This is an opinion column.
When the U.S. Air Force pulled the Tuskegee Airmen from its training curriculum, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt demanded it be put back.
Good for her. Really. Thank you, senator.
Britt could have left it there. But she just had to assign blame and she sure wasn’t going to put it on the president. Instead, she decried “malicious compliance.”
“I have no doubt Secretary Hegseth will correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days,” the senator said on the platform formally known as Twitter, as though this was some vestigial Deep State agent trying to sabotage the newly re-sworn-in president.
If Hegseth ever got to the bottom of the so-called “malicious compliance,” it seems to have escaped notice.
Three months later, the administration has made its intentions clear — in its words and its actions.
The National Parks Service restored Harriet Tubman to a website about the Underground Railroad after the Washington Post reported that her photo and story there had been struck, among other changes deemphasizing the struggle for racial equality.
Arlington National Cemetery deleted educational materials on its website featuring Black and female service members buried there.
The Defense Department restored a page telling the story of Jackie Robinson’s military service after it was called out for deleting it. The page had been caught in a broader purge of “DEI” material, including a photo of the Hiroshima bomber Enola Gay that was flagged for having the word “gay” in its description.
Far from getting to the bottom of “malicious compliance,” upon taking the reins at the Defense Department, Hegseth fired Black and female officers from this military’s top ranks, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the U.S. Navy.
And if the administration’s objectives were not clear, two weeks ago, Trump signed an executive order assigning Vice President JD Vance to purge Smithsonian Institutions, including the National Zoo, of “improper ideology.”
“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” the order said. “This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
In the rearview mirror, the attempted purge of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Air Force training materials looks a lot less like “malicious compliance” and more like a sign of what was to come.
And Sen. Britt should take notice.
President Trump’s order specifically targets the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, and there is a lot of Alabama in that museum, more than in many Alabama museums I’ve been to, and nobody there calls the Civil War the “War for Southern Independence.”
The museum’s historical tour begins in the basement, winding through dark, narrow spaces that set the mood for the Middle Passage before ascending and broadening gradually toward emancipation and enfranchisement. Midway along this path, if you look up, you will see a bright blue and yellow biplane suspended from the ceiling.
That’s the training aircraft used by the Tuskegee Airmen.
The next 25 years of historical record there might as well be called “Alabama,” featuring, among other civil rights icons, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Fred Shuttlesworth and the four little girls murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
Elsewhere in the museum’s cultural halls, you’ll find Alabama sports heroes like Jesse Owens, Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, music by W.C. Handy and art by the Gee’s Bend quilters.
Trump’s order says, “Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
Only that’s not what this museum is. The story this museum tells is one of people — American people — advancing liberty, individual rights and human happiness.
African-American history is Alabama history, and Alabama history is American history. When I sometimes mention the Alabamafication of America, this is part of that, too.
Right now, all of it is at risk of being disappeared or muddled with insipid, false history of a national redemption that hasn’t yet happened.
So be on the lookout, senator, for more “malicious compliance.” Because in the Trump Administration, the orders are given and the direction is clear.
And the only malicious compliance is that which is meant to please the boss.
Kyle Whitmire is the Washington watchdog columnist for AL.com and winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. You can follow him on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X , Threads and Bluesky.
