by Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona. he referred to blacks as “people of color” Thursday in the debate over his proposed amendment to an annual defense policy bill, drawing a sharp rebuke from the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“My amendment has nothing to do with whether people of color or black people or anybody can serve,” said Crane, who is in his first term. “It has nothing to do with any of that.”
Lawmakers were debating a series of GOP-backed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House aims to pass by the end of the week.
Crane said his amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from considering race, gender, religion, political affiliations or “any other ideological concept” as the sole basis for recruitment training, education, promotion or retention decisions.
“The military was never meant to be, you know, inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards,” said Crane, 43, a combat veteran.
“I’m going to tell you this right now: You can keep playing these games with diversity, equity and inclusion. But there are some real threats. And if we keep playing and lowering our standards, it’s not going to be good,” he said.
Immediately after Crane finished his comments, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked that the derogatory phrase he used be removed from the record.
“I find it offensive and highly inappropriate,” said Beatty, who was chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in the previous Congress. “I ask for unanimous consent to remove the words referring to me or any of my colleagues as people of color.”
Crane chimed in with a request to amend his comments to “people of color.” However, Beatty insisted that the words be deleted from the minutes. They were removed by unanimous consent.
When asked for a comment on his choice of words, Crane said that he “misspoke”.
“In a heated debate over my amendment that would ban discrimination based on skin color in the Military, I misrepresented myself,” Crane said in a statement. “Each of us is made in the image of God and created equal.”
Beatty, 73, had criticized Crane’s amendment as trying to “undermine liberties so that we learn from each other, so that we hire each other, so that we understand each other’s cultures.”
The House adopted Crane’s amendment Thursday night in a vote of 214-210.
In the Senate this week, Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, refused to acknowledge that white nationalism is fundamentally racist.
Asked to clarify comments he made in May that appeared to advocate conscription for white nationalists, Tuberville insisted in an interview Monday night on CNN that not all white nationalists are racists. Instead, he suggested they are simply people “who have some, probably different, beliefs.”
rebecca kaplan contributed.
