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WASHINGTON, June 16, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana grilled U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday Tuesday over recommending that members of the U.S. Navy read a book by far-left race activist Ibram X. Kendi.

Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, cited the Navy’s recent declarations about the need to purge “extremist ideologies that go against our oath to the Constitution” from America’s armed forces and argued that Kendi, the author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, “has espoused extremist beliefs that clearly violate the oath to the Constitution that I took when I served in the Navy. Ibram Kendi, by the way, labeled Amy Coney Barrett a ‘white colonizer’ and criticized her for ‘cutting the biological parents of these children out’ because she adopted two children from Haiti.”

He also cited writings in which Kendi argued “that capitalism is essentially racist” and “white people are a different breed of humans and are responsible for the AIDS virus.” Banks repeatedly asked Gilday if he considers these opinions to be among the “extremist beliefs” the military “will not tolerate.”

Throughout the cross-examination, however, the admiral demurred, saying simply that “I do not support everything Kendi said in his book,” and that “I’d have to understand the context in which the statements were made,” and attempting to change the subject to his professed belief that “there’s racism in the United States Navy.”

“Do you expect that after sailors read this book that says that the United States is racist, that we will increase or decrease morale, cohesion, and recruiting rates into the United States Navy?” Banks asked in conclusion.

“I think we’ll be a better Navy from having open, honest conversations about racism,” Gilday responded.

The steady rise of political correctness within the military, which has persisted since the Clinton years despite the presidencies of Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump, has — if anything — been intensified by President Joe Biden, who quickly moved to open the military to recruits suffering from gender dysphoria.

Upon taking office, Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a force-wide stand down “requiring all units to discuss the threat of extremism within 60 days,” as the first step in “a concerted effort to better educate ourselves and our people about the scope of this problem and to develop sustainable ways to eliminate the corrosive effects that extremist ideology and conduct have on the workforce.”

As part of this review, the Pentagon has produced training materials identifying pro-life Americans and government critics as potential “extremists” and is soliciting input from far-left groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, who was recently removed from command of the 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base over his criticism of social-justice ideology’s effect on the military, says that videos presenting Americans and white people as “evil” were “sent out to every base [and] service member,” who “were asked to watch [them] in preparation for” the extremism stand down.

This trend appears to be taking its toll on military readiness. In March, Yahoo News revealed a simulation the U.S. Air Force ran last fall to assess America’s ability to handle a Chinese biological attack, which culminated in disaster — and, according to one official, was not an outlier.

“More than a decade ago, our war games indicated that the Chinese were doing a good job of investing in military capabilities that would make our preferred model of expeditionary warfare, where we push forces forward and operate out of relatively safe bases and sanctuaries, increasingly difficult,” Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, told Yahoo at the time. “The definitive answer if the U.S. military doesn’t change course is that we’re going to lose fast. In that case, an American president would likely be presented with almost a fait accompli.”