After two years’ incessant harping on “diversity,” it may interest readers to learn that the desired diversity of its advocates actually is quite narrow in scope. What such ideologues demand is, plainly, diversity of skin color only: valuing pigment above proven character and capabilities. Regrettably, diversity of thought or philosophy is not only undesirable – it is intolerable to them.
Recently, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointment of four members to the Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors (BoV) sent some political opponents into near-apoplexy. The appointees have not yet made any decisions on the BoV, which will not meet again until September. Regardless, an online entity, “Blue Virginia,” duly informed its readers as to why these conservative additions to the BoV were to be considered “clearly horrendous.”
Blue Virginia provided a biographical summary of the four, including the three obviously irredeemable conservatives, below:
John Adams: The Republican nominee for Attorney General of Virginia in 2017. . . . who actually said, “I clerked for Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court – you give me four more Clarence Thomases and we’re good.” . . .
Thomas E. Gottwald: [from Washington Post] . . . “head of a petroleum additives holding company” who “donated $77,500 to Youngkin’s campaign and another $25,000 to the Spirit of VMI political action committee.” . . .
Meagan Mobbs: [from WaPo] . . . “worked as a senior policy adviser to the Youngkin campaign.” . . . “former member of the [BoV] at the U.S. Military Academy” who . . . [was] asked by the Biden administration to resign or be fired. Mobbs refused to quit.
There’s more to the list of disqualifying sins in Blue Virginia’s view (and WaPo). What was so “horrendous” about these three, one asks? Was anything outside the Bell Curve of traditional political team-building?
From Blue Virginia’s commentary, it seems clear the much-vaunted “diversity,” the glories of which have been preached ad nauseam, does not include those whose thinking fails to pass the Purity Test of contemporary CRT/DEI-based ideology. This is clear by their objection to the appointees being “White, mostly conservative members. . . .” What a sad condition for those who consider themselves the broad-minded moral-intellectual superiors of everyone else – including we rubes who still think merit matters more than melanin.
But here’s a word of caution: CRT/DEI-ists ought to know that those who pass today’s Purity Test may not pass tomorrow’s, or next year’s. The demise, or “canceling,” of many once-close allies of Lenin, Mao, and Grenada’s Marxists – perhaps “influencers” in 2020s-speak – attests to this possibility.
Take Grenada’s case. Following a coup in 1979, the radical New Jewel Movement led by Prime Minister Maurice Bishop ruled the tiny Caribbean country with doctrinaire strictness, implementing the regional term, “heavy manners” – discipline which included torture, even execution. Regarding political opponents, Bishop said, “. . . we crush them and jail them.” British Major Mark Adkin wrote: “Any sign of ‘imperialist’ characteristics in a person weighed heavily against him.” To grasp the relevance in 2022, replace “imperialist” with “racist” – which in either case often was fabricated.
Following the brief U.S. military operation in Grenada (October 1983) intended partly, in the Cold War’s context, to deny the Soviets a forward-based airfield for their strategic bombers, captured Document No. 1 stated: “It is clear that our objective as Marxist-Leninists must in the first instance be to construct socialism as rapidly, but [as] scientifically as possible.” As the movement’s Central Committee records revealed, “Bishop and his comrades were dedicated believers in the Soviet model of Communism formulated by Lenin.”
So Bishop had passed the Purity Test, beautifully. But on October 19, 1983, he and his close comrades were murdered by fellow Marxists, who charged Bishop – as Fidel Castro said soon afterward – “with practicing a personality cult and drawing away from the Leninist norms.” CRT/DEI-ists, take note.
But why even mention Bishop? Answer: because he’s among the philosophical predecessors of today’s cultural revolutionary leaders, whose deliberate divisiveness is designed to advance their agenda. But in the context of culture, the more important mentor was the imprisoned, prolific 1930s’ Italian writer, Antonio Gramsci, who perceived that the cultural – not the political – takeover of a society was apt to be more successful in the prosperous West.
Judging particularly by the last two years, Gramsci seems to have been quite perceptive. It’s time to recognize his descendants for who they are. “Diversity” is merely their convenient tool to securing power, wealth, and influence.
