Arizona Rep. Eli Crane (R-CD2) drew national attention when he blurted out that his amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act "has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or Black people or anybody can serve, okay."
Rep. Joyce Beatty, who was handling the debate for the Democratic opposition, immediately called for the offensive term to be stricken from the record. Crane asked to amend it to "people of color", but Beatty refused and the words were removed from the record by unanimous consent.
The heated exchange came at the end of the 10-minute debate, and Crane was forceful - and occasionally, sarcastic - in arguing for his bill. He claimed that "what's divisive is that the military is becoming a political - a social - experiment, before saying he doesn't know how many Democrats served in the military.
Here is the actual text of the amendment, which the House approved later in the evening on a party-line vote. Given his remarks about "social experiment", the core purpose appears to be to prevent any training involving "diversity, equity, or inclusion".
More of Crane's comments: "The military was never intended to be inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards."
--"Diversity can be a great thing, but it cannot be our focus. And I'm going to tell you guys this right now: you can keep playing around these games with diversity, equity and inclusion, but there are some real threats out there. And if we keep messing around and we keep lowering our standards, it's not going to be good."
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