Just a few years ago, wearing a sombrero on Halloween could get you banished from polite society for the social crime of “cultural appropriation.” Nutrition experts argued that preventing obesity was a form of racialized “fatphobia,” even as scientific names of songbirds were purged in a moral campaign presumably aimed at white supremacy. Meanwhile, a slew of studies and papers and articles argued that punctuality, excellence, and other forms of professionalism are “the systemic, institutionalized centering of whiteness.”

Sean Curran knew he had his work cut out for him when he agreed to head the Secret Service and help the troubled agency recover its reputation. Two assassination attempts against Donald Trump – and the less-than-candid response by the agency brass – had sullied the reputation of the once-storied agency and led to a raft of questions on Capitol Hill about whether the Secret Service had lost sight of its very purpose.