A Note From the Editor: Jackie Robinson Illustrates the Trump Administration’s Belief in White Supremacy

For the last couple of decades, a Jackie Robinson poster has been on the wall above my desk. In addition to a photo of the Brooklyn Dodgers/civil rights icon, the poster includes the definition of courage:

cour•age n. 1. The mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. 2. Valor.

In elementary school, I read a biography about Jackie Robinson—and to say it left an impression would be an understatement. He’s one of my heroes, and the story about him breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier, in part, led me to become a moderately fervent Los Angeles Dodgers fan.

Today, more than 54 years after his passing, Robinson is helping illustrate the pettiness and discriminatory nature of the Trump administration’s DEI purge.

As reported by CBS Sports: “The United States Department of Defense has restored an article on its website honoring Jackie Robinson after having removed it in an effort to purge ‘DEI’ (diversity, equity and inclusion) content. As explained on the now-restored page, Robinson served in the military during World War II. He later broke the color line in Major League Baseball, becoming the first Black player in MLB in 1947. The DOD page honoring Robinson was taken down recently, and its removal (along with removal of other articles) caused backlash online.”

To make matters even worse, the Department of Defense issued this appalling statement:

Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson, as well as the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Marines at Iwo Jima and so many others—we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop. We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like every other American who has worn the uniform.

DEI—Discriminatory Equity Ideology does the opposite. It divides the force, erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission.

We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed—either deliberately or by mistake—that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.

This is a load of white-supremacist bullshit. First: DEI actually stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. You’ll rarely hear Trump administration officials actually use those three words together, because the vast majority of people believe diversity, equity and inclusion are good things. Instead, the administration uses the term “DEI” and claims, as in the above statement, that it’s a bad thing.

Second: The contributions of Jackie Robinson, the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee Airmen and others can’t be fully appreciated and understood without the context of diversity, equity and inclusion. Jackie Robinson is so heroic because he had courage and was willing to do what needed to be done to stand up to systemic racism and break MLB’s discriminatory color barrier. That is part of United States’ history—like it or not.

The word “whitewash” comes to mind. Here’s one of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of the word: to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people.

That’s exactly what the Trump administration and its anti-DEI crusade are doing right now. This has nothing to do with discrimination; it has to do with the belief in white, Christian, male supremacy—period.

Note: This is the editor’s note that appeared in the April 2025 print edition. Much of this was originally published online in the March 20 Indy Digest.