A colonel promoted diversity. So a GOP senator is blocking his promotion.
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Once upon a time in another America, many considered diversity, equity and inclusion fundamental national values, at least nominally.
Now those notions are so reviled in much of America that one senator is threatening the promotion of a highly qualified and praised Air Force officer.
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Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo). is blocking Col. Benjamin Jonsson’s promotion to brigadier (one star) general because of the officer’s perceptive but provocative Air Force Times article, headlined “Dear white colonel … we must address our blind spots around race.”
Jonsson’s July 2020 commentary, in the form of a letter to colleagues, was posted five weeks after George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer. The commentary reflects how Floyd’s homicide and the following period of racial reckoning affected Jonsson.
“As white colonels,” he wrote, “you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force. Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice. White colonels are no exception. We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others.
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