Gen. Mark Milley clapped back at people’s criticism of critical race theory.
The move to implement critical race theory into school curriculums across the nation seems to have a particular group of Americans up in arms. And people are well, sick of it, including top military official Gen. Mark Milley. Milley addressed criticisms made by the Republican Party, who allegedly tried to use “woke” as an insult against the U.S. military for looking into race relations.
“I’ve read Mao Tse-tung. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist,” said Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s highest-ranking military officer. “So, what is wrong with understanding … having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend? And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military — our general officers, our commissioned and non-commissioned officers — of being, quote, ‘woke’ or something else because we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
This all comes after some of the GOP condemned the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for implementing a study of critical race theory. “I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely-read,” Milley said during the House Armed Services Committee hearing, USA Today reports. “The United States Military Academy is a university, and it is important that we train and we understand … and I want to understand white rage. And I’m white,” he said.
Milley continued, standing on his mission to understand race issues and white rage. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here, and I do want to analyze it.”
“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while testifying before Congress, pushing back on accusations from a Republican congressman that the military was becoming too “woke.” https://t.co/ix4dKxrC2d pic.twitter.com/HkFVB7d6Ur
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 24, 2021