Shame
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.” — Benjamin Franklin, U.S. Founding Father
The U.S. government is reshaping the annals of history through wholesale clearance of online agency content by relying on artificial intelligence (AI) and broad decrees that are open to accidental and malicious interpretation. Mentions and images of Black, Hispanic, Japanese, Asian, Native Americans, the disabled and historic women are vanishing from federal agency sites.
Vaguely defined DEI tags are taking down historic American biographies, news stories, photos, museum exhibits, videos and commentaries. Subject matter decisions are reportedly being made through an automated process using word searches for instant removal.
Like a four-star hotel bathroom, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has thoroughly scrubbed and bleached American History: Sanitized for your protection!
In a frenzied makeover of its official website, the Defense Department excised thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and people of color, including the Iwo Jima flag raiser Ira Hayes, Black Medal of Honor recipients, the World War II Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the WWII Navajo code talkers, baseball legend Jackie Robinson, and Hopi Army specialist Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman to die on foreign soil. References to Civil War events, segregation, civil rights and gender equality were pulled.
At one point, unresponsive page links about the Tuskegee Airmen stated: “You have accessed part of a historical collection on defensegov. Some of the information contained within may be outdated and links may not function.”
How exactly do historical records get “outdated”?
The Air Force Times detected the elimination of USAF pages featuring the WWII Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) and stories that profiled retired Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt, the Air Force’s first female fighter pilot after being marked as DEI.
Arlington National Cemetery online content now conceals maps and lesson plans focused on Black soldiers, women’s military service and Civil War veterans. A site section devoted to segregation and civil rights has been heavily censured. Six teaching plan modules, including Women’s History of Service, have vanished or been winnowed. Links to lists of historic graves, some Medal of Honor recipients and walking tours have been “unpublished.”
In hurried efforts to delete material suggesting diversity, equity and inclusion, troves of historical media have been culled by algorithms in the DoD’s slash-and-burn approach to public information.
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Reconciliation with the troubling injustices of America’s past — cultural cleansing, oppression, chauvinism and segregation — ask for unflinching clear-eyed accounts of how courageous individuals overcame them.
The PR snafu over the DoD’s aggressive purge of minorities from the pages of history continues to detonate as the Feds scramble in CYA maneuvers. Portions of the DOD’s deleted pages have been restored after public outcries. But what about history’s lesser known heroes and storied acts that are nevertheless gone?
Because the various branches of the DoD and other government sites have no uniform guidelines for the online flushing of content, there’s no knowing whether the thousands of removed pages are being preserved or permanently destroyed. The Pulitzer prized photo of the U.S. flag being raised by six Marines (including the Native American Ira Hayes) atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima has evaporated from the USMC website. Let’s pray that the war on DEI does not spread its hatchet campaign to the National Archives.
History, collected and shared by non-partisan reputable federal agencies, is not answerable to shifting swings in political power. The shameful whitewashing of online government content must be particularly stinging to U.S. veterans who served valiantly despite the societal odds stacked against them.
If the prevailing standards of recognition are truly and exclusively based on merit, one wonders why the past achievements and distinguished service of women and people of color are being purged. The policies forbidding DEI cannot invalidate historical facts. The documented actions of brave patriotic figures, regardless of race or gender, deserve the respect of the nation they honorably defended.
In February, the only female four-star officer on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and the Black Chairman, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. were removed from their posts. “Diversity is dead” in the U.S. military and so seemingly are our government’s most respected sources of public information.
How’s that boast gonna fly for recruiting efforts?
Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person’s national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. We’re questioning how those bedrock protections can co-exist with DEI bans that are clearly being misapplied by government staff. Discrimination based on race, religion and sex is still outlawed in America.
The galleries of images that remain on U.S. Government websites no longer resemble the wonderfully diverse American story we know.
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