During a House hearing on Tuesday, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday defended putting race hustler Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist on the Navy’s list of books every U.S. sailor should read.
Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN), a U.S. Navy reservist, began by asking Gilday if he agreed with Kendi’s past statements and views in his book that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is a “white colonizer” because she adopted two children from Haiti, and that capitalism is essentially racist.
Gilday dodged the question entirely: “Here’s what I know, Congressman. There’s racism in the United States Navy.”
“It’s a yes or no question, Admiral,” Banks interjected. “Admiral, you recommended that every sailor in the United States Navy read this book.”
Gilday responded, “I’m not forcing anybody to read the book. It’s on a recommended reading list.”
Banks asked Gilday if he agreed with Kendi’s statements that white people are a different breed of humans and are responsible for the AIDS virus.
Gilday again dodged the question: “Sir, I’d have to understand the context in which the statements were made. I’m not going to sit here and defend cherry-picked quotes from somebody’s book. This is a bigger issue than somebody’s book. What this is really about is trying to paint the United States military, and in this case, the United States Navy as weak, as woke… We are not weak.”
Banks asked Gilday if he thought sailors accepting Kendi’s views that the military and the Navy is fundamentally racist would decrease morale, cohesion, and recruiting.
Gilday blathered, “I do know this. Our strength is in our diversity, and our sailors understand that. Racism in the United States is a very complex issue. What we benefit from is an open discussion about those issues. That we don’t try to ignore it or rewrite it, but we actually have a discussion about it and there will be different views.”
And what will happen to those sailors whose views dissent from the Critical Race Theory that the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Operations Gilday is clearly disseminating?