Week of June 25, 2026

From the editor’s desk

As Independence Day approaches, I have mixed feelings.

On one hand, President Trump and his associates’ tireless jingoist frenzy never leaves the front of my mind. It’s hard to be a proud member of a nation whose top leaders have been brutalizing immigrants, villainizing and suppressing the press, rolling back civil rights protections left and right, destabilizing Iran and tormenting its people without much to show for it—and implementing a long, long list of other abuses of power and acts of callousness.

On the other hand, ordinary Americans still have a lot to be proud of in 2026. Artemis II! An American pope! The collective 349 million of us have done many great things this year. But there’s a specific American accomplishment I want to discuss in a bit of detail instead.

Generations of Black military members have been fighting a difficult fight against discrimination—and at a moment when the Department of Defense continues to implement what appear to be blatantly racist policies, the current generation is showing inspiring amounts of fortitude and integrity.

On yesterday’s episode of the NPR news talk show 1A, host Jenn White led by saying that Black Americans in the U.S. military have long lived with a contradiction: “The country they’re fighting to protect is the same one that’s failed to serve and protect them.”

She gives a historical example: 

After more than 180,000 Black soldiers risked their lives fighting for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln wanted to ship the formerly enslaved to Liberia when the war had been won. He argued that white and Black people could not co-exist. Black Americans, by then, had been in the U.S. for over two centuries. 

Then she gives the current example: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked or delayed the promotions of more than a dozen Black and female senior officers, and dismissed high-ranking Black and female officers since the start of the second Trump term. Said White: “It’s all happening against the administration’s aggressive rollback of programs and policies connected to diversity, equity and inclusion.””

Clint Smith, a staff writer for The Atlantic, was one of White’s guests on this episode. He authored the recent article “The Betrayal of Black Patriots—The secretary of defense is sending the message that Black service members are not welcome.”

Smith interviewed more than two dozen current and former Black military members. White asked him, “What did they tell you?”

“I have heard there is this experience of sort of cognitive dissonance,” Smith replied. He explained that for many Black service members and their families, the military has been a great catalyst for upward mobility and financial stability. “There is a sense of intergenerational commitment that stems from that,” he said.

Then he added:

They are witnessing over the course of the last year and a half a concerted effort to diminish, to erase, to suggest that their service is unworthy, that their abilities are not commensurate to the positions that they hold or aspire to. And it’s been really difficult for them to be subjected both to policy and to rhetoric from the very top. … There is this feeling that “we’re not going to stand for this;” “I didn’t give my life to this country to be treated this way.” And so, many people are leaving early.

Many others, however, are staying. Smith explained:

There are folks who are like, “Well, I want to leave, and I hate that we are being treated this way, but at the same time, if all of us leave, then who’s going to be left after these folks are gone? There’s this sense that we will be here longer than this administration, and if all of us leave amid the chaos and brazen disrespect that they’ve experienced over the past 18 months or so, that they will be acquiescing to, in fact, what this administration wants them to do, which is not be a part of this institution.

Smith’s article (gift link included here so you can read for free) is a great read. He tells this complicated story from the perspectives of some who have departed the service or are about to, and others who are staying in order to keep the chain of well trained Black servicemembers and excellent Black leaders intact.

I don’t blame those who are leaving in the least. As for those who are staying: We’d all be wise to take a lesson from their determination and integrity.

One officer who spoke with Smith anonymously said, “I look at this as a bad fever. And one day that fever will break.”

In 2 1/2 years, this presidential administration will be gone, as will—hopefully—the racist policies that attempt to devalue and exclude Black service members. When the tide changes, those who have held on and are still there to lead and inspire will have done their proteges—and all of us—a great service.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor