Military Training Manual: The 'Healthy, White, Heterosexual, Christian Male Receives Many Unearned Advantages

A manual used for diversity training for the military describes white males as having an "unfair advantage" compared to other races, and encourages troops to “support the leadership of people of color."

The 637-page manual -- the Equal Opportunity Advisor Student Guide published by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute -- was obtained by Fox News and contains information cautioning against the "white male club."

Patrick Air Force Base (Image source: Rusty Clark/Flickr)

DEOMI offers seven military Equal Opportunity courses as well as civilian trainings. Fox News commentator Todd Starnes reported an Equal Opportunity officer, who was not identified, provided him a copy of the manual used at Florida's Patrick Air Force Base after the officer became concerned about its content:

“I’m participating in teaching things that are not true,” the instructor told me. He asked not to be identified because he feared reprisals.

“I should not be in a position to do that,” he said. “It violates Constitutional principles, but it also violates my conscience. And I’m not going to do it – not going to do it.”

"Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege," a statement in the manual read.

A section in the manual called "Power and Privilege" describes whites as an "empowered group."

The military document advised personnel to “assume racism is everywhere, every day” and “notice code words for race.” They are instructed to “understand and learn from the history of whiteness and racism.”

The document said that minorities often need a "strong white ally" to increase their "social, political and economic power." The strategies of a strong white ally include: assuming racism is everywhere, noticing how racism is denied, understanding the history of "whiteness and racism," and taking a stand against injustice.

It goes on.

Starnes reached out to retried Lt. Col. Allen West, a former congressman, who said he thinks the document merits a congressional investigation.

Starnes wrote that his calls to the Pentagon and DEOMI regarding the manual were not returned.

"I truly wish the Pentagon and the DEOMI would return my telephone calls," he wrote. "I’d like to know how teaching soldiers, airmen and sailors about white privilege and fomenting racial division helps them protect our nation from the enemy."

It's not the first time this year that training manuals from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute have come under fire. Judicial Watch, a conservative educational foundation, published documents used to train Air Force members that branded conservative organizations as "hate groups" and warning of "extremists" who "talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”

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