U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should resign or be fired, but don’t hold your breath.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) politics have created a new kind of political "untouchable" — the Black Democratic liberal.
You don't have to look hard. You'll find them in high positions in academia, politics, and especially appointees of Democratic presidents.
Once a Black Democrat is appointed or elected to a high office, they are basically immune from criticism for fear that that it would bring accusations of racism by them and the progressive political and civil rights establishments.
Austin is a prime example of a Black political untouchable.
He joins two other recent notable examples — disgraced former Harvard University President Claudine Gay and Fulton County Geogia District Attorney Fani Willis.
Like Gay, Willis and Austin should resign.
As noted in this space, Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, resigned after being widely attacked for refusing to condemn the advocacy of Jewish genocide.
She had also been accused of multiple acts of plagiarism.
She and her supporters immediately pulled the race card from the bottom of the political deck to accuse her critics of racial animus.
Willis, Fulton County’s first Black female district attorney, prosecuted the racketeering case against former president Donald Trump.
After allegations of an alleged adulterous affair with her married prosecutor colleague, whom she hired, she wasted little time following in Gay’s race-baiting footsteps.
She went before a Black church audience to argue that criticisms of her were based on race.
To the best of this writer's recollection, there were no calls for Gay’s or Willis’ resignation by the progressive left.
Georgia Democrats have been equally silent over her alleged conduct and the possibility it could hinder or damage the case against Trump.
They are reminiscent of the fable about the little shepherd boy who repeatedly fooled villagers into thinking a wolf was attacking his town's flock ?
"Racism" is the progressive left’s new "Wolf" when a Black Democrat is accused of wrongdoing.
The same failure to criticize Gay and Willis is clearly evident in the case of Austin, the nation’s first Black secretary of defense.
Austin failed to inform President Biden and senior administration officials of his surgery and hospitalization to treat prostate cancer.
His case is especially noteworthy because it is related to national security and the lives of American military personnel.
There has been little or no criticism from the left or Democrats in Congress over Austin’s dereliction of duty.
His lack of judgment is especially disturbing during a period of growing tensions and hostilities in the Mideast including attacks injuring several U.S. miliary personnel by Iranian-backed rebels in Iraq; and, just recently, the declared death of two Navy SEALS who went missing on a mission to seize Iranian weapons in the Arabian Sea.
Austin has been asked to explain his failure to inform administration officials of his hospitalization before the House Armed Services Committee next month.
Don’t be surprised if the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Reverend Al Sharpton and others on the progressive socialist left defend Austin as they did Gay and claim any criticism of his conduct is racist.
What if Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice when secretaries of state had kept serious surgery a secret from president George W. Bush as Austin did from Biden.
They would have been viciously attacked by Congressional Democrats, much of the mainstream media, and their Black detractors — all demanding that they resign or be fired by President George W. Bush.
Not Austin.
As a Black appointee of a Democratic president, he is a "political untouchable" — there will be no such calls for him to resign or be fired.
Black and white progressives only defend and protect Black liberals — not those who have differing political viewpoints or were appointees of Republican Presidents.
Remember when entertainer Harry Belafonte referred to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as "house slaves"?
Powell had had been chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under George H.W. Bush, national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan and secretary of state under President George W. Bush.
Rice was former national security adviser and secretary of state under George W. Bush.
Both were the first Blacks to serve in either position and Rice was the first Black woman to serve in that post.
That history made no difference to Belafonte and others on the left who failed to condemn his slur — Powell and Rice were Black Republicans appointed by Republican presidents.
A major problem in today’s political discourse is that too many white progressives are afraid to criticize any Black Democrat for fear of being called racist; and, too many Blacks fail to do so for fear of being deemed disloyal.
Unfortunately, it's always open season by both on conservative Black officials such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and U.S. Senator Tim Scott, R-S.C.
Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations and training consulting firm in Florida. He is the author of "How Obama Failed Black America and How Trump Is Helping It." Read Clarence V. McKee's Reports — More Here.