It’s Always Been About the Bigotry
The renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk is a prominent illustration.
The Trump administration’s attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are often explained as being about high-minded philosophies concerning not engaging in identity-based metrics and/or being just about “merit.” Instead, they are really about resetting the baseline of “normal” back to straight white male.
To wit, via Military.com: Hegseth Orders Navy to Strip Name of Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk from Ship.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show.
Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy — the official who holds the power to name Navy ships — that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.
A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John Phelan was ordered to do so by Hegseth. The official also said that the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride month — was intentional.
The last bit there is the blatant confirmation of what is going on here. This is “owning the libs” and purposefully trying to offend the LBGTQ+ community because they can.
…the memo reviewed by Military.com noted that the renaming was being done so that there is “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture,” apparently referencing President Donald Trump, Hegseth and Phelan.
Side note: I am oh so very weary of all this “warrior culture” stuff. This is a child’s view of the military.
CBS News has more: Navy set to rename USNS Harvey Milk, mulls new names for other ships named for civil rights leaders.
The documents obtained by CBS News also show other vessels named after prominent leaders are also on the Navy’s renaming “recommended list.”
Among them are the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez and USNS Medgar Evers.
CBS News found that a December 2024 web article from Naval Sea Systems Command about the laying of the keel for the future USNS Thurgood Marshall has been deleted.
When Thurgood Marshall and Harriet Tubman (!) are considered too woke to have ships named after them, it sends a clear message about the values of the people making these decisions.*
Just in case I need to be explicit. Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the Supreme Court, was a major civil rights advocate who argued Brown v. Board of Education in front of the Court as an attorney.
Harriet Tubman helped run the Underground Railroad for crying out loud.
Perhaps SecTough Hegseth doesn’t think these are warriory enough names, but it seems to me that what you name your ships after should reflect the values that are being fought for. I would hasten to add that if US military personnel are half as courageous and resourceful as Marshall, Tubman, and Milk in a fight, that should put fear in the hearts of any battlefield adversary.
A lot of this feels like “owning the libs” because they took confederate names off of any number of things.
Not only is “owning” anyone a childish and immature thing to do, it is unbecoming of someone with as serious a job as the one Hegseth has. But let me note this.
The libs wanted Robert E. Lee’s name off of things because he was the military commander of a rebellion against the United States and the US Constitution in service of setting up a new country built on the foundation that chattel slavery must be preserved.
The libs wanted to name a fleet replenishment oiler after Harvey Milk because he fought for the rights of his fellow human beings and was assassinated for the effort.
The libs wanted to name vessels after people like Tubman because they fought to end chattel slavery, and for Marshall because he fought for equal rights and treatment for all.
If you want to be on the side that wants to erase such honors, all the while really looking to make sure Jefferson Davis continues to get his day in the sun,** you have to at some point ask if maybe you are the baddies.
I know that putting it this way will cause a lot of people to reflexively get their backs up, but if they have some logically and morally defensible position for renaming a ship named after a gay rights icon purposefully during Pride Month, I’m all ears.
I will say this much for sure: what we are seeing here is not some subtle, nuanced argument about merit and being colorblind or whatever rationalizations will be given. Again, it is a clear attempt to recast what “normal” is, which is straight white male.
*The whole list is shameful, but for the sake of space, I concentrate here on Marshall and Tubman.
**Davis’ birthday is June 3rd, so on Monday of this week, June 2: Alabama state offices closed Monday for Confederate holiday
Davis’ birthday is one of three holidays in Alabama that commemorate Confederate leaders: Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which is commemorated in January on the same day as Martin Luther King Day; Confederate Memorial Day in April; and Davis’s birthday in June.
Mississippi and Florida also still observe Davis’ birthday. You know, to celebrate southern “heritage.”
And Trump is doing his best to make sure that Ukraine goes back to celebrating Stalin’s birthday. It’s one thing to remember your history, another to actually celebrate the wrongdoing and those who led the efforts to harm others.
Steve
Under the Mike Johnson corruption theory – i.e., something can’t be corrupt if it is done openly – this can’t be racist or homophobic because it is being done openly….loud and proud, no chance for it to be misinterpreted.
Nothing like tossing Naval tradition overboard (going back to the Greeks) where renaming ships (unless captured – maybe that is the point) is considered bad luck – a jinx.
I’ll also point out all of these ships are “auxiliaries,” support ships (cargo ships). Not big gun carrying warships.
Obnoxious.
The MAGAs are thrilled by this.
…straight white Christian male.
FTFY
“Warrior mentality!”
Harriet Tubman would have buried this guy for being a worthless, racist buffoon.
Steven you have to understand that we cannot be sure that either of them earned their positions because of DEI.
Marshall only won at the Supreme Court on Brown v. Board because of DEI–he wouldn’t have argued that case if he wasn’t Black. Or wait… he only won because of all the White lawyers he retained for the NAACP . But your woke history just teaches about the Black guy for some reason. Why isn’t there a USS Jack Greenberg?! Clearly it’s demonstrating the left’s antisemitism.
This goes doubly for Tubman, who was both Black and a Woman. I mean, if it wasn’t for Woke revisionist history, we’d be learning about all the White Men who repeatedly put their lives in danger leading slaves to the North.
Or rather, we’d know about all the more deserving White Men whom she prevented from getting jobs as slave emancipators.
Or better yet, we’d understand that the lives of those chattle slaves really were not that bad. You’re way to addicted to your “slavery porn” and those carriers should actually be named after Conferderate war heros.
Now, if they would just name a ship after someone of color who truly earned their position like Clarence Thomas…
/s if it isn’t clear.
@Matt Bernius:
No. You don’t get it. Once the DEIwokedeepstatesocilistcommunisttaco is removed, the US NAvy will be invincible.
Since you insist on engaging the trolls and their sock puppets, I think it’s nice you let them know this, as they can’t possibly see it. I can picture each and every one of him nodding along until they find the nasty (for them) surprise at the bottom.
@Charley in Cleveland: Yes. Definitely loud and proud in its bigotry and homophobia, I’ll agree. And coming from a person who is passionately ambivalent about ships being named for Harvey Milk (while living 5 blocks from Harvey Milk Street). I’m also ambivalent about naming a ship for the Notorious RBG (though I would be okayer with that specific rendition). Less so with a USNS Tubman. A lot of it strikes me as performative…
But certainly less performative than changing the names in a call for “warrior” ethic. [sigh, soooooooooooo fatiguing…as bad as JKB constant droning about higher ed…]
Channeling Speaker Johnson perspective on Trump’s open corruption for this – “The difference is that the Trump administration does their bigotry out in the open. They’re not trying to hide anything. They’re putting it out there, so everybody can evaluate for themselves.”
@ptfe: Just to amplify your point a little: When it comes to “warrior culture” – human beings don’t come any tougher than Harriet Tubman. This goes to show what an ignorant mess Pete Hegseth is.
Harriet Tubman did more war-making than 10 average soldiers of the era, and that is not an insult to those soldiers.
This Administration is an ongoing disgrace, and it can and will get worse.
But, I digress.
Many of you might know, in 2024 San Francisco International Airport (SFO) renamed a vastly remodeled Terminal 1 in honor of Harvey Milk. It’s beautiful and includes many photographs documenting his life and times.
In a related matter, it is noteworthy that Milk actually served in our military, in the Navy. From 1951-1955 he served during the Korean War. He was a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship. As was the case in those times he was forced to resign with an “other than honorable” discharge because of his sexual orientation.
Ignore the bigotry. It was always a question of skill. Not being furious at an hour’s worth of HR-speak about identity is a skill issue. The main anti-DEI arguments centered on how divisive and bad it was for actual institutions. And it was–if you suck and you’re deskilled, it was divisive…and yet the dilemma is if you don’t want drug-addicts, day drinkers, white supremacists, and sex offenders to run your institutions into the ground over the course of four months, you need to be woke. Go figure.
@Charley in Cleveland:
@Scott F.:
Well, then. If we were to plot out in the open to, I don’t know, smash a pie in the face of a certain Taco with tiny hands, then it wouldn’t be conspiracy to do anything, right? It’s out in the open.
I certainly agree with you on Marshall and Tubman; and other points you make. But I think you need to rethink Milk. He was a pedophile. I don’t think the Navy or any other entity should whitewash or simply overlook something like that, and honor them, no matter the other considerations.
@just nutha: All such naming is performative. It matters, IMHO, what the performance is about.
Thank you. The transition to this mentality is a shameful denigration of our military’s hard fought legacies.
My family has served through some of the worst conflicts of the last century. Not one would have ever leaned on their experiences to project some overblown cartoonish stroking of their egos. Nor would they be inclined to refer to themselves as “warfighters” despite having fought through the gritty end of wars.
@Connor:
I haven’t heard that. Is he a pedophile as Matt Gaetz is said to be a pedophile?
@Connor:
For context, Milk was in a relationship that started when the other person was 16 years old. They stayed in the relationship for 6 years–until Milk’s partner was 22.
Details from the Wikipedia page:
Important context, the entire relationship took place in NYC where the age of consent when they met (in 1964) was 14*. So the relationship was as legal as a homosexual relationship in 1960’s New York could be.
Do I personally support 34 year olds dating 16? No. And I understand, if not agree with, the colloquial use of the term in this case (despite the fact that McKinley was above the legal age of consent).
I think the real issues here is Milk’s sexuality and not McKinley’s age (or the age gap between the two). After all the person making this characterization supports a party where a sitting Congressman essentially started grooming his wife-to-be when she was 17 and he was was… checks notes.. 41.
* – New York only raised it’s age of consent to 17 in 2017!
@al Ameda: Well played. And Gaetz has a much longer record of serial predation. Also, for the record, there’s the entire issue of the current President’s alleged relationship with a well known pedophile.
@Connor:
Definitive citation to this? No because it doesn’t exist. Yours is a comment born of deep-seated bigotry that leads to mean spirited actions like we now witness with the renaming of all these naval vessels — a pathetic spasm of defacement of that which you do not understand. And bullying.
Harvey Milk’s life circumstances made clear to this society, that gay rights are civil rights. All Americans are compelled to support civil rights for all, if we are all to benefit from those guarantees.
Harvey Milk was a navy veteran, and as a noted civil rights advocate, honoring his service on both accounts is appropriate.
As for your “slur” —
Hegseth’s mcfail’s Navy may be able “to temporarily hide” LGBT legitimacy from the public, “but reality has a way of making itself known.”
Time to grow up, Connor.
@Matt Bernius:
Thanks for the background and facts re: Harvey Milk.
FWIW I also saw the marketed as “not woke” AI grok:
Like I said, not ethical for our times (or probably their times).
Should we jump ahead to the “But you lefties cancelled civil war generals and George Washington” part of this line of thinking?
@Connor:
I appreciate the agreement. Please realize that you are agreeing with me about deep and structural racism within the Trump administration.
@Matt Bernius dealth with this pretty well. Like him, I am not a fan of 34-year-olds dating 16-year-olds. I was recently chatting about a family friend who was in his late 30s when he started dating an 18-year-old whom he married, and they have been married for decades. The older I get, and the farther away from the 70s we get, the more uncomfortable such notions make me.
I would suggest you might want to think about why “pedophile” is a slur frequently slung at homosexual males historically and why they are often slung at trans people now.
@Matt Bernius: Grok got so close to “he’s an ephebophile, not a pedophile.”
Between that, and Grok really liking to spread the White Genocide nonsense, I think we know it’s political biases.
@Matt Bernius: I think this definitely counts as grooming:
The boy’s frontal lobe was only half developed. Children should be protected from hateful, immoral, blasphemous things like conservative Republicans.
Is it wrong to hope that they name the ships after Strom Thurmond and Jefferson Davis?
I just want clarity.
@Steven L. Taylor: And I don’t think I was disagreeing with you other than to pass on the performativeness. Frankly, I’m fatigued with the bullshit of the whole process. Want better gubmint? Get better voters. Want shitshows? Stay the course you’re on. That “it’s all performative” merely shows shared lack of substance. The next Dem can change them all back. Problem solved until the next Republican.
Thank you, Steven.
In my Navy groups, I’d say 75% against renaming any Navy ship, tradition and jinx. Some are asking to rename USS John C Stennis (carrier) – segregationist. The folks bringing up the Milk pedo angle (discussed above) never address the others like Tubman. This ” punch back twice as hard” is going to bite the Administration in the ass. There is also the interesting legal issue that the Secretary of the Navy is the sole controller of ship names (this goes into the Unitary Executive legal Theory that is going to be in the Courts), not under order of the SecDef. As for this being political I’ll quote Rickover regarding naming the Ohio-Class submarines after states, “Fish don’t vote,” so of course it is. Someone suggested renaming USNS Harvey Milk to USNS DUI-Hire Kegseth.