President Trump has banned DEI from the federal government, but the left isn’t going to let it go. The San Antonio Express-News reported the latest race-based hoax, which is the claim that President Trump’s order banning DEI means that the Tuskegee Airmen have been erased from Air Force history as taught to new recruits.

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of blacks, ranging from pilots to cooks and nurses, who formed the Army Air Corps’ 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group. They had an excellent combat record, and their abilities went a long way to breaking the color barrier in the federal government, including the military, that Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, had instituted.

We remember the Tuskegee Airman today as an important part of American history. They also drive home the point that people’s skin color is the least important thing about them when considering their abilities. They are Exhibit A for why we need to remove all racial obsessions from the U.S. Military, an organization that must function on merit if it is to function at all.

Image: Some of the Tuskegee Airmen. Public Domain.

It was with that laudable, pro-American, and practical goal that Donald Trump signed an executive order ending all “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” programs in the federal government, including in the military. Pete Hegseth, the new Defense Secretary, is all in on this goal:

The military as a whole immediately hastened to comply, leading to several dead web pages that were dedicated to the military’s DEI programs.  

So far, all good. But then the San Antonio Express-News reported that one Air Force base had purged all mention of the Tuskegee Airman. Just as a warning, as you read this “news” story, note the tone in the first paragraph:

President Donald Trump’s assault on federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has claimed a new victim — the Tuskegee Airmen.

A video describing the exploits of the groundbreaking African American airmen, whose combat service during World War II became the stuff of legend, has been removed from the instructional curriculum for new recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the hub of Air Force basic training.

[snip]

The effects were felt almost immediately at Lackland. A memo circulated among Air Force personnel said that “in accordance with NEW DEIA Guidance,” portions of the basic training curriculum were being revised “immediately.” DEIA stands for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The memo said a video on the Tuskegee Airmen had been excised from a course on “fairmindedness,” a term for the habits and values the Air Force seeks to instill. [Emphasis mine.]

The same story says the base also ended videos about women in the military. But what the entire report downplays is that little word “revised.” Indeed, the way it is used strongly implies that the revision is to complete the process of erasing blacks from military (and American) history.

The story instantly got picked up by other media outlets at home and abroad (e.g., CBS News, USA Today, The Guardian, and BBC).

Every headline accused Donald Trump of forcing the military to erase the Tuskegee Airman. Except, of course, Trump didn’t order anything of the sort.

According to the memorandum that went out to Air Force personnel on January 22, the Air Force was to remove “all outward facing media” from the Air Force Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices, withdraw “final or pending documents, directive, orders, materials, and equity plans” that the DEIA had issued, and “cancel any DEIA-related training and terminate any DEIA-related contract.”

There’s not a word in there about erasing blacks and women from the Air Force’s history.

The reason that these specific videos were withdrawn was because they weren’t taught as part of a general orientation about the Air Force’s storied history and the many people of all races and both sexes who served honorably in the Air Force. Instead, as AP accurately reports, the materials were part of a specific DEI curriculum—and the curriculum is paused.

This matters because Trump’s executive order makes it clear that, while he is throwing out DEI, he has no intention of tossing valuable babies out with that racist bathwater. Thus, the Executive Order explicitly states, “To carry out this directive, the Director of OPM, with the assistance of the Attorney General as requested, shall review and revise, as appropriate, all existing Federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programs to comply with this order.” (Emphasis mine.)

In other words, as even the San Antonio Express-News so delicately acknowledged after its inflammatory opening, the military has halted all DEI materials and actions, but it will review everything to separate the wheat from the chaff.

At the end of the day, the Tuskegee Airmen will be back in their honored place as part of American history. However, the whole mess of claims that blacks and whites are inherently different, whites and men are toxic, women are incapable of math and science, gender dysphoria is real, merit matters less than skin color, etc., will be gone.

As for the San Antonio Express-News reporting, which started this whole fake outcry, it doesn’t get a pass. Yes, it has that word “revised,” but, as I said, that first paragraph shows that the reporter, Sig Christenson (who’s been around long enough to know better), was biased from the get-go, and that bias colored the whole article’s anti-Trump spin.