(Cynthia Zayn, Headline USA) The United States Navy’s official reading list no longer includes books that are considered socially progressive, racially divisive, woke, leftist, or Marxist, depending on different interpretations of titles like Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” which helped anchor a foundation for promoting critical race theory.
Kendi’s radical book was yanked, along with upwards of 50 other similarly-themed offerings, and replaced with “a dozen books mainly focusing on the Navy and military strategy,” according to the Daily Mail.
“A learning mindset is essential to accelerating our warfighting advantage,” Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday said in a statement announcing the Navy’s Professional Reading Program list for 2022.
And a “learning mindset” geared toward military history and strategic thinking, apparently, is more important than learning about sexual minorities and politics, what with a potentially world-engulfing war unfolding in Ukraine, a hostile regime in China and a Middle East in peril after the Biden administration’s disastrous and deadly Afghan withdrawal.
In that light, it would make sense even for a diehard, career-woke government bureaucrat to jettison a title like “Sexual Minorities and Politics: An Introduction” and replace it with “A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy” or “China as a 21st Century Naval Power.”
Gilday came under heavy criticism last year for the ultra-woke, leftist-leaning literature that was included in the Navy’s endorsed reading list.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced legislation to ban critical race theory training in the military, while Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., blasted Gilday’s book selections.
“The views promoted in How to Be an Antiracist are explicitly anti-American,” Banks wrote in a letter to Gilday.
“According to Kendi, the author, America is fundamentally racist, so anti-Americanism is a moral imperative,” Banks wrote.
“Kendi’s ideas are divisive and will undermine morale and weaken our national security.”
Gilday at the time defended his decision to include the woke literature on the official reading list, arguing that books like Kendi’s helped “the Navy’s sailors to achieve the same level of ‘self-reflection,’” reported Fox News. He said the Navy should be an organization that is centered on respect and inclusive to all.
While those tenets assuredly still hold, as evidenced by the Navy’s recent woke-naming a ship after Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gilday apparently had a moment of clarity and saw more benefit including “Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War,” instead of “The New Jim Crow,” on the reading list.
“The goal of the program is to contribute to a culture dedicated to warfighting and learning,” Gilday wrote, “while simultaneously supporting the personal and professional development of Sailors beyond that of their primary designator or rating.”
