Tom Cotton Doesn't Want You 'Woke'

I loathe Tom Cotton, the GQP Senator from Arkansas; the Big Lie peddling senator; the “What insurrection?” senator; the white anti-diversity senator.

Last week, Tom Cotton, the white senator Arkansas,  told Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, America’s first Black defense secretary, that President Biden’s administration has witnessed the birth of racism and sexism within the military and it’s all because of the anti-extremism and diversity training that troops have taken so far this year:

“We’re hearing reports of plummeting morale, growing mistrust between the races and sexes where none existed just six months ago, and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone.”

Yes, he thinks teaching diversity causes people to be more racist and suggests that the military was a racism-free zone all during the last hate-filled administration but has turned all white supremacist in the six months Biden has been President. It’s an asinine statement, even from a fool like Tom Cotton.

Task & Purpose—where I found this story—has documented 40 cases since 2016 of service members and veterans participating in extremist organizations, such as white supremacist groups. And a Pentagon survey—that they tried to bury—found nearly one-third of Black service members had experienced racism. Moreover, 30% of Black respondents and 22% of Asian respondents felt their chances for promotion would be harmed if they reported the racial harassment and discrimination that they endured. And let’s not talk about the January 6^th insurrection, after which an active-duty Marine major, four service members in the reserves, and 41 veterans have been charged so far.

All that happened under the presidency of the last guy, but Cotton won’t tell you that. And he won’t tell you about retired Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, a Black man and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who wrote about the racism he endured:

“I want you to know how difficult it was to convince a member of Congress that I had earned my position at DIA; that it wasn’t a gratuitous appointment because, in his words, I ‘must be close to the president,’ in reference to President Obama.”

Yes, he got ahead because … Obama. Not on merit.

And as for sexism within the military, there are many examples from before Biden ever took office of commands failing to protect female service members from sexual harassment. A review following the April 2020 murder of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén also showed that female soldiers at Fort Hood faced an environment so toxic that they constantly lived in “survival mode.” 

And, when asked if Tom Cotton believes that racism and sexism did not exist in the military six months ago, the senator’s office said:

“Senator Cotton has heard from men and women of all races that new Critical Race Theory indoctrination in the military is fomenting increased distrust in the ranks on the basis of sex and race.” 

And there you have it; Cotton doesn’t want people to be told or taught about America’s racist past, present, and sadly, future, even with the evidence of racism in the military smacking him in his smug mug.

Cotton insists he and his anti-diversity cohort, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, have received “several hundred whistleblower complaints about Pentagon extremist and diversity training” and the two established a website to allow service members who have fallen victim to “woke ideology” to file anonymous complaints, vowing that they would be protected against retaliation.

And while the website received many prank complaints, Cotton read a sampling of the non-satirical complaints, many from people who felt that diversity training portrayed White people as racist. Cotton said:

“This is not about diversity in general, though. This is about a very specific kind of anti-American indoctrination that is seeping into some parts of our military based on the whistleblower complaints we have received.” 

Cotton added that one … one … Marine complained that instead of learning about military history, his unit had to complete “mandatory training on police brutality, white privilege and systemic racism” and said that marine has “reported that several officers are now leaving his unit, citing that training.”

Cotton didn’t explain how the officers in this particular Marine unit have been able to leave because they disagreed with the diversity training. Marines may request transfers but they cannot simply walk away from their assignments if they disagree with their chain of command.

Here’s the deal: America is a racist country, but not all white people are racist. Just take a look … and do it quickly before the GQP erases all of it … at our history of enslaving Black men and women, and then “setting” them free only to lynch them, segregate them, deny them equal rights; take a look at America locking up Asian Americans in internment camps during World War II, or beating Asian Americans in the streets in 2020 over lies about COVID-19, or as Thing $% called it, the “China Flu.” Take a look at all that we have done to Native Americans since we set foot on their land hundreds of years ago; look at every single person of color, from Latino countries to Middle Eastern countries who are painted as drug dealers and rapists and terrorists simply because they look and speak differently than “us.”

If diversity training anywhere, even in the military, can help to change the thinking of even one person, then Tom Cotton, who speaks racist thoughts without the need for a white hood, should welcome it, instead of trying to fight it.

Understanding one another is the way forward. Cotton, Crenshaw and the GOP want to go backwards because diversity might just teach us all that the white man isn’t all that.

Task and Purpose