Racism Despite Integration: Diversity for the Sake of Mission Readiness in the U.S. Military

Is racial justice a feasible normative aim of integration for institutions of war? Proponents have long looked to the U.S. military as an institution through which to pursue racial progress. However, its proponents have not given enough critical attention to the logics of practice that connect militarism and race. Drawing on practice-based ideology theory, I conceptualize racial militarism as an ideological formation which subsumes matters of racial difference to the principle of mission readiness. I then analyze military policies and training procedures to show how racial militarism tolerates diversity superficially, while the militarization process effectively erases social difference and enforces a practical culture of colorblindness. In the final section, I engage critiques of integration to argue that racial militarism blocks the potential for the kind of radical transformation that would be required for racially just integration in the military. Integration as racial justice is not feasible when violence and hierarchy define an institution’s practical logic.