It’s the kind of story that calls up musical numbers like “Anything you can do, I can do better!” Or maybe the apocryphal quote from Ginger Rogers is more apt, the one about doing everything Fred Astaire did, but “backwards in heels.”
What kind of footwear was Commander Yvonne Gray wearing when she scuttled a $100 million New Zealand battleship? What, if anything, was she doing backward?
The British lesbian (we’re assured this characteristic is super-very-important in military exercises) was on her first ship command at the helm of the HMNZS Manawanui when the vessel went down on Saturday October 5. The ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of Samoa and caught fire. The crew saw smoke that morning at about 6:30, and by 9 a.m. local time the Manawanui had slipped beneath the surface of the ocean. All of the 75 crew aboard were rescued.
The New Zealand Navy has started an investigation, of course, but it will take time to figure out all the factors that went into the ship’s loss.
Commander Gray is said to have been inexperienced, and many people are calling her a diversity hire. Now, there’s nothing about being a lesbian that automatically signals “unfit to command a ship.” But it is true that unqualified people have been placed in senior positions of government and corporations over the past several years because they ticked a diversity box: woman, gay, trans, not-white, etc. This is just plain true, and everyone knows it.
Indeed, much hoopla was made about Gray’s ascension to command—she’s a former teacher whose dream was to open a restaurant—as a “queer woman.” Here’s just one example of the exuberant, gushing, and dare we say, feminine, praise of women in the New Zealand military simply because they are women.
Even if the investigation determines that Commander Gray acted appropriately and was not responsible for the $100 million disaster, it’s not going to be possible to stop tongues wagging. People are so fed up with incompetent minorities being elevated to positions of power, while competent people are called “racist” and “bigoted” for pointing it out, that no one has any rational reason to trust investigations that find no fault. After all, these agencies and military branches are obviously hiring to fill diversity quotas; why would anyone believe a word they say?
It’s already starting on social media.
And some of it is funny as hell.
Let’s see what others have to say.
Sorry, but the old guy here is right.
It’s amazing how closely modern life resembles parodies from 50 years ago.
