Defense Department Manual: White Males Have Unfair Advantages

A Defense Department training manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers says that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and declares a so-called “White Male Club” resists even equal rights advances, Fox News reported Thursday.

"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," the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute declares.

The Equal Opportunity Advisor Student Guide is the textbook used during a three month DEOMI course taken by thousands of U.S. service members and taught at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, Fox News reported.

Those who attend training go on to lead Equal Opportunity briefings on military installations around the nation.

The 637-page manual covers issues from racism and religious diversity to cultural awareness, extremism, and white privilege, Fox News reported, saying it obtained a copy from an officer "who was disturbed by the course content."

"I’m participating in teaching things that are not true," the instructor told Fox News. "I should not be in a position to do that. It violates Constitutional principles, but it also violates my conscience."

DEOMI instructors conduct briefings at bases around the country that allegedly falsely labeled evangelical Christians, Catholics, and a number of high-profile Christian ministries as domestic hate groups, Fox News reported.

The Pentagon and the DEOMI did not respond to requests for comment.

DEOMI began in 1971 and is responsible for Equal Opportunity/Equal Employment Opportunity education and training for military active duty and reservists, according to its website.

The subject of white privilege emerged in a 20-page section in the manual titled, "Power and Privilege."

"Whites are the empowered group," the manual declares. "White males represent the haves as compared to the have-nots."

The military document also advises personnel to "assume racism is everywhere, every day" and "notice code words for race," Fox News reported. Personnel are also instructed to "understand and learn from the history of whiteness and racism."

On page 181, the manual points out status and wealth are typically passed from generation to generation and "represent classic examples of the unearned advantages of social privilege."

"As such, the unfair economic advantages and disadvantages created long ago by institutions for whites, males, Christians, etc. still affect socioeconomic privilege today," the manual states.

The guide also points out that whites are over-represented and blacks are underrepresented in positive news stories, that middle class blacks live in poorer neighborhoods than middle class whites and that even though there are more white criminals than any other race, the news coverage of black criminals is about equal to the news coverage of white criminals.

On the existence of a "White Male Club," the manual declares: "In spite of slave insurrections, civil war, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the women’s suffrage movement leading to the 19th amendment, the civil rights movement, urban rebellions and the contemporary feminist movement, the club persists," Fox News reported, adding "full access to the resources of the club still escape the vision of equitable distribution."

Retired Lt. Col. Allen West told Fox News he wants a congressional investigation.

"This is the Obama administration’s outreach of social justice into the United States military," he told Fox News. "Equal Opportunity in the Army that I grew up in did not have anything to do with white privilege."

West said he is very concerned about the training guide.

"When the president talked about fundamentally transforming the United States of America, I believe he also had a dedicated agenda of going after the United States military," he said. "The priorities of this administration are totally whacked."

The manual stirred controversy in August as well when it was reported it referred to the Founding Fathers as extremists and purportedly implies that many political conservatives are also extreme.

"In today's military, you can't say jihad but you can pretend that the Founding Fathers were extremists and, in the same breath, tie them to the KKK and al-Qaida," the president of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton told "The Steve Malzberg Show" Aug. 27.