Army LTC to Troops, “If You Are a White Male You’re Part of the Problem”

LTC Andrew Rhodes the commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, is under scrutiny for remarks against white males made to his troops. The controversy began with screenshots of direct messages between the owner of an Instagram account @terminacwo, which is run by three former Army warrant officers, and soldiers serving in the 1-8 under LTC Rhodes.

The regiment Rhodes commands is also known as “the Fighting Eagles” and has a distinguished combat record going back to 1838. It is assigned to the 3rd Regimental Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division stationed at Ft. Carson.

His remarks drew the attention of the Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grintson who replied to the Instagram post, “Looking more into this. Thanks.” The story was first posted on Human Events by Jack Posobiec.

LTC Rhodes has his defenders who both tried to explain away the harshness of his remarks while claiming they were entirely justified.

SOFREP has been critical of “Wokeness” and Critical Race Theory (CRT) and actions by the military branches to incorporate it into “Inclusion and Diversity” training programs service-wide. In September 2020, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, pointed out that millions of taxpayer dollars had been spent on this training so far.

Director Vought then directed that contractors (charging tens of thousands for such training) be identified and suspended on the basis that such training was a “propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either [1] that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or [2] that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.”

In our estimation, this is a fair summary of what Critical Race Theory teaches at its core. Almost immediately upon assuming office, President Biden ordered that this training and indoctrination be resumed. If the military is carrying out these training directives to placate the current administration it should not be surprising that this kind of divisive morale problem, illustrated by the comments of LTC Rhodes, is created.

What Rhodes did was, “Say the quiet part out loud,” according to the dogma of Critical Race Theory. Attempts to downplay his remarks or contextualize them after the fact reveal what may be the most intellectually dishonest part of CRT. Its defenders claim that CRT only teaches that white supremacy in all its forms is bad, not that white people themselves are. But this begs the question, “Who put that evil white supremacist system in place and supported it for more than 200 years?  Wouldn’t it be the evil white people who did that?”

There really is no need for defenders to put softer words in the mouth of LTC Rhodes. If he believes in the Critical Race Theory training he has received in the Army, he would be perfectly justified in saying that white men are the problem because that is exactly what it teaches.

On social media, the term “anti-racist” has become the self-identifying moniker and public virtue signal of those who have adopted the tenants of Critical Race Theory as their own. It is believed that LTC Rhodes had a Twitter account of his own.

As you can see, LTC Rhodes states he is a “fervent anti-racist,” and being fervent I suppose makes his belief in Critical Race Theory more intense than others’ who presumably go half in by just being middle of the road anti-racists.

In one of his tweets, LTC Rhodes stated that social media can drive change in the Army,

Well, this seems to be the case as LTC Rhodes deleted his Twitter account.

There is a possibility that LTC Rhodes may lose his command over these remarks. This seems unfair to me. The dogmas of Critical Race Theory include a Marxism-based idea that your gender, race, or sexual orientation makes you either the oppressed or the oppressor. Further, that your status can never change until all existing societal structures, deemed as irretrievably and inherently racist, are overthrown and replaced. Those societal structures would include free-market capitalism, organized religion, and the Constitution of the United States.

If the Army is going to teach this system of belief to the troops, it’s unfair to then punish them for adopting these teachings and saying so in public as LTC Rhodes appears to have done.