U.S. Department of Defense restores Jackie Robinson story on website, admits it was taken down in DEI purge
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The United States Department of Defense has restored an article on its website honoring Jackie Robinson after having removed it in an effort to purge "DEI" (diversity, equity and inclusion) content.
As explained on the now-restored page , Robinson served in the military during World War II. He later broke the color line in Major League Baseball, becoming the first Black player in MLB in 1947. The DOD page honoring Robinson was taken down recently, and its removal (along with removal of other articles) caused backlash online .
In response, the DOD has issued the following statement while restoring the page.
Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson, as well as the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airman, the Marines at Iwo Jima and so many others -- we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop. We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like ever other American who has worn the uniform.
DEI -- Discriminatory Equity Ideology does the opposite. It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services' core warfighting mission.
We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed -- either deliberately or by mistake -- that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.
After returning from WWII, Robinson played in 34 games for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 in the Negro American League before signing with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers . He played a year in the minors before being called up to Major League Baseball in 1947. In his 10 seasons with the Dodgers, he hit .311/.409/.474 (140 OPS+) with a Rookie of the Year Award, MVP and batting title. He was part of six pennant-winning teams and the 1955 World Series champions. He also led the league in steals twice, on-base percentage once, sac bunts twice and WAR three times.
Bottom line, he was one of the greatest players who ever lived and he did so while breaking the color line from what was previously a segregated league. He also bravely served his country in war.
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Jackie Robinson is one of the top 5 or so figures in the story of civil rights in the 20th century.
We are in disgrace as a country.
And clearly, he didn't accomplish what he did through DEI.
I’d love to see some evidence and hear testimony as to how, exactly.
we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop. We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like ever other American who has worn the uniform.
This is what the left is getting their panties in a bunch over. How dare the army treat everyone equally.
As if black players weren't banned from MLB its first hundred years...
Yes they were and now they are not. Isn't progress wonderful? Of course that has nothing to do with my post so try again.
You do understand that the military was segregated until 1948 when President Truman issued his order to desegregate and for many years after there was still various forms of segregation in the military. Blacks and minorities were held back in both the segregation and post segregation period.
these men and women had to work 10 times as hard as whites to attain anything if at all. Their race should be presented as they have accomplished much in spite of all barriers in front of them. they were often denied medals for valor or the award was down graded, promotions were denied. The list is long and no matter the prattle about DEI it’s BS. Being a minority in the military would give you a much more realistic view of this. The administration is attempting to “”whitewash” history and insert blinders in it place. When they returned home they faced the same racism as when they left for war.
All of the above is well documented.
An important component of any historical presentation is context. Similarly, an important component of good criticism of that presentation is getting the context right.
Jackie Robinson’s story is more than just “equal.” It’s special.
For many people we remember - like Jackie Robinson - simply being black is not the point. That’s not the context. The context is that for generations, people who looked like him were enslaved, marginalized, discriminated against, and excluded from the many aspects of society casually enjoyed by white people -even after serving their country in war.
So when someone overcomes such pervasive bigotry and excels on top of it all, that is noteworthy. That’s history, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
That is the context here. Not “well, he’s black, so, I guess we’ll throw his picture up on the wall or something.”
Totally agree, which is why I am in agreement with purging the DoD site of DEI content. The context is military service, not the struggle for social justice in America. There's plenty of other sites, institutions and whatever where that is the purpose.
Social justice did/ does not/ should not exist in the military, that seems very strange to me. If, as you say it is for military accomplishments wouldn’t that mean a skill that no other race/culture in the US/world was brought to the military, an unbreakable language/code, by a specific race be included? Or as with the 442nd RCT a unit made up of a specific race because of the racism in the US have their race identity shown. There many more units that I could add so what it seems to me is that Trump/MAGA simply want to “whitewash” a good part of our history. It is sad that a substantial portion of our populace believes in supporting this.
It takes few words to speak the truth, MAGA should try it sometime.
Perhaps pretending that the Navajo Code Talkers were white instead of Indian or the 442nd were white instead of Asian or the Red Tails were white instead of black MAGA would be satisfied.
It's pretty obvious there's no point in responding to anything in the first paragraph. You've already reached the conclusion you want.
no, it’s actually personal experience and realty[✘]
Perfect example a propaganda headline. Written as if the DoD had tried to pull a fast one, got caught and then admitted to some implied malfeasance after the fact.
Thing is, anyone who's been paying attention knows that this was planned well in advance. The Trump adim told all of us this was going to happen, yet this sort of propaganda gets put out as if it came out of nowhere and in a manner they hoped no one would notice. It's all BS. There's no discrimination going on here. They are taking down the sites, just as they told us in advance they would, removing the DEI content and putting them back up. They are doing so for the reasons mentioned in the article.
What's so sad about all of this is the ones who claim to be fighting racism is making it all about race, while organizations like the DoD are simply making it about service men and women and what they accomplished as men and women, rather than subduing their accomplishments beneath immutable characteristics such as skin color as their primary focus.
The problem for the supposed anti-racist champions of DEI is that if it isn't all about race, they lose all their power and that can't be accepted. So we get nonsense articles like this one, or how Musk absolved Hiter, Mao and Stalin (but, really, just Hitler) of any wrongdoing when to any thinking person, it did no such thing. Gotta keep the sheep outraged, after all, because emotions seem to be the only way they can engage on such issues.