Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton continued his campaign against what he sees as a scourge of racist training in the military Thursday. In a webinar hosted by the Heritage Institute, he again alleged he has received hundreds of complaints of \u201ccritical race theory\u201d teachings in military units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cotton and his allies have publicly confronted Pentagon leaders in recent weeks, concerned that the Defense Department\u2019s push for diversity and inclusion<\/a> training and education is a thinly veiled vehicle for indoctrinating troops into the idea that white men are oppressors, people of color are victims and that America is an intractably racist country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut what happens if it harms unit cohesion and morale and esprit de corps in our military?\u201d Cotton asked. \u201cThen we literally are risking our freedom. And that\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that the military\u2019s highest priority should remain what it always has been: to fight and win real wars, not to get distracted by culture wars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many ways, the military has been dragged into this particular culture war.<\/a> What started as an effort to increase morale and unit cohesion has been derided by both conservative lawmakers and commentators as divisive and partisan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The issue has come up in multiple budget hearings in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees in recent weeks, taking up time that lawmakers usually spend questioning leaders about procurement and personnel programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday, during a press conference with reporters, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he hopes to avoid any amendments or lengthy arguments on the issue of critical race theory in drafting the defense authorization bill, which is already running behind schedule because the Biden administration didn\u2019t release its budget proposal until May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t see anything that needs to be put in our bill one way or the other,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s an administration \u2015 that\u2019s the DoD, and people can fight that out over there. We\u2019re going to try to avoid legislating on that issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Cotton has diagnosed as \u201ccritical race theory\u201d sounds much more like ham-fisted attempts at diversity and inclusion training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s often hard to ignore when you\u2019re being forced to watch a video that declares, there\u2019s systemic racism and white privilege throughout our military, which is one of the complaints we received, or that white soldiers were singled out during equal-opportunity training, that they didn\u2019t have much to say,\u201d Cotton said, citing a whistleblower site he launched with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas<\/a>, in early June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a largely nascent effort, it\u2019s not surprising that commanders would be experiencing some trial and error with how they convey the notion that the color of a person\u2019s skin might affect their experiences in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all, the discussion of ideas like systemic racism and white privilege are new for a lot of Americans, who for decades have been told that simply not acknowledging race or ethnicity was the best way to demonstrate one\u2019s own lack of bigotry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe cannot have an Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force or Space Force, where young troopers are looking to their left and right, and seeing not fellow citizen took an oath to the Constitution \u2015 someone who\u2019s willing to lay down their life, not just for their country, but to keep you alive,\u201d Cotton said, describing what was considered non-racist in the past. \u201cWe can\u2019t have [troops] looking at their noncommissioned officers and their officers, wondering if they\u2019re getting a tough duty because of the color of their skin. We need them to see each other simply as fellow Americans, and fellow warriors who are there to perform the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The irony is that military leaders would agree with Cotton \u2015 that would be ideal, but feedback from the force<\/a> has shown that\u2019s not the experience troops are having. It\u2019s seen not only in disparate outcomes in the military justice system, but also in Pentagon leadership, which is far more white and male than the rest of the force<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know, back then it was like, say, the fact that we all believed that this country is committed to colorblindness, and we respect everyone irrespective of the color of their skin or their ethnicity, or for that matter, their political beliefs or their religious views or anything else,\u201d Cotton said. \u201cAnd it was a regular reminder, that was the expectations we have for all of our soldiers and if they didn\u2019t meet those expectations, there\u2019d be severe consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The disagreement is over whether talking openly about diversity race or ethnicity, and the experiences that go along with it, is a boon to cohesion, or a death blow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When everything changed<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to multiple surveys of active-duty troops <\/b>by Military Times, white nationalist and supremacist rhetoric is not uncommon in the military workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\t