Diversity Thursday

The last few Thursdays we've pushed back rather hard on the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gilday, USN. 

To be frank, he's earned it not just from me, but from Congressmen, Senators and commentators all over. 

If you recall, we tried to warn him back in February that his addition of the book "How to be Anti-Racist" by the highly problematic Ibram X. Kendi was a mistake.

In the end, his defense of his choice and the excuses he gave - and those of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, USA - have been hollow mostly because their is nothing on the list that promotes the "critical thinking" they say they want, or attempts to get a full view of the challenge. Instead, there is just one partisan and sectarian side of the argument provided and defended. That is the essence of advocacy, not inquiry. 

That is not shocking when one considers the diversity industries taxpayer funded permanent nomenklatura they injected in to staff and advisory positions. Senior leaders foolishly take their advice, mostly out of fear.  

The USN and US military senior leadership has, rightfully, been seen as taking sides - and in so doing, taking a side that assumes the worst of them, their service, and the nation we all serve.

If they were really interested in an objective discussion - and an argument could be made this is highly counter productive exercise regardless of how they do it reading list wise - then their would need to be balance.

What could have been done to provide at least an attempt of neutrality? Another world view.

Better yet - and Kendi is mostly emotion driven - a view based on fact and scholarship.

If Kendi must be on the list, then he should be balanced with the like of Charles Murray. The book, his latest, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America.

This book is presently the #1 Best Seller in Discrimination & Racism

What is the book about?

The charges of white privilege and systemic racism that are tearing the country apart float free of reality. Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The allegations of racism in policing, college admissions, segregation in housing, and hiring and promotions in the workplace ignore the ways in which the problems that prompt the allegations of systemic racism are driven by these two realities.

What good can come of bringing them into the open? America’s most precious ideal is what used to be known as the American Creed: People are not to be judged by where they came from, what social class they come from, or by race, color, or creed. They must be judged as individuals. The prevailing Progressive ideology repudiates that ideal, demanding instead that the state should judge people by their race, social origins, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.

We on the center left and center right who are the American Creed’s natural defenders have painted ourselves into a corner. We have been unwilling to say openly that different groups have significant group differences. Since we have not been willing to say that, we have been left defenseless against the claims that racism is to blame. What else could it be? We have been afraid to answer. We must. Facing Reality is a step in that direction.

If you are not familiar with Charles Murray, he holds the F. A. Hayek Emeritus Chair in Cultural Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and is an author of multiple books.

As you ponder another book, while you are driving to work and back today, I would offer to you a recent podcast by Matt K. Lewis where he interviews Charles Murray for a little over 45-minutes. They get to the book a little more than halfway through the show, but I encourage you to listen to the whole thing.

You can listen to it at this link, or use the embedded show below.