Politics: What Donald Trump’s Defense Policy Means For Black Service Members

0:07Black Americans in the U.S. military have long faced the contradictions of their service. The country they're fighting to protect is the same one that's failed to serve and protect them. One example, after more than 180 ,000 Black soldiers risked their lives fighting for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln wanted to ship the formerly enslaved to Liberia when the war had been won. He argued that white and Black people could not coexist. Black Americans by then had been in the U.S. for over two centuries. Despite this, Black Americans have continued to serve across the history of this country.

0:42There are over 350 ,000 black active duty and reserve members and more than 2.4 million black veterans. That's according to the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University. This year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked or delayed the promotions of more than a dozen black and female senior officers. He's also dismissed several high-ranking black and female officers since the start of the second Trump term. It's all happening against the administration's aggressive rollback of programs and policies connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The single dumbest phrase in military history was peddled in our Army only a few short years ago.

1:23You've all heard it, maybe in your first two years at West Point. Our diversity is our strength. The single dumbest phrase in military history. That was Secretary Hegseth speaking at West Point Military Academy last month. For some current and former Black service members, this is a step too far in the wrong direction. I would tell Pete Hegseth to read his own book, The War on Warriors, where he talks about politicizing the military and people getting promoted without merit and understand that that is exactly what he is doing. He is full of opinions, but the data does not support his assertions about quotas, etc.

2:04He is doing a tremendous amount of harm to the military, and I've been a vocal critic about that for months now. I've read his War on Warriors book, and he is doing a tremendous amount of harm to our military. That's retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Reuben Keith Green. We'll hear more from him later. But first, we have to take a short break. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. We'll be back with more in just a moment. Stay with us.

2:33Welcome back to the 1A Podcast. We're talking about the experiences of Black service members under the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Joining us is Clint Smith. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the books Above Ground and How the Word is Passed. His most recent piece at The Atlantic is called The Betrayal of Black Patriots. Clint, it's great to have you. Thanks so much for having me. They reached out to the Pentagon for this conversation. We'll read from their statements later. Clint, you interviewed two dozen current and former Black military members about how the Pentagon has changed under Hegseth's direction and what those changes mean, specifically for women and people of color in the military.

3:12What did they tell you? Yeah, what I heard was that there's this experience of sort of cognitive dissonance, which is to say that for many of these folks, they have dedicated their lives. They are often the second, third, fourth generation in their family serving in the military. They have watched as the military has been one of the great catalysts of upward economic social mobility for their families and for the black community more broadly. And there is a sense of intergenerational commitment that stems from that. And they are witnessing over the course of the last year and a half a concerted effort to diminish, to erase, to suggest that their service is unworthy, that their abilities are not commensurate to the positions that they hold or that they aspire to.

4:12And it's been really difficult for them to be constantly subjective, both through policy and rhetoric, from the very top of this administration, both from Trump and specifically from Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, I guess I should say, Pete Hegseth. And there's this feeling that we're not going to stand for this. I didn't give my life to this country to be treated this way. And so many people are leaving early. They're retiring earlier than they would have otherwise. They're leaving the military, they're leaving the Pentagon. And at the same time, there are folks who are like, well, I want to leave and I hate that we are being treated this way.

4:52But at the same time, if all of us leave, then who's going to be left after these folks are gone? There's the sense that we will be here longer than this administration. And if all of us leave amid the sort of chaos and and sort of brazen disrespect that they've experienced over the past 18 months or so, that they will be acquiescing to what this administration, in fact, wants them to do, which is not be a part of this institution. Several of those currently in the military declined to give their names for their interviews, for fear of retaliation. What fears or anxieties did they express to you about speaking out?

5:34Well, I was having these conversations. I've had them over the past several months, and many of these conversations were happening in the context of the battle that was going on between Pete Hegseth and Senator Kelly. Senator Kelly, who served in the military for many years and who months ago came out with a video with several of his colleagues in Congress talking about how members of the military should ignore illegal orders that come down from the military. And this infuriated Secretary Hegseth. And so he attempted through functionally suing Senator Kelly and saying that he was going to take away his pension, the pension that he had earned after 20 years.

6:19So what happens in the military is after you've reached the 20-year mark, it triggers a pension that you then receive for the rest of your life. And the longer you stay in the military before you retire, the higher that pension is. And so that is a huge factor that draws and keeps many people in the military today. And there was a fear that if he could take that, if that litigation was successful and that pension was removed from Senator Kelly, that they felt like it could be removed from a sitting senator. It could be removed and taken away from any of us. And so that was part of the backdrop of these conversations.

6:57And there's also the sort of social dynamics, especially if you're still in the military. You know, that was for folks who had already retired. But for folks who were in the military, I mean, they are still part of an institution in which their commanders are answering to the whims of this administration. And so I think people tried to figure out what it meant to try to tell the truth and explain what was going on while also not putting themselves or their families or their colleagues at undue risk. And you're referring there to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. We've also seen Secretary Hag Seth block or delay the promotions of more than a dozen black and female military members this year.

7:41That's according to reporting from several outlets, including The Atlantic. He's also dismissed several high-ranking black and female officers. Earlier, we heard a clip of him calling diversity is our greatest strength the dumbest phrase in military history. How is that sentiment showing up as policy at the Pentagon under his leadership? up? Well, you know, there's been reporting, as you said, both from the Atlantic and my colleagues there, as well as many other outlets that have talked specifically about people who have been put up for promotion by the military, by the Navy, by the Army, by the Air Force, by the Coast Guard, et cetera, and who have gone through an incredibly thorough vetting process.

8:26And I think it's important for people to understand that the vetting process by which someone is brought up for promotion is incredibly extensive, incredibly thorough, goes into one's military history, goes into, you know, they get myriad character references. No one is put up for these positions unless they have demonstrated the ability to fulfill the obligations that that position requires. And time and time again now, over the course of his time at the head of the Pentagon, Secretary Hegseth has prevented qualified black people and qualified women from ascending to these positions that the military infrastructure has already decided that they are qualified for and saying that they are not qualified for those positions and punishing them for things that they have said, affirming the importance of diversity in the military, which obviously, per your clip, runs counter to what Secretary Hegseth believes, and for themselves, ostensibly being examples, sort of walking examples of what Hegseth believes are sort of DEI hires, affirmative action hires.

9:42It seems that, you know, I can't be inside of Secretary Hegseth's head, but he's also said and written much of this down, that he seems not to believe that black people and women largely are capable of being in these high-ranking positions and that if they are there, that they are somehow there because they don't deserve it, or they're somehow there as a result of DEI policies or that they are a token, that they are a symbol. And I think it really, it's difficult to explain the extent to which this infuriates people within the military, who have, again, given their entire lives, who have done all of the work, sometimes more work than necessary, in order to qualify for these promotions and these positions.

10:31And time and time again, we see, you know, even most recently, there was reporting in the New York Times about Admiral Stephen Barnett, who was the first choice to be promoted to this high-ranking position in the Navy. And Pete Hexed said no, and they went with their third choice for that position. And so what he's doing is making the military less effective. He's lowering the quality of leadership that we are seeing in the military. And that's just one example of many policies that he has been sort of enacting since he's been there. We reached out to the Pentagon about Hegseth's decision to block or delay the promotions of at least a dozen black and female service members.

11:18They directed us to a social media post on X from Sean Parnell. He's the assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Parnell was responding to a June 1st report for The New York Times with the headline, Hegseth strikes female and black Navy officers from promotion list. Parnell writes, quote, More race-baiting garbage from the failing New York Times and its radical left reporters. They continue to push this worn-out narrative because they view almost everything through the lens of race and gender over merit. As we've said before, military promotions are given to those who have earned them.

11:49The department will never consider the color of a service member's skin or their gender as a factor in promotions. Under President Trump and Secretary Hagseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the War Department, end quote. And we should note here, Clint, that your piece appears in The Atlantic, not The New York Times, But having spoken to two dozen current and former military members who don't believe the military is operating as a meritocracy, but who also care deeply about the military and the country, how do you think they'd respond to that? I think that there, again, is this sort of cognitive dissonance they experience.

12:23On the one hand, there is this feeling of despair, a feeling of profound sadness. I mean, just imagine the person who is in charge of your workplace coming in and suggesting that everything you have achieved has been the result not of your ability, not of your intelligence, not of your output, but simply because of the result of a facet of your identity that they believe has propelled you forward at the expense of white men. and who believes that you do not in fact deserve to be in your position and that you should in fact be prevented from ascending to higher positions. And so there's this feeling of despair.

13:08One of the folks I spoke to said, it makes me wonder if all of this was in vain. But on the other end, there is this keen sense of the history that they are standing on, the history that has brought them to this place. I mean, black people have served in the military from the American Revolution, right? American Revolution, Civil War, World War I, World War II. And many of these folks have ancestors, have family members themselves who served in these conflicts over the course of generations and who did so in the context of sociopolitical moments that were, to their mind, profoundly more difficult than the one that they're now.

13:52Now, there you had ancestors who were formerly enslaved who fought with the Union Army. They had ancestors who were coming from towns where people were being lynched who fought for this country in World War I and World War II. They were fighting in segregated units. They weren't even allowed to pick up guns. And they had to serve as janitors, serve in mess halls, serve in the back of supply trucks because they weren't allowed to be in combat. And so there is this sense that this moment is incredibly difficult. But our ancestors have also gone through much more incredibly, much more difficult moments than this.

14:26And if we can keep that sense of perspective, if we can keep that sense of, you know, this notion that as difficult as this is, as hard as this is, as much as it feels like we're going backwards rather than forwards. We also know that in the context of history, we are still better off and still building on the work that our ancestors did and are operating in different conditions. And so one of the folks that I spoke to who wanted to remain anonymous talked about how he feels like when he looks around the military, he's like, we built this. Like, we built this country. And why would I let somebody come in and chase me out of this thing that we helped to build, that I helped to build.

15:08And there was also this sense, almost universally, that people were fighting, not necessarily for what this country is right now, but what this country could be. There's this sense of fighting for the Constitution, fighting for what the, as Dr. King says, the promissory note of what America could be. And there was a feeling of wanting to make sure that they were engaged in the process of fighting, again, and for what they knew the country had the potential to be, even if that country is not demonstrating what it can be at this moment. We got this question from Robin who asks, are there any high-level African Americans in the military who support what President Trump is doing and what Secretary Hegseth is doing?

15:51Are there any African Americans actively encouraging the secretary to make the changes that he's making? Clint? You know, I think the military represents the heterogeneity, heterogeneity, the political and social heterogeneity that black America does. But not every black American is a liberal or progressive and black people have a wide range of political positions and dispositions. And so there are almost certainly people who are in the military who support what Secretary Hegseth is doing. I didn't speak to any of those people, but I know that some of the sources that I spoke to have colleagues who are, whether it be because they believe it or because they're trying to position themselves effectively to get promoted, suggesting that they are okay with what's happening.

16:44But I think that that's far more rare than the people who are experiencing a disconcerted sense of what's going on. We're discussing how current and former Black military members are responding to how the Pentagon has changed under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. We'll be right back.

17:05Let's get back to our conversation about Black members and veterans of the military and how they're responding to how the military is changing under Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership. Jay emails, I retired from the Air Force in 1996. I was in aviation electronics. There were few black officers and even fewer black senior NCOs. There has been a constant refrain that somehow if you are a minority in the military, you're being given a leg up because of your color. The idea is still relevant in my civilian life. You've taken someone's spot because, quote, they gave it to you because you're DEI. My parents instilled in us that as a black male, you have to work twice as hard for half the credit.

17:42We also heard from Rear Admiral Carradine, who's a retired black veteran, who writes, I've participated in more than 10 promotion boards. There are no quotas for race or gender in Navy promotion boards. Every person put up by the boards is fully qualified to successfully execute that role. Let's bring a new voice into the conversation. Lieutenant Commander Ruben Keith Green. He was an officer in the Navy for 22 years before retiring in 1997. He's also the author of the memoir, Black Officer, White Navy. He listens to 1A and reached out to us for this program. Lieutenant Commander, welcome. Thank you for having me.

18:18So you were a military officer during a time when it was rare to see black people in that position. What was that experience like for you? Well, it was very similar to what's happening now. I served, I got commissioned in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was president, railing against affirmative action and so forth. And I had people question my qualifications and I had people tell me enlisted white enlisted members. Mr. Green, the only reason you're an officer is because of affirmative action. And then when I explained to them how I actually achieved it and, you know, what I went through to become an officer, I said, now, what part of that was affirmative action?

18:54And they would cheaply say something like, well, sir, I didn't know all of that. And I'd respond to them by saying, well, that didn't stop you from making an uninformed judgment about how I achieved what I did. What did it take for you to achieve your rank? Well, first of all, I dropped out of high school as a 17-year-old and joined the Navy against my father's wishes. He wouldn't sign the papers for me to join. So I put together a bachelor's degree in my spare time. I applied to become an officer three separate times. The first time, I was derailed by a board member who said that, you know, demonstrated educational achievements did not mean that I would become an effective naval officer.

19:32Well, educational achievements were one of the primary considerations for that in job performance, and I excelled in both of those, having received a Navy Achievement Medal as an independent duty yeoman as an E-5. And then the second time I applied for a limited duty officer, and they told me I was junior enough, I mean senior enough to apply, but too junior to be selected. I'd been promoted to a first-class petty officer early by taking an exam and becoming one of the top performers on that exam. And my third try, I went to an aviation squadron, which was a very welcoming place. And they highly recommended me for officer candidate school.

20:10And I went to officer candidate school in 1984, was selected as the number one officer candidate by my peers, and then went on to serve in three ships in a row as a surface warfare officer. When you think about your time in the Navy, how much discrimination did you experience? How significant a part of your experience was it? discrimination was a constant presence in my life in the military, both as an officer and as an enlisted person. It seemed to intensify more once I became an officer because there were so few of us and people would assume just because you were a black officer that you were an affirmative action hire.

20:53And I was treated sometimes very poorly by the people that I worked with, that I worked for, and people that I had to interact with. I had occasion to

21:07literally step outside my professional persona and show them who I really was because of the way I was being treated in order to get attention to people that needed to understand what was happening to me. And when you say step outside of your personal, your professional persona, I'm kind of reading between the lines there. What did you have to do? Well, in my fourth consecutive department at tour i was trying to uh build a war wagon we had a mobile wet trainer that was canceled because of uh budget cuts and training so we decided uh our little training department on desron eight staff and mayport we decided we were going to build our own war wagon which amused everyone on the staff i was the only black officer on the staff except for the uh um doctor so once we got this started we realized we ran over our heads so we asked the maintenance organization to help us.

21:55And they reluctantly agreed, but they were dragging their feet and making it difficult for me to complete the project. So at one point, I went and talked to the warrant officer who was responsible for completing this project and said, I don't want any more delays. Please stop jerking me around and let's get this done. And when he canceled the work the very next day, I went over and cursed out his boss in front of his entire department, told him he wasn't doing his job as far as I was concerned. There's only one job that he had, and that was the one I was there about. And the warrant officer was part of the problem.

22:27He ordered me to go back to that warrant officer's office, told me I was way out of line, which I was. But instead of going there, they had a lot of rope in that building. So I went back to my office. Wound up going to getting called over to his CO's office. My chief of staff went with me. And everything he said in that meeting was a lie. And then once I got the chance to speak, I showed that they were discriminating against me. And rather than get court-martialed or get in trouble, that commanding officer ordered his people to work around the clock over a three-day holiday weekend to get that war wagon completed because it was obvious they were hurting the readiness of the sailors on that base by messing around with me.

23:06So sometimes you just have to show them who you really are in order to get their attention. You've been retired from the Navy for nearly 30 years, but you're still very closely following what's happening to the military under Pete Hegseth's leadership. You know, you shared with us that had you not joined the Navy when you did, you'd probably be dead or in prison. So you put a lot into your service. You got a lot back from your service. what's your reaction to how this institution you were a part of for so long is changing under this administration well i'm disappointed but i'm not surprised as far as i'm concerned pete hexis is a one-man moral injury wrecking ball who is doing tremendous damage to our armed services and the psychological damage he is doing is untold i am i'm still struggling 30 years almost 30 years after I retired to reconcile some of what happened to me.

24:00And I see it happening now. The people that are being mistreated under Hexit will carry this with them because all the years they believed certain things to be true, one man steps in with his own personal biases and blows all that up in their faces. And they are unable or unwilling to speak because they understand the the ramifications of speaking out. I'm dealing right now with fighting to obtain a FOIA request after I was retaliated against as I lay on a exam table to get a prostate biopsy. A doctor was, Navy doctor, young enough to be my son, was upset that I was writing about my own experiences and accused me of behavior that I had not engaged in.

24:42It took me a command complaint, an IG complaint, a TRICARE grievance to finally get them to send me a letter saying that I had done nothing wrong. And when I talked to his commanding officer, I said, I want to know why this happened to me. And she said, we may never know why this happened to you. And I told her, it's your job to find out. And I have received nothing since then. So retaliation is real, even 30 years later in the veterans community. So I understand why people are reluctant to speak out. And I want to mention here that you're the author of the memoir, Black Officer, White Navy, where you share a lot about your experiences.

25:16Clint, the lieutenant commander mentioned the psychological damage being done. At the beginning of your piece, you highlight the portrait of General Daniel Chappie James, which was removed from the Pentagon's Air Force Art Gallery last year. Briefly, who was General James? General Chappie James was the first four-star general in the history of the U.S. Air Force. And his portrait hung in the Air Force Gallery. And so many of the folks that I spoke to talked about how walking past that portrait gave them so much pride. And that General James was in many ways a sort of aspirational figure. You know, his record of participation in World War II and Vietnam was exemplary.

26:05And he ultimately, you know, rose to this rank of four-star general. And I think that it's interesting because it also demonstrates this sense that so much of what's happening is almost beyond ideology in the sense that General James was not a radical liberal. He was not even necessarily a Democrat. He was considered a sort of Reagan Republican. President Reagan really, really loved him and talked about how great he was and how he was a darn good pilot and a sort of model military man. Just a few years ago, Florida named a bridge after him, which was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis. And so he was in many ways a sort of a conservative in this space.

26:54And for many people, when his portrait was taken down, it almost was like beyond his credentials and beyond his output and beyond the fact that he had done, you know, his military record was remarkable and pristine. it also was like oh even if someone shares the sort of ideological positions of the republican party that itself is not enough to prevent your portrait you know from being removed and it felt like this sort of symbol where like you know if if tabby james isn't good enough for these folks then how how are any of us going to be good enough for for these folks we reached out to the pentagon for comment on the painting.