Biden Nominee for Air Force Brigadier General Blames Fellow 'White Colonels' for Being 'Biggest Barriers' to DEI Agenda in Military
An Air Force officer in line for a promotion to general by the Biden administration has a history of targeting his white peers on the basis of their race.
Col. Ben Jonsson, who is white, assailed white colonels in the military branch as a whole in a scathing July 2020 screed published in the Air Force Times, citing the then-recent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force,” Jonsson wrote.
“Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice,” Jonsson wrote.
“We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others.”
He then went into examples of what he said were white colonels avoiding the topic of racial problems in the service, including disproportionate punishment of black airmen.
🚨🧵 After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Air Force Col. Ben Jonsson accused his fellow “white colonels” of being the “biggest barriers” to addressing “racial injustice” in the military.
Today, he’s in line for a promotion to brigadier general. https://t.co/uTyPjVHQV1
— Rob Bluey (@RobertBluey) August 17, 2023
Jonsson even went on to recommend a book by racial extremist Robin DiAngelo — “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.”
Jonsson currently serves as vice superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, according to a Department of Defense news release announcing pending promotions.
Jonsson’s promotion has been delayed through a procedural hold on the part of Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, along with pending promotions for any prospective flag officer in the military.
The Alabama Republican objects to Pentagon funding of travel for service members to obtain abortions, according to The Associated Press.
The Biden Administration’s liberal and woke policies are the real threat to military readiness.
I’m trying to keep politics out of the military.https://t.co/Ylvvrw9f8v
— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) August 12, 2023
Senior Pentagon leaders have pushed back against allegations the military is compromised by political ideology.
Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed to the cancellation of a drag queen show on an Air Force base as evidence in an interview last week, according to The Washington Post.
In spite of Jonsson’s racially charged rhetoric, data shows that the United States is among the least prejudiced nations in the world.
Only 3 percent of Americans stated they would not want to live next to a neighbor of another race in a 2023 King’s College London survey.
The figure paled in comparison to those for some of the United States’ geopolitical adversaries, such as Iran and China.
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