Russia and Ukraine are in a bloody war, China menaces its neighbors including Taiwan, and threatens war if it is challenged. Iran is reportedly growing closer to having a nuclear weapon.
It’s good to know the world is such a peaceful place that our future military leaders can focus on things like “whiteness,” queer theory, and the cultural aesthetics of the movie “Barbershop.” Yet such is the case at the U.S. Military Academy.
The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Monday released 653 pages of documents from West Point that it said were in response to a public records request. The request was for information about teaching Critical Race Theory to cadets between Jan. 1, 2021, and March 2022.
The documents released by JW show slides of instruction that pertain to CRT and how it can be used to explain some social issues.
In one case, the presenters discuss how the black scholar W.E.B. DuBois would view the movie “Barbershop,” which “maintains the idea of a stereotypical black barbershop” as a cultural hub for the community.
In another example, the presentation notes that “in order to understand racial inequality and slavery, it is first necessary to address whiteness,” on definition of which is “a location of structural advantage, of race privilege.”
Of CRT, the slides show that it “argues that racism is not simply individual prejudice and a lack of education/experience,” but also “assumes that race is a social construct,” instead of a biological reality, and “emphasizes the importance of the perspectives and experiences of racial minorities.” One slide shows that as a teacher instructs that “race is behind us,” a student is thinking “race still matters.”
In a discussion of “workplace biases,” cadets are told, “Unqualified white Americans are more likely to obtain a job, regardless of skill set and background simply because of who they know.” Yet, affirmative action, an actual government-sanctioned discrimination policy is defined heroically as a “collection of policies that are designed to promote equal employment opportunities for women and racial minorities and to fight institutional racism in the economic sphere.”
In one section that proclaims to demonstrate “Modern Day Slavery in America,” the instructors note that blacks are less likely than whites to have a college education, receive recommended medical screening tests or bank approval for a mortgage, own their own homes, or receive a job promotion.
On the other hand, blacks are more likely than whites to live below the poverty line and be victims of homicide or incarcerated.
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In another set of slides, the greater prevalence of whites being Army officers, compared to the white population as a whole, is floated as a sort of structural racism. The instructors then detail how to overcome this “barrier.”
In section after section, the role of the individual in American society and how his or her choices shape life events appear to be ignored.
And that’s just on race.
Another section mentions a class on the “introduction to the concepts of post-modernism” with “a focus on feminist theory, critical race theory, and queer theory.” “The concepts that will be discussed in this class are essential for future military officers to understand and fully absorb,” slides of the syllabus say.
Dozens of pages are redacted in full or partially, including email exchanges between West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams and his staff.
Many of the redactions occur on pages where the West Point brass discussed Republican lawmakers, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz of Florida, discussing CRT at the academy in news interviews or grilling Pentagon officials about it.
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The trove of records also included a copy of former President Donald Trump’s September 2020 executive order that prohibited taxpayer-funded programs that “promote race or sex-stereotyping or scapegoating in the Federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services,” as well as by federal contractors.
In a memo explaining Trump’s order to the executive leadership at federal agencies, the White House identified CRT as an example of training that “sows division among the workforce by attempting to prescribe and impose upon employees a conformity of belief in ideologies that label entire groups of Americans as inherently racist or evil.”
In a statement, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “Our military is under attack – from within. These documents show racist, anti-American CRT propaganda is being used to try to radicalize our rising generation of Army leadership at West Point.”
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