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June 18, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
09:39
Wokeness Invades Our Military
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Admiral Michael Gilday.
Admiral Gilday, I have to ask you about something first, that I'm concerned about, many people are, and a lot of people in the civilian world.
I sent you a letter with two dozen people on it, concerned that you had recently added several books to the Navy's professional reading list promoting critical race theory.
And one of these books is Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Anti-Racist.
And it argues that the entire American system is corrupted from top to bottom by racial prejudices which account for all differences in outcomes in our society.
And one sentence out of that book says the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.
The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.
Now, I understand that this is a voluntary reading list, but how does exposing our sailors to the idea that they are either oppressors or oppressed and that we must actively discriminate to make up for past discrimination improve our Navy's readiness and lethality for great power competition?
Sir, initially you mentioned critical race theory.
I'm not a theorist on the Chief of Naval Operations.
What I can tell you is, factually, based on a substantial amount of time talking to sailors in the fleet, there's racism in the Navy, just like there's racism in our country.
And the way we're going to get after it is to be honest about it, not to sweep it under the rug, and to talk about it.
And that's what we're doing.
And that's one of the reasons that book is on the list.
Doesn't mean I have any expectation that anybody believe or support everything that Mr. Kendi states in his book.
I don't support everything that Kendi says, but the key point here is the sailors in our Navy have to be able to think critically.
They have to be able to look outwardly at China and Russia, and they have to understand what those societies, why those societies are a potential danger to the United States.
Inwardly, we have to understand ourselves, and we have to understand critically that we value diversity.
Okay, Admiral, I agree that we should have a robust and great discussion, and any racism should be uprooted and taken away.
I absolutely agree, and I endorse that.
But should we have future discrimination?
You don't endorse that particular statement, do you?
Sir, I have to look at the context of it.
I'm not trying to be evasive.
As I mentioned, I don't support everything that Kendi asserts.
I don't believe everything I read.
All right, fine.
First of all, I want to salute this guy from Iowa, this congressman.
Really well done.
Number two, the dishonesty here, you could choke on it.
I don't support everything the book that I recommend says, okay?
Do you have any of Larry Elder's books on your list?
Do you have any of Tom Sowell's books on your list?
How come you only have blacks who hate this country?
Liars.
Ibram X. Kendi is as big a liar as any propagandist for any totalitarian regime.
He's an intellectual fraud.
He's a hate-filled human being.
It's a hate-filled book, Admiral.
That's what it is.
The only thing it has in common with books is that it's bound and has paper.
It's a hate manifesto.
The armed forces are, in fact, within the realm of the human being being a flawed creature among the least discriminatory places in the country, and it has been known as such.
People of every race get along generally, terrifically in the armed forces.
You're screwing it up, Admiral, because you want to be woke.
You want to be liked by the New York Times.
You should resign.
Anybody who gives cadets or midshipmen or officers in the Navy Ibram X. Kendi is filling their minds with crap.
And I wouldn't even mind if you did, if you filled their minds with anybody else.
You don't want to expand the dialogue.
That's a fraud.
Where's Larry Elder or Tom Sowell or Jason Ridley?
Riley, sorry.
Jason Riley, correct?
Our man.
Our terrific guy.
I mean, I can give you so many.
Jack or John McWhorter.
I mean, the number of terrific black intellectuals.
Who's the great economist who just passed away?
Walter Williams.
Is any one of their books on the list, Admiral?
That's what I wish the congressman from Iowa had asked him.
I'd like to see the whole list.
Well, I don't agree with everything.
Yes.
But the central thesis is discriminate.
The central thesis is that the only reason that there isn't equality of outcome is because there is systemic racism.
Do you believe that, sir?
Do you believe that the disproportionate number of males in physics is because we discriminate against females in physics?
Oh, there's a brilliant young female physicist.
I have no desire to promote her.
Do you actually think that that operates in physics?
If you're a brilliant female physicist, you're going to go so far right now.
You will be a living example of the laws of physics insofar as very fast projectiles are concerned.
This is what the armed forces are coming to, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, God, they lie to themselves.
It's so, so sad.
We want to expand their thinking.
You're full of crap, Admiral.
I hate to say this.
This is not like me.
I never spoke this way.
But the left is destroying the country, folks.
So everything in my...
Verbal arsenal will be used.
They're destroying the country.
Do you understand that?
Liberals, you vote for people destroying the country.
You liberals love the country.
You vote for people who hate it.
Because you have been brainwashed into believing we conservatives are your enemy.
That's the issue in this country.
The naive, foolish liberal who doesn't believe almost anything the left says.
What exactly do we conservatives say that you differ with that makes it impossible to vote for a Republican?
Give me an example.
And don't say Donald Trump.
There were plenty of Republicans before Donald Trump you didn't vote for.
What was the problem there?
Was Mitt Romney too right-wing and incendiary for you?
In the book of incendiary...
Politicians, he doesn't appear.
What a disgrace, this admiral.
What a disgrace.
But always remember this, when anybody says, oh, we want to expand their minds with Ibram X. Kendi or with Ta-Nehisi Coates or these other America-hating intellectual frauds, then just say, okay, we're all for that.
Where are all the brilliant conservative black writers on your list?
Name one.
They don't even know they exist.
Last week, a student, where was this?
At Boston University?
You talked about the importance of defining racism.
We have to explain who's asking whom.
A student's asking a question to Ibram X. Kendi.
But unless I missed it, which is possible.
I didn't hear your personal definition.
Is there one that you would offer us?
Like, how do you define racism?
Sure.
So racism, I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.
Sure.
A collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.
And anti-racism is pretty simple using the same terms.
Anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies leading to racial equity that are substantiated by anti-racist ideas.
And an example.
Oh.
I agree with him.
I have no problem with that as one of the definitions.
If there are racist policies leading to inequities, I'd like to know what they are.
What is the racist policy that has disproportionately fewer black astronomers?
I'd like to know what it is.
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