By Dan Weigel, LSU Comms Team member
Four-star General CQ Brown was objectively qualified for his role as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the US military. An experienced pilot and commander who worked his way up the ranks over 39 years of service, he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as Air Force Chief of Staff in 2020. After a successful tenure in that role, Gen. Brown again received overwhelming bipartisan support in 2023 for his promotion to the US Military’s highest rank. His rise from college ROTC to the top job is a testament to his hard work and skill in his profession.
Gen. Brown is also a Black man in the military, and it should not come as a surprise to learn that he has battled racism his entire career. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Gen. Brown released a powerful video where he spoke out about the racism that he and so many other Black Americans face on a daily basis. From having officers constantly question his credentials, to being the only Black body in the room, to shouldering the burdens of an entire race, his rise to the top has not been easy. He spoke with urgency about the need to have conversations about “racism, diversity, and inclusion” within his workplace and his desire to lead those who want to make the military a better place for all.
I encourage you to take a few minutes to watch in full.
Trump fired Gen. Brown without cause a month after retaking office. Trump’s new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, a white male TV personality objectively unqualified for his new role, questioned how Gen. Brown got his job in the first place “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt.”
But Pete, we do know. Gen. Brown earned his job through merit and he was fired because he was Black and because he spoke out about racism.
Firing qualified professionals like Gen. Brown because of his skin color and antiracist speech and not because of his job performance is a blatant admission of the racism that is at the heart of the Republican anti-DEI agenda.
Republicans argue that DEI programs prioritize under-qualified candidates and amount to “reverse-racism” against white people, especially white men. Republicans question the presence of any minority person in a position of power by dismissing them as “DEI hires” regardless of qualifications, not even bothering to mask their rejection of the fundamental American belief that we are all created equal. We’re not buying it, and here’s why.
One way to look at racism is in terms of outcomes. The logic goes like this: If we believe that we are all created equal across racial lines, then in a country with equal opportunities, racial groups will achieve equal outcomes. In other words, equal ability and opportunity lead to equal outcomes, so all demographic groups will have proportional representation in positions of power, college admissions, etc.
The US has never come close to meeting this standard of equal opportunities, and therefore equal outcomes have never been a possibility. White people continue to far exceed their 58% demographic representation in most areas of power and privilege, as do men, Christians, cisgendered, heterosexual, and able-bodied people.
The tragedy is not the average white male applicant being denied admission when his demographic is already vastly overrepresented. The tragedy is members of underrepresented groups never getting a fair opportunity to thrive.
Trump, Hegseth, and Republicans cannot be trusted to uphold fair hiring practices or be fair gatekeepers for the positions of prestige and power that they disproportionately occupy. In a country of unequal opportunity, instead of working to find solutions that create a more even playing field for all Americans, their racist, anti-DEI agenda is making a bad problem worse.
Trump’s hires in his second administration provide a stark example. Of his first 100 hires, 87 were white and 84 were men. There are twice as many former TV personalities (12) as Hispanic (5) and Black (1) people combined. Trump has created a government of the people, by the white people, for the white people.
These numbers, especially 87 white people versus a single Black person, do not accurately represent America. It is undeniably false that such an outrageous proportion of white people, specifically white men, constitute the most qualified Americans for these powerful and important jobs.
With actions and comments like these, Republicans prove that they are not serious about finding the most qualified candidates of any demographic, but rather their goal is to reject candidates representing demographics that they feel superior to, no matter their qualifications. They reject DEI programs and minority candidates so they can instead hire unqualified, loyal white men who will do their bidding to reinforce a social hierarchy based on white supremacy.
There is a clear thread of white supremacy in US history, reaching back to those who supported slavery, through Jim Crow segregation laws, to opponents of the Civil Rights movement, and now to those who ignore police brutality while rejecting diversity, equity, and inclusion of all Americans. When racial progress has been made, it has always been met by pushback from the white supremacists. The battle over DEI programs is merely the latest example.
America is for all of us, not just white men or those who ascribe to the Republican anti-DEI worldview of uniformity, inequity, and exclusivity. Taking steps to correct present and historical inequality by uplifting underrepresented demographics is not an injustice to the overrepresented and over-privileged white male, but rather the failure to level the playing field is an injustice preventing an antiracist, diverse, equitable, and inclusive society that works for all of us. Republicans don’t want that, and it’s time we call out their anti-DEI agenda for what it is: racist and white supremacist.
Sources:
CQ Brown Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw4MI1v8I0k
Ibram X Kendi book “How To Be An Antiracist”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-brown-joint-chiefs-of-staff-firing-fa428cc1508a583b3bf5e7a5a58f6acf
https://people.com/human-interest/voices-against-racism-general-charles-q-brown-jr
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us/politics/general-cq-brown-joint-chiefs.html