\u201cWhen I see what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks\u2026 that could be me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the summer of 2020. Black Lives Matter riots were terrorizing, destroying, and burning American cities. And the first black deputy commander of Air Force Global Strike Command told everyone in the Air Force that he was terrified that white people could kill him at any moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere I am as a lieutenant general in the United States Air Force,” then Lt. Gen Anthony Cotton whined to<\/u><\/a> Air Force Magazine<\/em>. \u201cWhen I see what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks\u2014and the list goes on and on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That could be me,” he claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Cotton was, unlike Breonna Taylor, probably not harboring an armed drug dealer who opened fire on police or, unlike George Floyd, overdosing on fentanyl during a struggle with police as the climax to a long criminal career, that was a disingenuous smear from a top officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spectacle of successful black men like Obama, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, or Gen. Anthony Cotton falsely claiming that America is so racist that any of them could suffer the fate of career criminals simply because of an accident of skin color is pathetic and disgusting. The Merck CEO or the Air Force general are as likely to suffer the fate of George Floyd as their white counterparts are to end up like a dead white meth addict shot in a raid in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Cotton knew what he was doing. What he was doing was dishonorable and self-serving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years after complaining about police lights flashing in his rearview mirror and someone challenging his parking spot, Cotton has been nominated by Biden to head U.S. Strategic Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been a rapid ascent for Gen. Anthony Cotton who had been appointed to head Air Force Global Strike Command last year, after being Deputy Commander of the same in 2019, up from the head of Air University in 2018. Air University, like a lot of Air Force and Navy educational institutions, had gone painfully woke. And Cotton earned his political stripes in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gen. Anthony Cotton is now likely to become a four-star general. The last few years of his career have some \u201cfirsts\u201d attached to them, but that doesn\u2019t seem to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charles Q. Brown, Jr. is the Air Force’s first black chief of staff, and has been tipped to replace Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Milley. That hadn\u2019t stopped Brown from crying racism and smearing the country he claims to serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a speech in which<\/u><\/a> Brown \u201cseemed to barely contain his rage\u201d, he ranted \u201cthat the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution \u2018that I\u2019ve sworn my adult life to support and defend\u2019 have not always delivered \u2018liberty and equality\u2019 to all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I am a Black man who happens to be the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force,” Kaleth O. Wright, the second black man to serve as the highest ranking noncommissioned officer, tweeted. “I am George Floyd\u2026I am Philando Castile, I am Michael Brown.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cotton is following a familiar identity politics career model that\u2019s bad for America, but good for unprincipled men who are willing to smear their country and play the victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is America any less racist with the first black Air Force Chief of Staff, Chief Master Sergeant, head of Air Force Global Strike Command and now likely head of Strategic Command?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow it\u2019s only more racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, Cotton claimed that “diversity, inclusion are tools for national defense” and that diversity is a “warfighting imperative”. Perhaps actually winning wars would be imperative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Has the Air Force become any more lethal on the battlefield ever?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis team is exactly what we are looking for,\u201d Cotton said of the Diversity and Inclusion Council at Malmstrom Air Force Base. \u201cIt is a diverse and unified team that is having crucial conversations about diversity and inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Montana Air Force base near Great Falls now has a Pride Month and will be spreading “unconscious bias training” which claims that all white people are racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n