so.
A much simpler and easier solution:
How about everyone in the US Navy watch 4 minutes of comedian Chris Rock?
I’ve always like that video… rules that everyone should follow, regardless of race.
^Word^ Senior. The way some of these people act, you would think that every white person in this country goes around wearing a hood and a white robe…and burns crosses on the front lawn of every black person. The main books that Military Members needs to be reading is how to operate or maintain equipment that can break things and carry the fight to the enemy. The only racism I’ve ever seen was the black hating on the white…and the hatred that the blacks seem to have for one another. They’re killing their own people every day in Africa…and Chicago, Noo Yawk, LA, Detroit, Atlanta…
KoB,
Don’t forget record numbers of murders in 2021 in Philadelphia,
“The City of Brotherly Love.”
The new Police Commissioner Outlaw,
brought in as an outside hire after her stint as
Police Chief of Portland, Oregon,
hasn’t quite worked out as planned (by city Democrats).
Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave. he never talked about division and polarization. He spoke of inclusion and blacks having an equal chance at education and work. The operative word there is an EQUAL chance. Not a better chance and the second big word is WORK. Get your asses out at go to WORK. Not sitting on your asses asking for a handout generation after generation.
I am glad I am semi-retired and don’t have to put up with such nonsense.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”– now racist RethugliKKKan propaganda, comrade!
(Ask Lars.)
Equal opportunity is old and broke.
Equal outcome is the new hotness.
Or even better is the Orwellian “some animals are more equal than others”
“Equity”– it won’t lead to gulags and executions this time, Leftists promise!
^WORD^
^WORD^ x 2.
Stupid.
The CNO should add “The Anarchists Cookbook” and “Drummer Hoff” to the list.
Don’t be giving the CNO any ideas…
“The Vagina Dialogues” will be required annual GMT next…
Of course, conservative/patriotic viewpoints aren’t included– only Leftist, America-hating ones.
Stop politicizing the armed forces. That always ends badly.
You dumbass progtards will regret it. They will turn on you.
Stop.
When I read the military is celebrating its diversity, I remember how it used to celebrate its uniformity- we even wore uniforms. I wonder if every new troop can wear his/her/its own clothing of the day.
Every day since Sniff ‘n Blow assumed power I have thanked God that not only am I retired, but I am retired and too broken to serve again (while these butt nuggets are in power); we’re back to the SJW, climate change bogeyman, 57 genders, social engineering BS. I’m shocked that they haven’t added Das Kapital to the reading lists along with Mao’s little Red Book as well. This crap makes me shake my head, WTF does that critical race theory malarkey have to do with warfighting or seamanship? Riddle me that Batman…
I’m conflicted. I had to read “The New Jim Crow” for a college class a few years ago, and it was little more than racist drivel (to be fair, in addition to that and The Communist Manifesto, the professor also had us read works by Paine and Locke…. he was biased, as are we all, but he was willing to at least acknowledge other views).
I don’t like what these books express, and am concerned about their potential to indoctrinate readers…. but I’m also, and more vehemently, against censorship. While I doubt the CNO’s reasoning is so noble, it’s not a bad thing to see how the other sides see things. The alternative is tunnel vision and jingoism:
I developed a counter-desertification plan for a certain area of Iraq; most of the insurgent issues we faced in my region had to do with farmers’ fields becoming infertile, forcing those farmers to find work in urban areas controlled by other tribes. It was a complex, multi-phased approach that would have made real and immediate difference….
I’m not saying it would have won the war, but it certainly would have helped. My commander refused the idea – not because of any actual flaws in the design (it wasn’t perfect), but because I had drawn some of the ideas from Chinese efforts against the Gobi. To him, anything even associated with China was bad, and he refused to hear it.
I’m perfectly ok with these works, along with Mein Kampf, on a professional reading list, if the intent is to understand other perspectives. Moreso, I’d love to see Mao’s On Guerrilla War and similar works included. As a combat engineer, I can only see bad things happening if you tell a bored private to read The Anarchist’s Cookbook. It’s just bad information.
“Sir, Mao breathed regularly. Will you thus stop?”
He also refused to read Sun Tzu, for the same reason.
We have some pretty shit officers in today’s army. Some shit NCOs, too, seeing as I wasn’t able to change his mind.
Ignorance is Bliss.
You were making him unhappy.
I am not into censorship, not burning books. Everyone read what you wish. But imposing this on the military is at cross purposes to what the military does and is for.
There are MORE than enough books, pamphlets, PowerPoints, classes, and counselings in the military already to deal with racial and sexual matters.
Adding this stuff as mandatory is just forcing the woke mentality square peg into a round hole. It will be a “pound to fit, paint to match” program and in the end, produce nothing new to improve the utility of our Armed Forces
I’ve never known anyone who took a professional reading list as a homework assignment – just a list of works the CDR endorses.
There certainly are other books I’d rather see on the list, but it’s not my list.
Oh, but it will produce one thing in great quantity:
Simmering, potentially explosive, resentment…
And THAT is the sum of the equation Poe!
Military members of any rank even being recommended to read these titles, will begin to seethe when they realize they have been doing all they could to promote harmony and equality within the ranks, only to be encouraged to “read further”.
This has the potential to become a never-ending story of constant, unwarranted abuse.
If one is accused of impropriety regarding race, be it true or false, these will become part of the remedy.
This type of woke thinking will, I promise you, begin the worse era of race relations the military has seen in decades.
It’s all about hassling evil honkies and sowing division, because Diversity or something (not “racism” when Leftists do it, you see).
👍👍👍
Great. Just what we need; more pointless social engineering bullshit to focus on, rather than warfighting and not running our ships into each other. Bravo.
Don’t worry, we’ll walk right into a war with China and heroically pull our head out of our ass and win like we always do.
In addition to Mein Kampf, they should put the Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, Prairie Fire and Rules for Radicals on the reading list. Since the military has been taken over by Progs, they should get the Prog basic texts on the reading list. Oops, I forgot Mao’s little red book.
Oh, and it is rayciss to expect black yoots not to break the law, comply with rules, and be good citizens. Afterall, we are now learning they can’t be expected to learn the rules of basic arithmetic, cuz “they be rayciss.” This is especially so if the student is asked to show his work above the wrong the answer. Who knew that (2+2)x5 = something other that 20, and that there are a variety of non-rayciss answers.
Marx, and his myriad insane evil hellspawn, require “oppressors” and “oppressed” perpetually at each other’s throats, so the self-selected elite can justify their power to “fix” the strife they themselves mandate and create.
Class hate, race hate, them hate, doesn’t matter.
It is evil and insane, and they mean to apply their “dictatorship of the proletariat” , with them as the dictators and the proles obedient to the dictators. Of course few of them say it that way. Too obvious, eh?
Some folks mock me for saying that, but how quickly they Quisling for it and lick jackboot to help bring about that evil insane rule.
It hasn’t uplifted any nation or group. Quite the contrary, it destroys all it infects. But, hey, the progtard say “one more try the ‘right’ way with the ‘right’ rulers, eh? Obey your betters” .
And in other words, they mean to oppress. Everything else, anything that works, must go.
I’m so glad I’m retired from the Navy. It sucked enough back in the day when we all had that fun-fun quarterly mass training. Getting lectured about drinking or getting vd. Now it’s about this critical race theory bullshit. What’s worse, is that all the sailors have to sit there and take it. Ugh. Talk about a morale killer.
I won’t be surprised one bit to see a mass exodus of people leaving after their hitch. Gives new meaning to the term ”FTN”.
Huh. The only “required reading” I ever had were the Reactor Plant Manual, EDOM, SSORM, various tech manuals, and Qual books.
Didn’t have time for anything else.