The Long View of American Progress

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O of the impacts of black people leaving the military at the rate that they seem to be leaving or not even entering the military necessarily at the same rate, is that you are stripping from Black Americans one of the most effective means of achieving a different level of socioeconomic status that has reverberations across society The military is a kind of microcosm of America And like America, it has been defined in some ways by the arc of slow, visible racial progress, particularly in its top ranks. Those who have served will tell you what it takes to become a genereneral officer. grrit, Discipline, sacrifice, knowledge But when President Trump returned to office in twenty twenty five, appointing Pete Hegsetith as Defense seecretary The administration saw something else as a part of that equation Diversity, equity and inclusion D EI is dead We replaced it with a color bllind, gender neutral, merit based approach I'm Adam Harris. This is Radio Atlantic. and this week, we need to think about the story the administration is telling about the military and the nation My colleague Clint Smith reports in the July issue of the Atlantic on the betrayal of Back patriots Now the military doesn't just hand out birds and stars because someone is a woman or black They do it because the person has earned them How is this administration's take on DEI affecting the people who are serving in the military And as the country moves beyond its two hundred fiftieth anniversary How will that reshape the story America tells about itself My colleague, Clint joins me to discuss Welcome to the show. It's good to be here You wrote a piece in the July issue of the magazine called The betetrayal of Black Patriots. And I guess first, can you just talk a little bit about what you mean there? What has been happening to Black service members since the beginning of the Trump administration Yeah, I think that a lot of these folks have been experiencing a sort of cognitive dissonance in the sense that on the one hand, they are being subjected to rhetoric and policy coming from the very top of this administration that suggests that they are unworthy of the positions they hold, that suggests that they are incapable of ascending to certain high ranking offices within the military. And if they have ascended to those positions, it's only because it's suggested affirmative action or DI or the remnants of a sort of quote unquote, woke military under Obama and Biden And so they feel incredibly disrespected. They feel a sense of despair. They watch as their history is disregarded, as their service is belittled. And they're pissed off. And many of them feel a desire to remove themselves from the military, to not allow themselves to be subjected to this sort of disrespect on a daily basis But on the other hand, there is this acute sense of the history of black service in the military. And you know a lot of the folks I spoke to are second, third generation in the military, and they are acutely aware of the fact that they had ancestors who fought, you know, who were freed slaves who fought for the Union, who were, you know living in the deep south where people were being lynched while they were, you know, fighting for their country in World War two and World War I, you know, during the civil Rights movement in Korea, Vietnam. And so there's always been this this tension within the context of bllack military service of fighting for a country that is not always necessarily fought for you or in fact that has fought actively against you. And so in some sense, there' a sense of, you know, our ancestors had it harder than this. as difficult as this moment is, as hard as it is. we are aware that This is part of what it means to be a black member of the military, and we have a responsibility to build on the work of our ancestors and not to allow these folks who are only going to be here for a season. You know, They use all these metaphors, like it's a fever that'll break one day, it's a storm that'll pass one day, it's a season that will change one day And so they're aware of this sort of temporary nature of what they're experiencing, even if it is incredibly difficult and feeling as if they have a responsibility to stay or that at least some of them have a responsibility to stay in order to preserve the work that has been done and to continue to build on it once this current administration is out Yeah, because being black in the military has always been a sort of They've always sort of had to prove their patriotism, right? You mentioned that the administration had been sort of belittling their service. What is the administration given as reasons to explain its stance, to explain the sort of almost forced resignations to source the blocked promotions? What has the administration been giving as its reasons for for this current push thestensible reason that's promoted by Hageth and his aides. Secretary Heaggseth is is that they are moving toward a purely meritocratic system within the military. It suggesting that previous iterations of the military have not been that promotions have not been based on merit or capability, but instead have been based on tokenism symbolically putting people in positions that they don't necessarily deserve. And what's underneath that seems to be the suggestion that if a black person is in a high ranking position, if they are a general, if they are an admiral, if they are a lieutenant colonel, that they got there at the expense of a more deserving white man. And it's not only black people who are experiencing this. You know Secretary Hag said has a very seems narrow conception of what a warrior ethos looks like. And it seems to be the case that black people and women, LGBTQ individuals, people from a range of different historically marginalized and oppressed backgrounds do not necessarily fit into that. And what's interesting and I think what people don't fully understand is that these folks who Secretary Hagseth has struck from the promotion list, as he has done over and over again at this point, in a way that's pretty unprecedented in sort of modern administrations They go through a really robust military board that is essentially going over their career, going over their service, going over their deployments, their combat, they're getting character references. And so for someone to go through this process, And to be recommended for a promotion to a one star general, to an admiral, whatever the case may be. These aren't decisions that are made on a whim. And these are not decisions that are made singularly based on whether someone is going to check a box or fit into a sort of identity marker that the military service needs, they are people who are being rewarded and promoted in a way that is commensurate with the service that they have given to this country. And yet Secretary Hagseth, you, and there's this question of like, I can't really get into Secretary Hagseth's head, but in some ways, I don't need to because he's written so of it down and he's said so many of it Much of this in his speeches, For too long, we've promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons based on their race based on gender quotas based on historic so called firsts This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. Our diversity is our strength The single dumbest phrase in military history He thinks that if you are a woman, if you are black, if you are someone who has promoted the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, then you are similarly reflecting a sort of military that he does not want to be a part of a military that he does not want to lead. Yeah You know,' right, I'm a military kid. and so I have all of these memories, right of black generals right There weren't that many of them. I remember two of them that I got to meet personally. So Fig Newton was the base commander at a base we were stationed at and then General Bodi, who I went as literally went as for Halloween one year. And they were both right sort of mentors to my dad. But what is the significance of those people who have earned those positions? What is the significance of that diversity in the upper ranks of the military Well, this is the thing. I mean, One Purely obviously on a moral and ethical level, it is wrong to prevent someone from being promoted to a certain position because they have promoted themselves the importance of inclusion, empathy, generosity, and a thorough examination of history and how history shapes both the military and the sort of larger country you are tasked with defending. But it's also the fact that now the military is in fact a less robust, less healthy, less effective institution to do the work it is tasked with doing, because in order to engage in the sort of myriad tasks that the military engages in across the world with a wide demographic of people, with wide groups of people from all manner of different backgrounds, even within the military, you know to your point, the thing that came up over and over again was that a lot of these top officers, and I'm sure you and your family and your dad know this, they serve as the mentors to the younger officers And that's not in a sort of hoy way. I mean, it is literally the mentorship of the officers who have been in the service for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, who help the younger officers not only navigate what it means to be in the service, what it means to how to navigate opportunities for promotion, for education for Um, you know, becoming an officer It is the thing that allows people to see that there is a space for them in the military, that there is a future for them in the military that gives them a sense of community in an institution that can sometimes be incredibly isolating. I spoke to so many officers who talked about being the only one in the room over and over again, they were the only one in the room. and it was the affinity groups. It was the sort of informal spaces, right? peopleeople getting together after church on a base in South Korea that allowed them to come together you know, to share that shared culture, that shared music, that shared food. that is what sustained people's ability to to do their good work. It is what sustained morale and kept it as high as it has been. And so when you Destroy Affinity groups when you destroy opportunities for people to come together and be in community and see one another and be there for one another and serve as mentors and mentees for one another you are in fact destroying the morale of the people who are serving in your military Yeah. so it's both sort of being able to actually see those people, but also you're going to the officerss club after church with your family on the weekend to do brunch. It's clearly a very clear am my mind stuff matters to people. It matters so much to people Yeah, it's ability that ability to be in community with another person and share some of those similar stories, even down to the things that you wear around base, right You know, thinking about the military too The military is a microcosm of society in a lot of ways. and I think about the command structure of the military a lot. I wrote this piece a couple of years ago that looked at the things that were still integrating America. And as we know, one of the biggest tells of integration is whether there is a federal force or a strong central government that ishing pushing on that integration, which is why the military with its strong command structure is one of the most diverse Um entities in American society, right And so I guess That gets to this broader societal question about like if it happens to the military, what are the knock on effects for our society? So what else can be lost alongside the military culling diversity from its ranks this may or may or may not be a sort of peripheral a reason or impact rather of what's going on, but what is true is that The military, as you've alluded to, has been O of the primary mechanisms throughout American history by which Black Americans can achieve social and economic mobility. And what happens, I spoke to so many people, you know, I' spoke to two dozen people for this story. Over and over again, one of the things that I heard was that those folks often became the sort of financial centerpiece of their entire family and not just like their siblings or their children or their spouse, but like entire ecosystems of their family relied on the stability that they provided. These are often folks who came from working class backgrounds. These are often folks who were the first in their families to go to college, the first in their families to ascend to certain positions And to achieve a level of economic stability that was unseen in their family previously. And so when you create the conditions to make it so that someone has to retire early, when you create the conditions that push somebody out, you're not only impacting that person and their immediately family, you're actually impacting the tentacles of that decision to leave shape so many people beyond just that individual. And so one of the impacts of black people leaving the military at the rate that they seem to be leaving or not even entering the military necessarily at the same rate, is that you are stripping from Black Americans, one of the most effective means of achieving a different level of socioeconomic status that has reverberations across society When we come back, how the Trump administration is trying to rewrite the American story and what that means beyond the two hundred fiftieth anniversary That's me the We don't need the jingle twice Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how prriceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to sixty percent off hotels in the prriceline app Fine. No one deals more deals than Please stop. This episode is brought to you by Street Easy. Here's the thing. Wna be the grandparents who bolted to the Burbs or the cool relatives still living in NYC? The city that people come to to be at the center of everything. With twenty years at NYC know how, Street Easy has the tools, agents, and guidance to make you a forever New Yorker too Visit streeteasy. com to buy a rent in NYC. StreetEasy is an assumed name of Zillow Inc, which has licenses in all fifty states We're thinking about anniversaries right now, right as we're july fourth, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, But anniversaries are really just so much about the stories that we tell ourselves and they're also not the end of that story, right? You celebrate the anniversary and then the next year come. So what story as we move into two fifty one, right? What story is the Secretary of Defense Pete Hexsetith trying to tell about America's military and what it represents I think the story that Secretary Hgeth is attempting to tell is one that is sort of reverting back to or harkening back to Um A a demographic makeup I military that increasingly reflects sort of country that Secretary Hagseth would like to live in Uh more than the country that he does live in. And I think that that is part of a larger phenomenon that is related to so much of what's going on in this administration. Obviously so much of the immigration policyy being enacted by this administration is quite explicitly, know, as many of our colleagues have written attempting to makeake it so that America is not becoming an increasingly majority minority nation. That is the trajectory that we were on. And that is the trajectory that Stephen Miller and many others in these positions of power would like to stop. And so you see that in our asylum policy, you see that in our policy around undocumed immigration. You see that in our policy around legal immigration They are doing all that they can to ensure and this is not conjecture. I mean, they've said this to ensure that there is they maintain a level of homogeneity within America or attempt to move back toward a level of homogeneity within America in terms of its racial makeup, in terms of its ethnic makeup in terms of its religious makeup. And it seems to be the case that Secretary Hggeth is that his vision of the military is in line with other members of this administration's vision of America which is to Make it increasing white. How do you square that with a sort of broader, more inclusive story of America, right That the power structure of America right now is trying to tell a different story than this sort of broer more inclusive America is representing You know, I think about, um these conversations that I had with these these officers and these soldiers and One of the things that kept coming up over and over again was that they said that they were fighting not necessarily for what this country is right now But they were fighting for what this country can be. They kept invoking the Constitution. They said, I'm fighting for the Constitution. I swear an oath to the Cstitution. I don't swear an oath to Secretary Hag. I don't swar an oath to President Trump. I don't swear an oath even to, you know, my neighbor in America. What I swear an oath to is the Constitution. And what we know from the black tradition is that our forebearers thought of the Constitution as a sort of promissory note, as an aspirational document that was that reflected not necessarily what America was at the time when it was signed, but reflected what America could be, that reflected what America had the potential to be And these members of the military are keenly aware of that history and are situating themselves within that history and believe themselves to be fighting for what they want this country to be, what this country itself has suggested, it aspires to be, and that they are part of an intergenerational project of bllack members of the militaryary who are trying to push this country to be the best version of itself to be what it sought out to be in the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution. And that is in many ways a sort of guiding light for them Yeah onene of the refrains that I saw kind of come up again and again in the story was about America as a a nation of slow but visible progress, right? The military, being a microcosm of that, will we still be able to say that the story is one of slow but visible progress. The visible racial progress being the key phrase there. willill we still be able to say that twenty five years from now You know, one guy I talk to he talked about it as he was like, You almost got to think about it like your retirement portfolio in the stock market. He's like, if you look at it every day, then you'll go crazy and you'll feel like maybe we're going backwards. Maybe you're going want to pull you know pull out all your money from it. He's like, but what you do is you take the long term view, And you don't think about it necessarily on a daily basis or a weekly basis or even a sort of a year by year basis. What you do is you think about it in the context of your entire tenure, in your entire life, in the entire life of this country. And I think there was a recognition that it may be the case that We are slipping backwards in this moment in terms of the progress that has been made in the military and that we may be slipping backwards in terms of the progress we've made in broader society. But there is a belief in the long view. There is a recognition again, of the fact that ese folks won't be here forever and that a new administration will come in, whether Democrat or Republican, that presents an opportunity to move back toward progress in a way that this one seems not to. You know, One of the folks that I talked to And the piece who I call Reginald, who' an officer in the Army. I think he said like we built this. like we my ancestors buuilt this country, like my ancestors in the military helped build the military into what it was. And as we said at the beginning of this conversation, like they did it when they were part of segregated units, they did it when they weren't allowed to carry a gun because they didn't want black men carrying guns. They did it when they were, you know driving the trucks through France that brought the supplies to people on the front, even when it put them in danger from, you know, the German air Force dropping dropping bombs on them as they're making their way down these down these French roads. you know, and over and over again there's this There's this sense of We have done so much to defend this country. We have done so much to serve this country. My direct ancestors they would say their literal blood is in the soil of this country and abroad defending this country And I'm not gonna let some people come in. and push me out because they don't like what I look like, or they don't like what I sound like, or they think that I'm in this position simply because I'm here to fill a quota I know the truth We know the truth And part of our job is to ensure that Enough of us are still here Once this storm has passed, as they would say, to ensure that there are people to pick up the pieces when the sky turns blue again. Yeah. Yes, it's almost as if the ancestors did it when belief was all they had, what who are we to do any different? Right Clint, thank you for giving us so much to think about, and thank you for joining me Appreciate it. always That's all for today's show This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Mike Pasoli and Hadley Robinson. It was engineered and has music by Rob Schmerziak. Claudin Abade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor If you like what you saw here, new episodes of Radio Atlantic drop every Monday and Thursday. You can subscribe on the Atlantic's YouTube page on Apple or Spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. And if you want to support this work and the work of my colleagues, you can subscribe to the publication at theattlantic dot com slash lessen Until next time, I'm Adam Harris A few months ago, I invited Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzell onto the David Frum Show. As podcast hosts, we talked about the pressures and temptations of the medium Outrage often gets rewarded. Nuance does not. Charlie doesn't take that bait In in show Galaxy Brain, he covers the ways technology is changing how we think and how we live