The New York Times’s untitled “Everything Is Racist” series continues apace.
Its focus this week is the Marine Corps, which the paper claims is governed entirely by patriarchal white men.
“Proud and fierce in their identity, the Marines have a singular race problem that critics say is rooted in decades of resistance to change,” the report reads.
It adds, “As the nation reels this summer from protests challenging centuries-long perceptions of race, the Marines — who have long cultivated a reputation as the United States’ strongest fighting force — remain an institution where a handful of white men rule over 185,000 white, African-American, Hispanic and Asian men and women.”
“Rule over” is a remarkably strange way to describe an all-volunteer fighting force in a republic as diverse as the United States. “Rule over” makes it sound as if the Marine Corps is some sort of racial ethnostate.
To ensure the reader does not miss the purpose of the article, the New York Times applies a none-too-subtle headline, which reads, “The Few, the Proud, the White: The Marine Corps Balks at Promoting Generals of Color.”
The report argues exactly what its headline promises, which is that the Marine Corps, founded in 1775, is both racist and sexist.
“Never in its history has the Marine Corps had anyone other than a white man in its most senior leadership posts,” the report argues, detailing the unsuccessful efforts of a black Marine, Col. Anthony Henderson, who “has been passed over three times for promotion to brigadier general.”
Weirdly, the paper never addresses the rather pertinent question of whether Henderson was “passed over” for better-qualified officers. It would prove the paper’s entire thesis if it could show that the promotions went to less-qualified white Marines, but the New York Times makes no effort whatsoever to investigate this angle. The paper also fails to mention the demographic makeup of the Marine Corps, including that whites account for the majority of its total numbers, whereas blacks do not account for even a quarter of the all-volunteer force. More specifically, racial minorities, which the Department of Defense categorize as “Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Multi-racial, and Other/Unknown,” account for exactly 20% of the Marine Corps’s active-duty personnel, whereas nonminorities (the Department of Defense does not categorize “Hispanic” as a minority race designation) account for a full 80%.
In other words, in a pool where there are two qualified racial minority candidates and eight qualified nonminority candidates, the odds are that the promotion will go to a nonminority Marine. That is math, not racism.
Also, even though there are weird Office of Management and Budget rules regarding Hispanic as a nonminority designation, it is still worth mentioning that the Marine Corps has the highest percentage of active duty and selected reserve Hispanic or Latino recruits of any branch of the U.S. armed forces. This also goes unmentioned in the New York Times report.
The article does list several African American Marines who have been promoted to high-ranking positions. But it does this only to make the argument that it is simply not good enough.
“Since the Marines first admitted African-American troops in 1942, the last military service to do so, only 25 have obtained the rank of general in any form,” the report reads.
It continues: “Not one has made it to the top four-star rank, an honor the Marines have bestowed on 72 white men. Six African-Americans reached lieutenant general, or three stars. The rest have received one or two stars, the majority in areas like logistics, aviation and transport, areas from which the Marine Corps does not choose its senior leadership. Out of 82 Marine generals overall today, there are six African-American brigadier generals and one African-American major general.”
The New York Times then goes for the racist/sexist double whammy:
To make it to four stars, a candidate needs combat postings in his background. (The pronoun “his” is apt because no woman has made it to four stars in the Marines, either.) Such a leader would have commanded troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, bearing responsibility for the lives of Marines who shed blood in poppy fields, mountain ranges and desolate desert villages.
The Marine Corps makes exceptions to this only-combat-arms rule when it gives four stars to aviators, including James F. Amos, in 2008, and Gary L. Thomas, in 2018. But they are white men.
The Marines have the worst diversity representation in their top ranks. In 2013, the branch released a photo of its six four-star generals, all gathered in desert camouflage at the commandant’s home at the Marine Barracks in Washington: John F. Kelly, Jim Mattis, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., James F. Amos, John R. Allen and John M. Paxton. The men are smiling as they hold their white Marine Corps coffee mugs.
To my nonmilitary mind, Col. Henderson, who did not speak to the New York Times, does indeed sound like an excellent candidate for brigadier general. And the New York Times can simply make that argument and let it stand on its own merits. But that would not make for a good entry in its untitled “Everything is Racist” series. No, the New York Times must go that extra step by leveling thinly and not-so-thinly veiled allegations of racism and sexism at one of the country’s proudest and most noble fighting forces.
Because everything is racist now, even the few and the proud.
