The story of the Tuskegee Airmen’s service in World War II is inspiring: When skilled African American pilots, grounded because of their race, finally won the opportunity to serve their country, they fought the Nazis heroically. But last week, given the Trump administration’s order to eliminate promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, the Air Force promptly removed videos about the Tuskegee aviators from its basic training curriculum.

Big mistake, apparently. On Sunday, his second full day on the job, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Air Force to resume teaching about the Tuskegee pilots, and also about the brave servicewomen who transported military aircraft to the bases where they were needed. “This has been immediately reversed,” Hegseth posted on X.

But why?

The proximate reason for Hegseth’s quick action was an earlier X post from Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama), in whose state the pioneering Black pilots trained. It is hard to argue with Britt’s assessment that “there is no greater historical example of a highly skilled, valiant fighting force than the Tuskegee Airmen.”

What I can’t get my head around, though, is her confidence that Hegseth will “get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days.”

The concept of “malicious compliance” is new to me. Given the fury of the MAGA holy war against DEI, I doubt this is the last oxymoron President Donald Trump’s supporters and apologists will come up with.

Before you go to war, it is a good idea to specify who or what the enemy is. Nothing is malicious about associating the Tuskegee Airmen with DEI because those are the concepts this proud episode in U.S. history represents. Diversity: The corps of U.S. pilots, previously all-White, for the first time included African Americans. Equity: Black airmen, like whites, were judged on their abilities, not their skin color. Inclusion: African Americans were allowed to participate more fully in the nation’s crusade to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny.

Now we know, apparently, that Trump and the MAGA base don’t mean the Tuskegee Airmen when they excoriate DEI. But exactly what do they mean?

A few days from now, on Saturday we will mark the beginning of Black History Month. Many schools, libraries, museums and other institutions will honor the observance with programming focused on African American history. Is that still allowed under the new anti-DEI regime? Are Black people being given special treatment? Do we need to have a White History Month, too, to balance the scales?

Perhaps the MAGA idea is to highlight only the happy, uplifting parts of African American history, as in the sanitized lesson plans Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to impose on high school students in his state. Maybe the idea is to reduce Black history in this country to slavery (regrettable), the Civil War (righteous, right?) and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (but only the one quote from the “I Have a Dream” speech about “the content of their character”).

MAGA warriors Britt and Hegseth have decreed that the Tuskegee Airmen should be squeezed in there somewhere. But you can’t really tell the story of those valiant men without talking about their lives. They came of age during the long era of Jim Crow racial discrimination. They trained in one of the most oppressive states in the nation. They could only fight in segregated, all-Black units. After risking life and limb for their country, they came home to be reminded, sometimes violently, that they were still second-class citizens.

Given the MAGA worldview’s celebration of all things martial, I guess it would also be allowed to celebrate the service of African Americans in World War I — including my great-uncle, Marion Fordham, who served in the segregated 92nd Infantry Division. He was sent to France and assigned to an ambulance unit that triaged and evacuated the wounded on the Western Front — and returned to a nation where lynchings were a scourge across the South.

It’s a slippery slope, acknowledging systemic discrimination. Honestly telling the story of historical wrongs might suggest, to some, the validity of taking measures to set those wrongs right.

I guess what was “malicious” in the way the Air Force complied with the orders of the president and the secretary of defense is that it showed how divorced from history and reality all the anti-DEI rhetoric is.

Does Trump and his amen chorus really not mean to outlaw celebrating the accomplishments, and unlocking the potential, of Black people, women and other historically oppressed groups? They could have fooled me.

Eugene Robinson is a Washington Post columnist.