Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow mocked the Trump administration for flagging an image of the Enola Gay – the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima – for deletion because it promotes “diversity” because the word “gay” is in the name of the plane.
The AP recently reported on 26,000 historical images and online posts kept by the Department of Defense that were flagged for deletion due to their supposed promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which included the picture of the Enola Gay, which is named after the mother of the plane’s pilot. Several photos from an Army Corps of Engineers project in California that included an engineer whose last name was “Gay” were also marked for purging, as well as biologists’ records about fish because they include information about their genders.
“They searched the whole Defense Department website for the word ‘gay’ and then ordered all the gay to be deleted,” Maddow exclaimed, calling the whole situation “confusing.”
“This is like the straightest thing I’ve ever seen,” she joked. “It’s a giant metal machine from the 1940s! But maybe because he named it after his mom, does that mean he’s sensitive? Does that make it kind of gay?”
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Maddow then brought up how a right-wing website once tried to change the word “gay” to “homosexual” in all their news stories and ended up referring to the sprinter Tyson Gay as “Tyson Homosexual.”
“We should send somebody to Chantilly [Virginia] to check on the old Enola Homosexual, see if she’s doing ok,” Maddow quipped. “Your tax dollars at work, everybody!”
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