Out of the box, I understand that Joe Biden said he would not accept Sec Austin's resignation. I hope that puts an end to that speculation. Furthermore, has anyone even stopped for a moment to consider the other aspect of Sec Austin's hesitancy: the nature of his cancer. Given the Sec's reserved demeanor, we're talking about coming to terms with what once was and still is a taboo and touchy issue, never mind in the Black community. Not to mention that the timing of his diagnosis must have been awful to give him much time to plan a political communications strategy. I remember how badly Trump handled his hospitalization for Covid and yet he so easily escaped the criticism of his party, buy even Democrats gave him space to recover. This is a sad place we have come to..
I have no doubt a lot of GOP critics of Austin are stone-cold racists. But a few points/questions:
1) Sometimes racists get it right for other reasons. That some has racist views doesn't mean they're always wrong about everything. So they might have a valid point about Austin's approachj his duties.
2) How should white critics of a black SecDef frame their criticisms? Because they absolutely have to be able to discuss valid criticisms.
3) The fact that nothing serious happened while Austin was AWOL is absolutely not relevant. There are clear procedures - much clearer than we have in the UK - about chains of command and authority and that's great. But they're no good if you ignore them. And if you ignore them, even if nothing bad happens, you still did the wrong thing. If a four-star left top secret documents in a bar, and got them back, s/he still shouldn't have left them there.
For what it's worth, I don't think Austin's mistakes were resignation material and I've been reasonably impressed by him as SecDef. But it was a MASSIVE failure of judgement. Mistakes are bad, but mistakes when your brief includes nuclear weapons have to be judged much more harshly. That goes for everyone from POTUS downwards, and their skin colour makes zero difference.
Trump Party members (my new name for republicans) are quick to criticize African Americans in many obvious and also subtle ways. America was built on the backs of Black Slaves. We should respect that history even if our ancestors or ourselves were not born here. Our previous President has made it permissible to be rude and abusive to anyone who is not part of their tribe.
Out of the box, I understand that Joe Biden said he would not accept Sec Austin's resignation. I hope that puts an end to that speculation. Furthermore, has anyone even stopped for a moment to consider the other aspect of Sec Austin's hesitancy: the nature of his cancer. Given the Sec's reserved demeanor, we're talking about coming to terms with what once was and still is a taboo and touchy issue, never mind in the Black community. Not to mention that the timing of his diagnosis must have been awful to give him much time to plan a political communications strategy. I remember how badly Trump handled his hospitalization for Covid and yet he so easily escaped the criticism of his party, buy even Democrats gave him space to recover. This is a sad place we have come to..
I have no doubt a lot of GOP critics of Austin are stone-cold racists. But a few points/questions:
1) Sometimes racists get it right for other reasons. That some has racist views doesn't mean they're always wrong about everything. So they might have a valid point about Austin's approachj his duties.
2) How should white critics of a black SecDef frame their criticisms? Because they absolutely have to be able to discuss valid criticisms.
3) The fact that nothing serious happened while Austin was AWOL is absolutely not relevant. There are clear procedures - much clearer than we have in the UK - about chains of command and authority and that's great. But they're no good if you ignore them. And if you ignore them, even if nothing bad happens, you still did the wrong thing. If a four-star left top secret documents in a bar, and got them back, s/he still shouldn't have left them there.
For what it's worth, I don't think Austin's mistakes were resignation material and I've been reasonably impressed by him as SecDef. But it was a MASSIVE failure of judgement. Mistakes are bad, but mistakes when your brief includes nuclear weapons have to be judged much more harshly. That goes for everyone from POTUS downwards, and their skin colour makes zero difference.
Short answer: YES!
Trump Party members (my new name for republicans) are quick to criticize African Americans in many obvious and also subtle ways. America was built on the backs of Black Slaves. We should respect that history even if our ancestors or ourselves were not born here. Our previous President has made it permissible to be rude and abusive to anyone who is not part of their tribe.
I find it disgusting!