Key Receipts (for the skimmers)
United Airlines promised 50% of its flight academy seats to women/people of color (United Press Release).
American Airlines rolled back DEI-linked hiring/recruiting practices after a federal complaint (Fox Business).
Southwest faced a DEI discrimination suit; ended program and settled under court oversight (Reuters).
OFCCP (Dept. of Labor) reminded airlines: “Contractors may not engage in quotas, preferences, or set-asides on the basis of race or sex.” (OFCCP Letter PDF).
Incentives bend behavior: when identity headcounts get tied to goals, PR, or penalties, the best candidate isn’t always chosen.
Charlie wasn’t racist.
Say what you want, but the avalanche of “racist” labels being hurled right now is lazy thinking dressed up as moral courage. It’s rage-bait. It’s algorithm theater. And it’s what happens when we stop listening and start labeling.
Yes, there’s a clip. Charlie said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” The internet lost it’s soulless mind.
Context matters. He wasn’t saying Black pilots are unqualified; he was saying that when a system has the potential to (or signals it might) prize optics over standards, public trust erodes. You can dislike the framing. But “racist” is an accusation that requires more than vibes (Snopes).
And yes, his death poured gasoline on all of it. It’s grief in public. It’s spiritual, it’s political, it’s raw, and younger folks are processing in the open (Reuters, ABC News).
The Point Beneath the Provocation
Safety-critical roles demand uncompromised trust. Pilots. Surgeons. Air-traffic controllers. Nuclear techs. You don’t fill those jobs to satisfy a spreadsheet. You hire the most qualified human you can find. That’s not controversial; that’s common sense.
Imagine going in for open-heart surgery. You’re praying, your family’s pacing, and the cardiothoracic surgeon scrubs in. What do you want to know? Not their demographics. Not how many boxes they check. You want board certifications, logged hours, complication rates, steady hands.
Yes, Some Airlines Crossed the Line (And Regulators Made Them Back Up)
Let’s be crystal:
United loudly set a goal in 2021: at least 50% of Aviate Academy students would be women or people of color (United). That’s pipeline design, not a cockpit quota—but the signal went out.
By late 2024, the Department of Labor’s OFCCP told major carriers, including United and American, what the law has always said for federal contractors: no quotas, preferences, or set-asides based on race or sex. (OFCCP Letter).
Here’s the exact line from the OFCCP letter:
“Contractors may not engage in quotas, preferences, or set-asides on the basis of race or sex.”
American Airlines publicly rolled back DEI-linked hiring/recruiting practices after a federal civil-rights complaint (HR Grapevine).
Southwest faced a DEI lawsuit over a scholarship/flight program for Hispanic students; the airline dropped it, the court closed it with a token judgment (Reuters).
So no, you’re not imagining it: some airlines marched up to, and then attempted to tip-toe over, the legal line, and regulators did have to step in and say “Stop.”
Incentives 101: How “Goals” Can Bend Outcomes
Here’s the part people trip over. For years, federal contractors operated under EO 11246 affirmative-action rules: “placement goals” and “utilization goals” to measure representation—not to mandate race- or sex-based hiring. On paper, they were benchmarks—not quotas.
In practice? Goals + PR pressure + activist scoring + corporate bonuses = perverse incentives. You don’t have to change the test to change behavior; you just have to change what executives think will be rewarded.
In 2025, new federal policy moved to unwind those frameworks and told companies to cease practices “labeled as DEI” if they amounted to unlawful discrimination (Fisher Phillips). OFCCP even invited contractors to report how they’ve wound down those programs (DLA Piper). Translation: the incentives themselves were risky enough that the government pulled the plug.
This is exactly the concern Charlie was naming. Not “optics” alone; incentives. If rewards and penalties are tied to headcounts, companies will chase headcounts. And the best person may not be chosen.
Standards Still Stand—Trust Is What Breaks
Now the reality check: FAA standards haven’t been lowered. The ATP hours, checkrides, and Airman Certification Standards are public and stiff. You still have to earn them (FAA ATP Overview). That matters.
But here’s the other side: trust is brittle. When CEOs trumpet identity targets, when contractors publish glossy “representation goals,” when regulators waffle publicly and then privately re-clarify the law, regular people start to wonder whether excellence is negotiable. That suspicion wounds everyone—including the excellent women and men who had to grind twice as hard to be seen as more than a box checked.
Partiality Cuts Both Ways
Scripture refuses favoritism. James rebukes partiality in the assembly (James 2:1–4). Paul says, “there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:11). And the Bible’s work ethic is stubbornly simple: “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Timothy 5:18; Luke 10:7).
So let me be blunt:
Skin color tells me nothing about skill.
Sex tells me nothing about steadiness under pressure.
Quotas—old or new, left or right—tempt institutions to prize appearance over excellence.
If your policy makes the public wonder whether the visible result was chosen for optics, you just wounded the very people you say you’re helping.
When a Pulpit Misses the Gospel
I need to say this clearly: I listened to Pastor Howard-John Wesley’s sermon calling Charlie “a sowing of seeds of division,” saying, “the way you died does not redeem the way you lived.” (Fox News, TheGrio) That line hurt me—in part because the thief on the cross lived a life of crime, yet in his final breaths he declared, “Jesus, remember me.” Scripture says that thief entered paradise that very day (Luke 23:39–43). If grace can reach a condemned criminal with one final breath, how dare we close the door on someone like Charlie—who in his last moments declared Christ Lord—and act as if he’s beyond redemption?
Pastor Wesley said Charlie had spent his life sowing division. But sowing division is different from opening the table. Charlie wasn’t tearing people down; he invited them to question. He sparked uncomfortable conversations—“honest controversy,” if you will. If his words sometimes stung, maybe that’s because truth can hurt at times, not because the messenger hated. Sometimes the words that hurt are not the words of someone who denies unity in Christ—they are the words of someone trying to wake us from spiritual slumber.
Doesn’t Scripture teach us to judge the tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:16–20)? In his lifetime, Charlie invited young people to read the Bible, to wrestle with the gospel, to bring Jesus back into their world. There’s fruit there: kids opening a Bible for the first time in years, new believers, returning hearts. Even Wesley wouldn’t deny that fruit. So yes, if some of Charlie’s final words were a declaration of the gospel, then by Scripture, he saw paradise that day—regardless of every other imperfection.
If a pastor can curse from the pulpit, ignores another man’s final testimony because of “seeds of division,” he is abusing his pulpit. That’s not pastoral. That’s pride masquerading as piety. It’s hypocrisy of the worst kind, using spiritual authority to wield condemnation, not to offer grace.
I’m not saying that Charlie was perfect. I’m saying he was human. And that the gospel is bigger than our critiques. If someone—even when flawed—closes his final words with Christ declared supreme in his final hours (Premier Christian News, Fox News), Scripture says paradise awaits. Let’s hold that, even while we argue over nuance. This pastor is the one sowing seeds of division.
Words That Dehumanize Put People in Danger
Let me say the quiet part loudly: this kind of rhetoric is dangerous. When leaders label a man “a weapon of the enemy,” “an unapologetic racist,” or toss “Hitler” comparisons like confetti, they license dehumanization.
Research is brutally consistent: deny someone’s full humanity long enough and you increase the public’s willingness to justify or commit harm against them (PNAS study, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
No, I’m not laying legal blame for a murder at any angry pastor’s feet. I am saying a culture of demonization greases the skids for unstable minds. Prosecutors say the suspect told people he shot Charlie because Kirk “spreads too much hate” (ABC News). Where do you think that kind of moral permission comes from? From leaders who preach that opponents aren’t just wrong—they’re monsters. That’s why so many people are switching sides this week. They’re tired of being told that disagreement equals dehumanization.
Pastors, pundits, politicians, watch your language. We’re not just playing with ideas, we’re flicking matches near gasoline.
What I’m Arguing / What I’m Not
I am arguing:
Incentives matter. Tie rewards/penalties to identity metrics and you will distort hiring.
Some airlines went far enough that regulators intervened and made them back up.
Excellence is the only just basis for safety-critical work.
Demonizing opponents dehumanizes image-bearers and endangers them.
I am not arguing:
That FAA standards were officially lowered (they weren’t).
That every diversity effort is unlawful or unwise. Widen the pipeline without bending the bar.
That Charlie was flawless. I’m arguing he was human—and, by his testimony, redeemed.
Fear of the Lord > Fear of the Mob
Yes, talking like this risks the Cancel Flu. But my fear of the Lord is heavier than my fear of hashtags. Proverbs says the fear of man lays a snare (Proverbs 29:25). The snare today is silence: “Don’t even name the subject or we’ll shame you into the cornfield.” No thanks.
Courage isn’t cruelty. Truth isn’t venom. You can speak clearly and still love deeply. Sometimes the truth has teeth—not because the speaker is biting, but because you can’t chew a lie and truth at the same time. One of them’s going to cut.
Please Don’t Hear What I’m Not Saying
I don’t pretend to know the Black experience. I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman in a field that’s stacked against you. I do know what it’s like to train, to study, to be evaluated, and to ask to be judged on the work. And I know we can widen access without bending standards, just like we can recruit from overlooked communities without treating excellence like it’s negotiable.
So let’s hold two truths without short-circuiting:
Remove barriers that shouldn’t be there. Mentor. Fund. Scout talent where we haven’t looked. Tell the kid from North Tulsa that the cockpit is for her too.
Refuse rhetoric or policy that makes excellence sound optional. Keep the bars clear, public, and immovable. Publish the criteria. Prove the hours. Celebrate the top performers—whoever they are.
Do that, and the conversation changes. Suspicion shrinks. Pride of craft returns. Everyone breathes again.
What I Saw This Week
Grief ran with grace. Again, I watched a wave of people wander back into church—some for the first time, some for the first time in years. They’re hungry. They’re asking questions. They’re opening Bibles that hadn’t been touched in a while. That doesn’t make every one of Charlie’s sentences perfect, but it does say something about the seeds he was sowing, and right now the seeds look like repentance and salvation.
Here’s where I land:
Open dialogue without booby traps.
Policies that widen the road to excellence, not detour around it.
Bless the worker who did the work—full stop.
Speak hard things kindly. Let better facts correct us.
Don’t cancel me—call me. Show me what I missed. But don’t ask me to pretend that trust isn’t oxygen in safety-critical work. Don’t ask me to label a man “racist” because he said out loud what a lot of people quietly fear: For all our sakes, keep the standards clear and high.