As part of their ongoing effort to rewrite any history they consider the least bit critical of the United States or the American government, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Defense Department are now engaged in an outright book ban at the U.S. Naval Academy.
According to ABC News, the Trump administration is removing books that deal with “race, gender, and national identity.”
“The culling includes ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou, ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ by Ibram X. Kendi, ‘Bodies in Doubt’ by Elizabeth Reis, and ‘White Rag'” by Carol Anderson. None was banned outright — just rendered ‘not immediately available,’ a Naval Academy spokesman, Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, said. The books, he said, had been placed in a room where patrons could no longer access them.”
So the books aren’t “banned outright,” but you can’t read them because they’re locked away. Isn’t that the very definition of censorship?
What are the implications of such a policy? Richard Kohn, a military historian and former chief historian for the Air Force, said, “It reveals a certain kind of weakness in the current administration’s confidence. They’re determined to appeal to their MAGA constituency by rolling back decades of progress on race, religion, and diversity.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was outraged by Hegseth’s move, noting that it appears the real meaning behind the administration’s anti-DEI initiatives isn’t “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” but “dumb effing individuals.”
“The outrageous Naval Academy book ban targets Maya Angelou and the Holocaust, but excludes Adolf Hitler,” Jeffries added. “This must be reversed immediately.”
The defense secretary offered a lily-livered response to the congressman, snarling during an appearance on Fox News as he told host Maria Bartiromo, “That’s how far they have fallen. It’s astonishing, not surprising. Of course, they don’t like the fact that we’re ripping DEI out of the military and making it colorblind and merit-based.”
Colorblind and merit-based? If merit was the qualification, Hegesth would be a janitor at the Defense Department instead of leading the agency.
