by Tara Corp at Defense One
Republicans fighting against critical race theory confronted Pentagon leaders in an unusual showdown between white lawmakers, a Black defense secretary, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over what kind of teachings about racism were appropriate in military education and training.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., led a series of questions challenging new Defense Department initiatives to address racism and white extremism in the ranks, aiming his criticisms at Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, while trying to minimize responses supporting those initiatives from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley in a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
Among lawmakers’ objections was a recent seminar on “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage,” held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in New York, on whether it was a “woke” effort to inspire race-based guilt among the academy’s majority white student body, or, as the military’s top leaders suggested Wednesday, an important part of higher education to expose the nation’s future uniformed leaders to all points of view.
Gaetz’s exchange was unavoidable in its optics of a white lawmaker challenging and interrupting Austin, the nation’s first Black defense secretary, to suggest that the retired general didn’t know everything he needed to on how race discussions were hurting the force…
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