This Is a Purge of history, of truth, of the people this country still refuses to claim.

Pete Hegseth is erasing names from Navy ships. Not for function. Not for clarity. He’s removing them to please a movement that wants whiteness re-centered and grievance repackaged as pride.

He doesn’t talk about these people. He doesn’t challenge their record. He makes them disappear.

The goal isn’t tradition. It’s obedience. This campaign isn’t about restoring dignity. It’s about denying it ever belonged to the people being scrubbed from the hull.

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These Are the Targets

Harvey Milk
Served his country. Elected in San Francisco. Killed in his office. His name once acknowledged service from those the military once criminalized. That’s no longer permitted.

Thurgood Marshall
Fought Jim Crow in court. Sat on the highest bench. Spoke about power in plain terms. His legacy forced the law to answer for its failures. That legacy has been flagged for deletion.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Filed lawsuits that exposed constitutional blind spots. Refused to let precedent excuse inequality. Built legal scaffolding where none existed. Her presence now offends the vision being enforced.

Harriet Tubman
Fled bondage. Then returned, again and again. Served without asking. Rescued without orders. Planned raids. Gathered intelligence. Took command. Her record couldn’t be denied, so it’s being hidden.

Cesar Chavez
Organized the invisible. Stood with people no one else would see. Understood silence as a tactic. Challenged the military to recognize labor. That confrontation is being erased.

Medgar Evers
Wore the uniform. Came home to demand voting rights. Gunned down. His story exposed the lie that service guaranteed safety. His name told that story. Now they want the lie to stand unchallenged.

Dolores Huerta
Did the work others took credit for. Showed that power moves when it’s pushed. Built momentum that couldn’t be bought. Her name once marked that shift. Now it’s marked for removal.

Lucy Stone
Kept her name. Refused to vanish into marriage. Graduated when most women couldn’t read law. Spoke when silence was enforced. The memory of that refusal is no longer welcome.

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The Hate Isn’t Hiding

This is not neutrality. It is not discipline. It is hate — applied in paperwork, delivered through authority, enforced by silence.

Each of these names represented defiance. They called out systems built to exclude. They stood in places they weren’t expected to survive. The military attached those names to ships as a gesture toward inclusion. That gesture has been deemed offensive.

This is not about ships. It’s about who counts. The names are gone because the people behind them do not conform to the story being told now.

This is racism, structured and deliberate. This is homophobia, dressed in insignia. This is a reactionary movement writing policy. Hegseth is the tool. The project is larger.

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The Erasure Must Be Named

There’s no need for metaphor. There’s no space for balance. This is a calculated purge. Not symbolic. Not accidental.

It is meant to remind you that truth is conditional. That recognition can be revoked. That memory is permissioned, not earned.

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Write the names down. Say them where they can’t be edited. Refuse the script.