It was just over a year ago when we saw a thread by Don Wolt about a recommended reading list for the Navy to help “develop a seasoned team of naval warriors.” Most of the books on the list appeared to serve that cause, being about leadership and military ethics. However, a handful were particularly woke, including Gemma Hartley’s “Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward,” “Sexual Minorities and Politics: An Introduction,” and Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” which teaches that there’s no such thing for white people as being “not racist” — in order to not be part of the problem, you had to be actively “antiracist.”
The Chief of Naval Operations posts a professional reading list to help "develop a seasoned team of naval warriors." Of the 16 titles listed, 6 are notably progressive & seem to have been selected more to build a culture of wokeness than of warfighting. https://t.co/QbKMHDANmU pic.twitter.com/suPh5p5hw8
— Don Wolt (@tlowdon) March 17, 2021
Rep. Jim Banks links to a piece from last June in the Washington Examiner about him confronting Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, about the professional reading list. Emily Brooks reported at the time:
Banks noted that the Navy recently completed a review to root out extremism and started his line of questioning by noting some of Kendi’s extremist remarks.
Before Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in 2020, Kendi suggested that she is a “white colonizer” because she adopted children from Haiti. Kendi regularly argues that capitalism and racism are “interlinked.” And in college, he wrote that white people used the AIDS virus to fend off racial extinction.
…
Asked whether he had read Kendi’s book, Gilday said that he had. The book was included on the reading list, he said, “because I think it’s really important to consider a variety of views.”
The military is more concerned about tracking down the roots of “white rage.”
Now Banks is reporting that Kendi’s book has been removed from the reading list.
I’m encouraged to have learned that anti-American radical Ibram X Kendi’s CRT manifesto “How To Be An Antiracist” has been removed from the Navy’s reading list. @realchrisrufohttps://t.co/0GqjLDgtuw
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) May 7, 2022
Now, before we get to the comments, let’s confirm that the book has not been “banned,” and it was never required reading in the first place; it was simply recommended to sailors as part of their professional development.
That was in the @USNavy reading list?? It's time to clean house.
— 🇷🇺✝️ Blair Polls 🇷🇺✝️ (@BlairPolls) May 7, 2022
Damn good news
— Dan 國 Kunio Sparkman (@DanRSparkman) May 7, 2022
Were the people who put it there fired?
Or are they going to just be more sly about it in the future?
— Ekscalybur (@Ekscalybur) May 7, 2022
Fire whoever put it there in the first place.
— Fishy Catfish (@CatfishFishy) May 7, 2022
If you're not going to kick that admiral out, then we're just wasting our time.
— BourbonChicken (@BourbnChicken) May 7, 2022
I was in the Marines for 22 years. The Navy has become a floating college campus with a dress code. It’s ridiculous.
— Sasquatch14 (@WadeWinfrey1) May 7, 2022
As we’ve seen wartime preparedness doesn’t seem to be getting as much attention as properly diversifying the military.
Related:
‘How to Be an Antiracist’? ‘The New Jim Crow’? The Navy’s suggested reading list for sailors has some pretty woke titles https://t.co/NK0KTBEy6U
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 17, 2021
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