Top admiral shoots back at criticism of ‘woke’ military: ‘We are not weak’

The Navy’s top admiral on Tuesday vociferously defended efforts to root out racism and to promote diversity in the service against GOP criticism of his decision to recommend sailors read a book derided by conservatives as anti-American.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has been taking heat from conservatives over his inclusion on a list of books he recommends of Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.”

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, GOP Reps. Doug Lamborn (Colo.) and Jim Banks (Ind.) asked Gilday to respond to specific Kendi quotes.

“I’m not going to sit here and defend cherry picked quotes from someone’s book,” Gilday fired back during Banks’s questioning. “I’m not going to do that.”

“This is a bigger issue than Kendi’s book,” Gilday continued. “What this is really about is trying to paint the United States military, in this case the United States Navy, as weak, as woke. And we’ve had sailors spend 341 days at sea last year with minimal port visits, the longest deployments we’ve ever had before. We are not weak. We are strong.”

Tuesday’s exchange marks the latest example of conservatives increasingly pulling the armed forces into culture wars as the military seeks to recruit and retain more women and people of color, in addition to addressing issues with extremism and white supremacy.

Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) similarly tangled over Pentagon efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, including Cotton also asking Austin about Kendi’s book.

Austin had also previously shot back at criticism that the military is becoming “too soft.”

Austin has made tackling extremism and promoting diversity a priority after a number of individuals arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack were found to have military backgrounds.

But diversity and inclusion efforts in the military are not new or unique to the Biden administration, as the military struggles to recruit from a shrinking pool of eligible young people. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who served during the Trump administration, launched diversity and inclusion initiatives last year after nationwide protests against racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Still, conservatives have increasingly been blasting those efforts since President Biden took office. Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier this year derided maternity flight suits. Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared an ad featuring a soldier who talked about her childhood marching for LGBT rights with Russian propaganda showing its military’s machismo, complaining the U.S. ad showed a “woke, emasculated military.”

Asked about that Army ad by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) at a separate Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said “we are in a war for talent.”

“We are trying to reach young people around America, all across the country from all sorts of different backgrounds. We’re trying to recruit Generation Z and those younger than them,” Wormuth said. “So part of what we’re doing is trying to also figure out which innovative recruiting technique is most successful and resonates with all sorts of folks around the country.”

At the House Armed Services Committee hearing, Gilday stressed that “our strength is in our diversity and our sailors understand that.”

Conservatives have particularly zeroed in on one line from Kendi’s book that says, “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

“I remain astonished that you put this book on a reading list,” Banks told Gilday.

“Why are you astonished,” Gilday shot back, as he and Banks talked over each other.

Gilday said while he does not agree with everything in Kendi’s book, he nonetheless recommended it because he thinks “it’s really important to consider a variety of views” and because he thinks Kendi is “critical about his own journey as an African American in this country, what he’s experienced.”

“There’s racism in the Navy, just like there’s racism in our country,” Gilday said. “And the way we’re gonna 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.”