During a press briefing Wednesday, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dodged a question about his previous comments about “white rage”, saying it’s a “very complicated topic.”
“I’m not going to address specifically white rage or black rage or Asian rage or Irish rage or English rage or German rage or any other rage. The events of the 6th of January happened, those are all going to get sorted out. Historians will sort it out, commissions will sort it out,” he said.
“But I do think it’s important that we as a professional military not only understand foreign countries and foreign cultures and societies…we also need to understand our own society and understand the soldiers, airmen, marines, and the societies they’re coming from. I think that’s important for leadership to study,” Milley added.
In June, Milley rejected the accusation that the armed forces are going ‘woke’ and defended the U.S. military academy’s incorporation of Critical Race Theory into its curriculum, claiming it’s important for cadets to have some “situational understanding” of American history.
“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” he commented during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in June. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.”
Representative Mike Waltz (R., Fla.) sounded the alarm on Critical Race Theory at West Point after he acquired slides from a class presentation called “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage” and a lecture slide titled “White Power at West Point.” Waltz reached out to West Point Superintendent Lieutenant General Darryl Williams in April demanding an explanation for the teachings, which he called “divisive,” “destructive,” and “unacceptable.”
Addressing the allegations that progressive indoctrination has infiltrated the U.S. military, Milley said, “The United States military is an apolitical institution. We were then, we are now. And our oath is to the Constitution, not to any individual at all. And the military did not and will not and should not ever get involved in domestic politics. We don’t arbitrate elections. That’s the job of the judiciary and the legislature and the American people.”