'This will not stand': Air Force resumes teaching on first Black pilots after DEI review

[uptower]

Trump is renaming the push "Don't say Black".

 

[ColdHardTruth]

So now slavery has to be included in Air Force history classes? I mean, sure, the Union Army had a balloon corps for battlefield observation, but do the causes of the war really need to be discussed at length? Or at all? It is, after all, a history of the Air Force and not a history of The United States. At some point you have to assume people know these things.

No, that is not what I meant.

My apologies for the confusion.

Basically, the Air Force beat Hegseth at his own game and will teach cadets and those in basic training about the Tuskege Airman and the WASPS.

It's all good now.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Basically, the Air Force beat Hegseth at his own game and will teach cadets and those in basic training about the Tuskege Airman and the WASPS.

Okay? So what? Did I miss (and, if so, could you cite) an order that WASPS and Tuskeegee Airmen were forbidden topics?

Because all I've seen is that a specific course was no longer going to be taught, and that course happened to include those topics.

 

[Ahlevah]

But, they replaced the white men who had held those positions for the sake of diversity, which is exactly what DEI is all about.

The idea is to give everyone an equal shot at success, which the WWII programs sought to do. DEI is not about permitting people to achieve a place is this society based on merit, without regard to race or gender. Rather, it is based on an assumption that American society, by virtue of its founding by a dominantly white, patriarchal European culture, is systemically unjust and holding back so-called marginalized groups. It seeks to remove progress based on merit and substitute in its place “goals” to account for alleged past wrongs. It’s basically nuanced affirmative action, without explicit quotas that wouldn’t pass muster in the federal courts.

By the way. Your USA Today article said “the Air Force” pulled the material. Except in the U.S. military decisions aren’t generally decided by committee. There is a chain of command, with ever increasing authority leading to the top of the chain ending at the President of the United States. The commander of the Air Education and Training Command of the United States Air Force is this guy, who grew up in Philadelphia and attended a high school that is 9% white:


Lt. Gen. Brian Robison

He reports to this guy, the Secretary of the Aid Force:



General Brown is the highest-ranking officer in the Air Force. Do you think he’s the “Air Force” they were talking about, or was it General Robinson, who was quoted in your article:

“The block in which these lessons were taught included DEI material, which was directed to be removed,” Robinson released in a statement Monday morning. “We believe this adjustment to curriculum to be fully aligned with the direction given in the DEI executive order. No Airmen or Guardians will miss this block of instruction due to the revision, however one group of trainees had the training delayed.”

So what this appears to be is a case of manufactured outrage, much ado about nothing in order to support a narrative, unless you believe that Lt. Gen. Robinson was being disingenuous as to his method of complying with the presidential directive.

 

[uptower]

By using your brain and exercising a little common sense, something people suffering from TDS, in their zeal to solidify their own bias and prove their case that Trump and “MAGA Americans” are bigots, seem to have a hard time doing.

Since the first thing they did was go after minorities and minority causes that isn't hard at all.

While they happened to be “black Americans” or “female Americans,” you can emphasize first and foremost that they were Americans who loved their country even if it didn’t always appear to love them, and they more than earned their place in its history despite odds that seemed at times to be insurmountable.

This is exactly why their race matters, not the reason it doesn't.

 

[Ahlevah]

Since the first thing they did was go after minorities and minority causes that isn't hard at all.

The way to eliminate discrimination on the basis or race or gender is not to discriminate or the basis of race or gender. Then again, eliminating discrimination or permitting people to succeed based on merit isn’t really the intent of DEI initiatives.

This is exactly why their race matters, not the reason it doesn't.

When it comes to opportunity in this country, race matters to DEI proponents who believe American society is systematically racist, controlled by a privileged, predominantly white, wealthy, male ruling class who wield power only because they designed the system to be that way. Thus if you want to succeed in this country, attempting to do it based merit is a fool’s errand. Only the powerful succeed, and they’re not going to willingly surrender it. You have to take it. It strikes me as a rather cynical point of view, and it’s not the sort of society I think anyone should aspire to create.

 

[j brown's body]

The idea is to give everyone an equal shot at success, which the WWII programs sought to do. DEI is not about permitting people to achieve a place is this society based on merit, without regard to race or gender. Rather, it is based on an assumption that American society, by virtue of its founding by a dominantly white, patriarchal European culture, is systemically unjust and holding back so-called marginalized groups. It seeks to remove progress based on merit and substitute in its place “goals” to account for alleged past wrongs. It’s basically nuanced affirmative action, without explicit quotas that wouldn’t pass muster in the federal courts.

By the way. Your USA Today article said “the Air Force” pulled the material. Except in the U.S. military decisions aren’t generally decided by committee. There is a chain of command, with ever increasing authority leading to the top of the chain ending at the President of the United States. The commander of the Air Education and Training Command of the United States Air Force is this guy, who grew up in Philadelphia and attended a high school that is 9% white:

View attachment 67553296
Lt. Gen. Brian Robison

He reports to this guy, the Secretary of the Aid Force:

View attachment 67553297

General Brown is the highest-ranking officer in the Air Force. Do you think he’s the “Air Force” they were talking about, or was it General Robinson, who was quoted in your article:



So what this appears to be is a case of manufactured outrage, much ado about nothing in order to support a narrative, unless you believe that Lt. Gen. Robinson was being disingenuous as to his method of complying with the presidential directive.

I'm simply pointing out that the Tuskegee airmen was a DEI program.

 

[Ahlevah]

I'm simply pointing out that the Tuskegee airmen was a DEI program.

You’re wrong. The WWII programs were designed to open doors and help American society get to a point at which all Americans would have the freedom and opportunity to succeed based on merit. Social justice advocates for DEI begin with the assumption that American society is systemically racist, and unless its presumed dominant white, male power structures are deconstructed it will remain that way. So from their point of view the discussion is less about creating equal opportunity than it is shifting the allegedly rigged power structures undergirding American society.

 

[ColdHardTruth]

Okay? So what? Did I miss (and, if so, could you cite) an order that WASPS and Tuskeegee Airmen were forbidden topics?

Because all I've seen is that a specific course was no longer going to be taught, and that course happened to include those topics.

Those topics are now being taught again from what I understand.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5108545-us-air-force-tuskegee-airmen-training/

 

[j brown's body]

You’re wrong. The WWII programs were designed to open doors and help American society get to a point at which all Americans would have the freedom and opportunity to succeed based on merit. Social justice advocates for DEI begin with the assumption that American society is systemically racist, and unless its presumed dominant white, male power structures are deconstructed it will remain that way. So from their point of view the discussion is less about creating equal opportunity than it is shifting the allegedly rigged power structures undergirding American society.

DEI is intended to open doors , etc, as well. have explained how I is a DEI program, which is, in fact, designed to open doors. The TA began with the understanding Ameruc.ian society is racist, as the DEI advocates claim. A result of it could shispft the alleged power structure, but that's not the point.

 

[mrdeltoid]

Meh..... It's the Air Force....

 

[uptower]

The WWII programs were designed to open doors and help American society get to a point at which all Americans would have the freedom and opportunity to succeed based on merit.

And people were opposed to it for the same reasons the anti DEI crowd touts now: giving those denied an equal shot an equal shot is apparently no longer a “level” playing field based on “merit.” Those terms are themselves often subjective.

In other words for those used to privilege, equality looks like discrimination.

 

[Ahlevah]

DEI is intended to open doors , etc, as well. have explained how I is a DEI program, which is, in fact, designed to open doors. The TA began with the understanding Ameruc.ian society is racist, as the DEI advocates claim. A result of it could shispft the alleged power structure, but that's not the point.

As I said, DEI’s point is not to build a society based on merit. There is a built-in assumption that people at the top of the socio-economic pyramid got there not because they earned it, but because the system is rigged to benefit them. For social justice advocates, it’s not so much about achieving a state of equality of opportunity as it is equity to remedy the perceived injustice that’s existed since before the country was founded. Equity is the “E” in DEI. That concept didn’t exist in 1942.

But there is a problem with their theory. Immigrants from countries like India and China come here and not only prosper, but kick everyone else’s ass, including white people. Asians are 7% of America’s population, but they represent up to 40% of the incoming freshman classes at some of its top universities, including those in the Ivy League. What gives?

The social justice warriors had to go back to the drawing board and invent a new term to describe these nouveau social-climbing white posers: “white adjacent.” Again, the assumption is made that they succeeded little thanks to merit based on personal sacrifice and hard work, but because they adapted, chameleon-like, to the dominant white culture that allowed them to “fit in” and be accepted. Basically, they succeeded by becoming “just one of the boys.” It still involves framing whites and “white culture” as villains. Social justice advocates found it useful to find common cause with other “people of color,” but these alliances have become somewhat frayed around the edges of late as both East and South Asians assume prominent roles in the C-suites of some of America’s top firms.

 

[Ahlevah]

And people were opposed to it for the same reasons the anti DEI crowd touts now: giving those denied an equal shot an equal shot is apparently no longer a “level” playing field based on “merit.” Those terms are themselves often subjective.

In other words for those used to privilege, equality looks like discrimination.

But the assumption that because someone is of a particular race or sex she’s automatically at a disadvantage and requires favored treatment strikes many Americans as an injustice in itself. I mean, who was more “privileged”? Kamala or JD Vance? Kamala would undoubtedly wince at any suggestion that she was more privileged than he was. Honestly, I think his background—the fact that he achieved so much with so little other than perseverance, hard work, and the support of a foul-mouthed Christian grandmother—is one reason so many leftists seem to despise him.

 

[uptower]

But the assumption that because someone is of a particular race or sex she’s automatically at a disadvantage and requires favored treatment strikes many Americans as an injustice in itself. I mean, who was more “privileged”? Kamala or JD Vance? Kamala would undoubtedly wince at any suggestion that she was more privileged than he was. Honestly, I think his background—the fact that he achieved so much with so little other than perseverance, hard work, and the support of a foul-mouthed Christian grandmother—is one reason so many leftists seem to despise him.

Missed a drop on your chin there

 

[Deuce]

The way to eliminate discrimination on the basis or race or gender is not to discriminate or the basis of race or gender. Then again, eliminating discrimination or permitting people to succeed based on merit isn’t really the intent of DEI initiatives.

Allowing people to succeed based on merit is the intent of DEI.

Instead of having people of color have their merit under-valued.

You, of course, just immediately assume a brown person is unqualified. How many people have you called a "DEI hire" that you knew absolutely nothing about other than their skin color?

 

[George50]

One very important aspect of DEI, which Republicans and MAGA and conservatives could give a shit about, are handicapped people.

They're getting screwed in all of this just so a bunch of insecure white guys can feel better about themselves.

Are you sure? Isn't mocking the disabled part of the MAGA ideology?

 

[weaver2]

"Following swift backlash from legislators, retired military personnel, and others, the U.S. Air Force confirmed to USA TODAY Monday it will resume teaching its recruits about the first Black airmen in the nation’s military.

The move comes on the heels of the Air Force confirming Saturday that course instruction about the Tuskegee Airmen − the more than 15,000 Black pilots, mechanics and cooks in the segregated Army of World War II − had been pulled from basic training curriculum.

In addition, military officials confirmed the Air Force had pulled training about the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) − a paramilitary aviation organization of female pilots employed to fly during World War II."

Link

Not sure how you can acknowledge these two groups without dragging DEI into it. Any thoughts?

Blacks and women were both pilots during WWII. Noting that they played a part in the history of American flight and WWII isn't dragging DEI into anything. It's an historical fact that they were pilots. Taking them out of an introductory training course for pilots is what dragged the topic into a DEI controversy. Hopefully the assholes that decided that nobody ever flew a plane except white males gets something unpleasant for their efforts.

 

[Tangmo]

No, that is not what I meant.

My apologies for the confusion.

Basically, the Air Force beat Hegseth at his own game and will teach cadets and those in basic training about the Tuskege Airman and the WASPS.

It's all good now.

The Supreme Court has always agreed the Military Service Academies MSA can continue with DEI in their admissions policies and decisions -- and with what also has historically been called Affirmative Action admissions. Trump and Hegseth mean to end this policy across the MSAs and to kill it right away.

The Supremes have always exempted the MSAs from the ban on colleges and universities' DEI admissions practices. Indeed and in the court's 2023 banning Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the MSAs "have potentially distinct interests" that justify their DEI in admissions. The interests being in and for the national defense and exclusively so.

Roberts noted that the MSAs stats about minority officers across the armed forces are consistently paltry -- figures such as 8% of a service officer corps. And that each military service is always hard pressed to recruit officers that are considered a minority grouping of the society.

The SC has always accepted the Pentagon's argument for DEI in admissions at all the MSAs that a scarcity of minority officers could create distrust within the armed forces which were racially segregated until 1948. The scarcity would also impact minorities in the society who would have no reference points of minority military chiefs and commanders serving in defense of the nation.

Just last month, in December, the US Naval Academy won its DEI admissions case in the US District Court of Maryland against yet another never say die armband group that is trying new challenges at each MSA of each service. The cases of the other MSAs are pending.

Trump and Hegseth are clear and vociferous however that this will end forthwith. That this will be stopped. If so, we can expect the MSAs to challenge the EO termination of their DEI privileges in the courts where the SC has always ruled in favor of the MSA DEI admissions policies and programs.

 

[tosca1]

"Following swift backlash from legislators, retired military personnel, and others, the U.S. Air Force confirmed to USA TODAY Monday it will resume teaching its recruits about the first Black airmen in the nation’s military.

The move comes on the heels of the Air Force confirming Saturday that course instruction about the Tuskegee Airmen − the more than 15,000 Black pilots, mechanics and cooks in the segregated Army of World War II − had been pulled from basic training curriculum.

In addition, military officials confirmed the Air Force had pulled training about the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) − a paramilitary aviation organization of female pilots employed to fly during World War II."

Link

Not sure how you can acknowledge these two groups without dragging DEI into it. Any thoughts?

It is the issue with ..............................TRANSGENDERS!





PRIORITIZING SERVICEMEMBER INTEGRITY, LETHALITY, AND HEALTH:
Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order directing the Department of Defense to update its guidance regarding trans-identifying medical standards for military service and to rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.

• The Executive Order will require the Secretary of Defense to do the following:
  
  • Update all Department of Defense medical standards to ensure they prioritize readiness and lethality.
  • Take action to end the use of invented and identification-based pronouns in the Department of Defense.
• The Executive Order also prohibits males from using or sharing sleeping, changing, or bathing in facilities designated for females.
• The provisions in the Executive Order also apply to the Coast Guard.
• The Executive Order revokes Biden Administration Executive Order 14004 and all policies, directives, and guidance pursuant to that order.
  
  • Executive Order 14004 called for accommodating “gender identity” in the military—to the detriment of military readiness and unit cohesion.

RESTORING SANITY IN OUR MILITARY: During the Biden Administration, the Department of Defense allowed gender insanity to pervade our military organizations, family, and culture.
This included not only permitting the military to increase the number of individuals not physically or mentally prepared to serve, but also ordering the Department of Defense to pay for servicemembers’ transition surgeries,
as well as those of their dependent children—at a cost of millions of dollars to the American taxpayer.




more.....

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ensures Military Excellence and Readiness

PRIORITIZING SERVICEMEMBER INTEGRITY, LETHALITY, AND HEALTH: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order directing the Department of

www.whitehouse.gov

They reviewed the training materials to make them in-line with the new executive orders on transgender.

I bet they removed any referrals to transgenders in their materials!
It was never about blacks or women!

 

[Quag]

That is what you have done in your example. You have determined that both candidate are technically equal and decided that one candidate is a better choice based on race.

Having a better mixture in your orginization can create more diversity (term used intentionally) in opinions/points of view which is a good thing for an orginization.
When all abilities/competences about the candidates are equal then it is a good idea to look at the orginization and try to see how it can be improved. This isnt racism, racism is saying we take one over the other because we like their ethnicity or dislike the other's. More subtly it could just be that those hiring just feel more comfortable with a certain ethnicity

Right, but my point is that their success isn't all the same, and didn't follow the same paths. Susan Boyle became famous because she was on a talent show and got publicity despite not being the most attractive. I'm just pointing out that the music industry is a hard example to use because it's selects on criteria that we generally don't see.

All irrelvant to my point I just used famous people that you might know It isnt what they do but how their looks are percieved by others

 

[Ahlevah]

Hopefully the assholes that decided that nobody ever flew a plane except white males gets something unpleasant for their efforts.

I’m not sure which “asshole” did that, but there’s a good chance he was black. As far as I know, no individual has been singled out for criticism, but the Air Force was accused of “malicious compliance” with Trump’s executive order by Alabama Senator Katie Britt. After a political outcry by her and other members of Congress, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got everyone onto the plan to exercise a bit of common sense:

 

[j brown's body]

I’m not sure which “asshole” did that, but there’s a good chance he was black. As far as I know, no individual has been singled out for criticism, but the service was accused of “malicious compliance” with Trump’s executive order by Alabama Senator Katie Britt. After a political outcry by her and other members of Congress, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got everyone onto the plan to exercise common sense.

View attachment 67553431

Thinking of naming my next band "Malicous Compliance," whatever that means.

In the Trump adminstration, one would think that's a requirement. Malice runs through its members veins.

 

[Lovebug]

I'm not super sure how it relates to DEI, it is a factual piece of military history and there's no reason not to teach it.

This.

 

[j brown's body]

Blacks and women were both pilots during WWII. Noting that they played a part in the history of American flight and WWII isn't dragging DEI into anything. It's an historical fact that they were pilots. Taking them out of an introductory training course for pilots is what dragged the topic into a DEI controversy. Hopefully the assholes that decided that nobody ever flew a plane except white males gets something unpleasant for their efforts.

View attachment 67553405

The Tuskegee Airman were essentially a part of a DEI program.