Arlington Cemetery strips content on black and female veterans from website
bbc.com
bbc.com
“The DoD has removed the article on Charles Roger's Medal of Honor. He served in Vietnam, and despite being wounded three times in battle, rallied his troops and led them to victory in defense of Support Base Rita. Nixon presented his Medal.
The url is changed to "deimedal"”
For instance, Colin Powell is still featured as a 'notable grave', but there is not a page that indexes him by his race.
There is no reason to specifically point out the gender or race unless it's explicitly about something related to that gender/race, and the only situations of that kind that I can think of right now are at the very least adjacent to racism/sexism.
Is it to honor these individuals? If so: no.
The very existence of such a criteria implies that they're not worthy to go on the regular list, which is effectively racist and essentially diminishes the honor.
If your goal is political messaging and holding on to racism to further your own agenda, then yes: You'll want them.
people are inspired by people like themselves. when it's rare to see someone like yourself succeed in a field and when there aren't many folks like yourself in a field, it can be inspiring to see others who have succeeded and who may have come from similar circumstances.
> Gone from public view are links to lists of dozens of “Notable Graves” at Arlington of women and Black and Hispanic service members who are buried in the cemetery. About a dozen other “Notable Graves” lists remain highlighted on the website, including lists of politicians, athletes and even foreign nationals.
1) malicious compliance 2) overzealous compliance 3) temporary, while they rewrite materials from "Secretary Powell, a Black man" style that emphasizes immutable characteristics 4) intentional provocation 5) stupidity.
Given the proportion of BIPOC in the US military, I would be shocked if racism/sexism was the goal.
But I've been shocked before.
What?
Did it ever occur to you that the fact some of these veterans are minorities is historically relevant given a climate of abject racism and sexism that persisted well into the 20th century, if not throughout the majority of it? Precisely because of their "immutable characteristics," to use your parlance.
Here’s an excerpt from Charles C. Rogers’ Wikipedia page:
”He attended the town's race-segregated elementary school for "colored children," and then attended the all-black DuBois High School in Mount Hope, West Virginia.[7][8]”
That’s rough. Let's read some more:
"In 1951, Charles Rogers joined the US Army as a second lieutenant through the Army ROTC program at West Virginia State College.[7] The Army was still segregated when he joined and his first assignment was an all-black unit stationed in Bavaria; the executive order commanding racial desegregation of the U.S. military went into effect six months later.[9] By 1954, after Rogers had been denied a path to becoming a chemical engineer with the Army, he submitted his resignation, in part because of a "'clear pattern' of discrimination..."
Huh, seems relevant. This is the same man that went on to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor some years later.
But hey, let’s language police a deceased war hero's official bio because it mentions he’s Black, and otherwise defend the folks issuing idiotic orders that amount to historical erasure.
Supporting this shit via way of whining about malicious compliance is a disgrace. You’re on the wrong side of history.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/defense-depa...
Perhaps the bots have hate in their hearts.
I wasn't taken with the snark and shade thrown in the second part of that comment, and I dare say that others here on HN would have downvoted for that alone regardless of which side of any specific debate you chose to argue.
It's not just 'Racists' or those with an opposing view that will downvote you here on HN, you will also get judged on the strength and presentation of your comment as if it were part of a debate club exchange.
>... and I dare say that others here on HN would have downvoted for that alone regardless of which side of any specific debate you chose to argue.
That's fair. In fact, I used to be that person. I will say in recent years it's become far more common to see latent mass downvotes, but it's probably just some dynamic I'm not properly accounting for, perhaps latent attention on a submission tends to be the very type of user you just described.
On the other hand, bot overlords attempting to shape the narrative probably realized a long time ago that the very early and very late phases are the best time to do said shaping. I'm just confused since this time I didn't even say nothin' unflattering about the PLA.
>It's not just 'Racists' or those with an opposing view that will downvote you here on HN, you will also get judged on the strength and presentation of your comment as if it were part of a debate club exchange.
I know you're just the messenger with regard to this point, but what irks me is that while this style is time-tested for tech topics and sadly works, for real-world topics—at times—it comes off as a grotesque form of whataboutism that can feel utterly insensitive if not detached from reality.
A great example is the recent news with USAID. No submission about this on HN made it to triple digit upvotes. The stakes in terms of human suffering are a few million dead people, per year. The dude who shuttered the agency was a product of the tech community, and our little debate club format here can't even handle discussing that news. It's shameful.