This woke Pentagon video delivers a dangerous message

When a Navy training video on the use of preferred pronouns emerged last year, many people, myself included, initially thought it was a joke. The reaction is understandable. After all, a rainbow-colored video on how to make the Navy a "safe space" for people who are exploring their gender identity seems more at home on "South Park" than in basic training.  

But last week, a top Department of Defense official offered testimony to Congress that doubled down on the video’s underlying message that the armed services must be a "safe space" in which each member feels validated and affirmed on his or her journey of self-discovery.  

The DOD’s chief diversity and inclusion officer (yes, the military now has one) told the House Armed Service Committee, "[T]he concerns young Americans have about safety are negatively impacting [military] recruiting." But he wasn’t talking about physical safety. Instead, he claimed that potential recruits and young service members "do[] not feel safe reporting to work for fear of discrimination."  

This is both absurd and untrue. The DOD’s own data shows that today’s military has never been more diverse, with Black Americans enlisting in the armed services at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group. So what accounts for the official’s unsubstantiated claim? 

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The DOD has bought into the DEI-industrial complex, which is injecting its noxious ideology into one of this nation’s most meritocratic institutions. Even worse, it’s undermining the very ethos that places discipline, teamwork and collective lethality above individual fragility. 

As a Black Navy veteran, I find it insulting to suggest that service members feel less safe working alongside their comrades-in-arms than they would confronting an enemy in battle. I enlisted in the Navy because I wanted to give back to the nation that provided my immigrant parents a new beginning, economic opportunities, safety and security. 

My parents supported my decision to join America’s armed forces not only because I was stubbornly determined to fight for our country, but because it in turn would provide structure, teach me life lessons, and provide higher educational opportunities. Indeed, upon completion of service, I returned home more disciplined and later obtained my bachelor’s and juris doctorate degrees with the help of the G.I. Bill.

To be sure, bias and discrimination have no place in our military – or anywhere else. But the DOD’s Board on Diversity and Inclusion (yes, the military now has one of those, too) is a perfect example of the way that wokeness is hijacking otherwise serious conversations the military could be having about inclusiveness in the armed services.  

For example, a recent DOD report on racial and ethnic inclusion in the military goes completely off the rails, recommending that the military invest in transgender inclusion by developing policies on everything from dorm assignments to drug therapies. When it does address issues relating to racial and ethnic inclusion, it offers absurd "solutions."  

For example, even though Black people enlist at a higher rate than any other racial group, they reach O-4 to O-6 promotions at the lowest rate of any racial or ethnic group. One reason is that, statistically speaking, Black service members tend to score lower than their White counterparts on the qualifying tests. The solution to this problem seems straightforward: offer diagnostic testing to service members and provide training programs to help them achieve at a higher level.  

But, instead, the Board on Diversity and Inclusion recommends either eliminating qualifying exams or supplementing them with subjective "personality testing."  Universities have used such "personality tests" to racially gerrymander incoming classes by downgrading Asian American applicants at a staggering rate. And, if oral argument was any indication, the Supreme Court will likely hold that the practice is unconstitutional in a set of cases before it this term.

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When I enlisted in the Navy, I was 17 years old. The Navy did not infantilize me. It did not treat me like a victim. And it most certainly did not suggest that I was "unsafe" among my fellow sailors.  

Instead, the Navy taught me the meaning of honor, courage, commitment and true selflessness. It taught me that regardless of background, color, religion, origin or creed, as a team united by one identity – the American identity – we could accomplish any mission and defeat any foe. If divided, then we would fail.

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