For the past several decades, Black diplomats have been speaking out against bias, racism, and discrimination at the U.S. Department of State, where they have been struggling to change a racist culture perpetuated by white male elites.
Since its inception in 1789, the State Department has been plagued by racist thinking. It’s been led by white male elites for most of its history.
“The organization is embedded with practices which deny people of color opportunities, rob them of a respectful work environment, and perpetuate harassment and bias,” former U.S. diplomat Naa Koshie Mills wrote last month in a widely read article in Medium about racism at the State Department.
Since its inception in 1789, the State Department has been plagued by racist thinking. It’s been led by white male elites for most of its history. Many of its earliest leaders were slaveholders, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Before the Civil War, John C. Calhoun, one of the nation’s leading defenders of slavery, led the department for nearly a year.
Although the organization began hiring a small number of Black diplomats after the Civil War, even recruiting the influential Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, it remained a predominantly white male institution.
Today, critics ridicule the State Department for being “pale, male, and Yale,” or an “old boys’ club” that is dominated by white males from Ivy League universities. The State Department and the Foreign Service in particular largely marginalize women and people of color, critics charge.
“U.S. diplomats today inherit a racist system that was designed to keep African-Americans out,” former U.S. diplomat Christopher Richardson wrote in a June 23 op-ed in The New York Times.
Despite these criticisms, most U.S. officials remain strongly supportive of the State Department, saying it has made progress in creating a more diverse workforce. They point to the leadership of Colin Powell from 2001 to 2005 and Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2009, and to the hiring of more racial and ethnic minorities over the past several decades.
A report published last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that, from 2002 to 2018, the percentage of racial or ethnic minorities working full-time at the State Department increased from 28 to 32 percent. For those in the Foreign Service, the numbers increased from 17 to 24 percent.
The report also notes, however, that the State Department has been struggling to correct several serious problems, including a declining proportion of full-time Black employees, lower rates of promotion for racial and ethnic minorities, under-representation of minorities in the upper ranks, and a leadership that remains disproportionately white and male.
“The GAO report makes clear with compelling evidence that diversity and inclusion is a major challenge at the U.S. State Department,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, said at a Congressional hearing last month.
During the hearing, two former ambassadors told Congress that they had experienced racism at the State Department. Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a former ambassador to Malta, condemned the department for perpetuating a sexist and racist culture that debases women and people of color.
During the administration of Donald Trump, many Black diplomats have grown further demoralized, especially since the President has derided predominantly Black and brown countries as “shithole countries.”
“I am not proud of how the Department of State has hindered, undervalued, demoralized and destroyed the dreams of some of her best and brightest because of bias, racism and quiet discrimination,” Abercrombie-Winstanley said in a written statement.
Although the mass media has devoted some attention to these criticisms, it has largely overlooked how Black diplomats have been trying to correct the department’s toxic culture. For several decades, Black diplomats have been speaking out against racism at the State Department, often to no avail.
In a 1995 interview, career ambassador Terence Todman said he had experienced racism throughout his entire career at the State Department. He said officials had discouraged him from joining the department, kept assigning him to predominantly Black countries, and tried to use him to maintain the appearance that the organization cared about racial issues.
“The record of the State Department had been horrendous,” Todman said. “It’s been terrible throughout.”
Other Black diplomats have said that their white colleagues often belittled their roles and abilities. In 2007, former ambassador Aurelia E. Brazeal recalled how some of her white colleagues viewed her through the prism of race rather than focusing on her talents. She recounted one experience in which she had arrived in Kenya in 1993 as the new U.S. ambassador, only to be ignored and dismissed by the outgoing white ambassador, Smith Hempstone.
“He was reported to have said, ‘Ah, a Black woman ambassador to Kenya. Kenya doesn’t matter anymore,’ ” Brazeal said. “And so he refused to meet with me.”
During the past decade, some Black diplomats have suggested that the State Department should be more careful with how it assigns white diplomats to African countries. In 2010, former ambassador Mosina H. Jordan said that some of the white diplomats with whom she had worked in Africa believed that they were superior to Africans.
“We had a number of officers, then and now, that felt that they knew what was best for the Africans and were dismissive and disrespectful,” Jordan said. “I’m concerned that we have a lot of Africanists who are white who hate Black people.”
As Black diplomats have struggled with these challenges, they have also been troubled by the State Department’s practice of assigning Black diplomats to predominantly Black countries. A number of Black diplomats have asked why they are expected to serve in Africa and the Caribbean when their white counterparts are given opportunities to work anywhere in the world.
“There’s this fixation . . . that if you’re Black you have to be associated with Africa,” Todman said. “I resent it.”
When the practice continued during the administration of Barack Obama, former ambassador Ulric Haynes suggested that it would take more than having Black Americans in positions of power to correct the department’s longstanding problem with racist diplomatic assignments.
“We’ve had two African American Secretaries of State and we now have an African American president, and for God’s sake, the practice of racially segregated diplomatic assignments continues,” Haynes observed.
During the administration of Donald Trump, many Black diplomats have grown further demoralized, especially since the President has derided predominantly Black and brown countries as “shithole countries.” Given the State Department’s slow and muted response to the national protests over the police killing of George Floyd, many Black diplomats have been feeling dissatisfied and dehumanized.
Black diplomats say the challenges they are facing have only worsened under the Trump Administration. Although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has mostly ignored their concerns, Black diplomats have kept demanding to be heard, condemning U.S. leaders for perpetuating an “old boys’ club” that remains plagued by racism.
“Because the establishment, the ones who actually run the things, have no particular reason to want to change it, unless they’re forced to, it never will change,” Todman observed in his 1995 interview.
Twenty-five years later, many Black diplomats continue to feel the same way.