Pete Hegseth’s West Point commencement address was a diatribe of hateful garbage

In the realm of things that just don’t seem real, I graduated from college 40 years ago this May. Even typing that out stung. I don’t remember much about that day because I believe I was drunk. And I definitely don’t remember who our commencement speaker was.Maybe that’s why, every year around this time, I like to read commencement addresses delivered across the country. No matter how old I get, they take me back to all the wonderment of a limitless and hopeful future.Then I came across Pete Hegseth’s speech at West Point over Memorial Day weekend. And I shouldn’t have been surprised that Hegseth offered nothing in the way of wonderment or hope.It was abjectly offensive to any Black cadet, Latina officer, gay man or woman in the audience. Not to mention trans people. If you were among the ethnicities and backgrounds Hegseth marginalized, then even if you outscored half your class on every physical fitness test, leadership evaluation, and tactical exercise, you still don’t belong.Related: The Trump administration is paying trans troops not to workIf you are Asian American, or the child of immigrants who believed in this country so deeply they sent you here, apparently you wasted your time, because there is no room for you in Hegseth’s narrow-minded and exclusionary military.Oh, and if you are “fat,” you also are a blight to the military in Hegseth’s evil eye.His speech was not only an affront to the cadets forced to sit there and listen to his garbage, but it was also an offense to what makes the United States so great: its melting pot and diversity.“Diversity is not our strength,” Hegseth sinisterly declared. “Unity is our strength.”What pithy Pete doesn’t realize is that unity comes from a collective of backgrounds forging ahead for the common good. The moment you start treating diversity as a curse, you invite disunity.And you don’t have to be from a marginalized community to understand the implications of what Hegseth said. Yes,