Race and Ethnicity

Travis L. Adkins, deputy assistant administrator for Africa at USAID and lecturer of African and security studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service and in the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University, and Brenda Gayle Plummer, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, led a conversation on race in America and international relations. FASKIANOS: Welcome to the first session of the CFR Fall 2021 Academic Webinar Series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at CFR. Today’s meeting is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website CFR.org/academic if you would like to share it with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We’re delighted to have Travis Adkins and Brenda Gayle Plummer with us to discuss race in America and international relations. Travis Adkins is deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau of Africa at USAID, and lecturer of African and security studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, and in the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University. As an international development leader, he has two decades of experience working in governance, civil society, and refugee and migration affairs in over fifty nations throughout Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Adkins was a CFR international affairs fellow and is a CFR member. Dr. Brenda Gayle Plummer is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research includes race and gender, international relations, and civil rights. Dr. Plummer has taught Afro-American history throughout her twenty years of experience in higher education. Previously she taught at Fisk University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Minnesota. And from 2001 to 2005, Dr. Plummer served on the Historical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of State. So, thank you both for being with us today. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Travis, I thought we could begin with you to talk about the ways in which you’ve seen race relations in America influence U.S. foreign policy. ADKINS: Sure. Thank you so much, Irina. And welcome to everyone. Thank you for joining. The first thing I would say is that America’s long history of violence, exclusion, and barbarism towards Black people and indigenous people and Asian communities and immigrant communities in the United States have worked to give the lie to the notion of who we say we are in terms of freedom, in terms of democracy, in terms of the respect for human rights. And these are the core messages that we seek to project in our foreign policy. And we’ve not been able to resolve those contradictions because we have refused to face this history, right? And we can’t countenance a historical narrative in which we are not the heroes, not the good guys, not on the right side of history. And the challenge that we’ve had is that we’ve seen that play out in so many ugly ways domestically. But it also has resonance and relevance in our foreign policy, because what it ends up doing is essentially producing a foreign policy of platitudes and contradictory posturing on the issues of human rights, on the issues of racial justice, on the issues of democratic governance when the world can see not only this history but this present reality of racial discrimination, of police brutality, of efforts to suppress the political participation of specific groups of people inside of America. They can see children in cages at the Southern border. They can see anti-Asian hate taking place in our nation, and they can hear those messages resounding, sometimes from our White House, sometimes from our Senate, sometimes from our Congress and other halls of power throughout the United States. And that works against the message of who we say we are, which is really who we want to be. But the thing that we, I think, lose out on is pretending that where we want to be is actually where we are. And I think back a couple weeks ago Secretary Blinken came out saying to diplomats in the State Department that it was okay for them to admit America’s flaws and failings in their diplomatic engagements with other countries. But I would—I do applaud that. But I also think that saying that we would admit it to the rest of the world—the rest of the world already knows. And who we would have to need to focus on admitting it to is ourselves, because we have not faced this national shame of ours as it relates to the historical and the present reality of White supremacy, of racialized violence and hatred and exclusion in our immigration policy, in our education policy, in our law and customs and cultural mores that have helped to produce ongoing violence and hatred of this nature in which our history is steeped. I think the other part of that is that we lose the opportunity to then share that message with the rest of the world. And so, what I like to say is that our real history is better than the story that we tell. So instead of us framing ourselves and our foreign policy as a nation who fell from the heavens to the top of a mountain, it’s a more powerful story to say that we climbed up out of a valley and are still climbing up out of a valley of trying to create and produce and cultivate a multiracial, multiethnic democracy with respect for all, and that that is and has been a struggle. And I think that that message is much more powerful. And what it does is it creates healing for us at home, but it also begins to take away this kind of Achilles’ heel that many of our adversaries have used historically—the Soviet Union, now Russia, China, Iran—this notion that democracy and freedom and the moral posturing of America is all for naught if you just look at what they do at home. Who are they to preach to you about these things when they themselves have the same challenges? And so I think that we would strengthen ourselves if we could look at this in that way. And I would just close by saying that we often speak of the civil rights movement and the movement for decolonization in the world, and specifically in Africa where I mostly work, speak of them in the past tense. But I would argue that both of them are movements and histories that are continuously unfolding, that are not resolved, and that haven’t brought themselves to peaceful kinds of conclusions. And this is why when George Floyd is killed on camera, choked for nine minutes and loses his life, that you see reverberations all over the world, people pushing back because they are suffering from the same in their countries, and they are following after anti-Asian hate protestors and advocates, Black Lives Matter advocates and protestors, people who are saying to the world this is unacceptable. And so even in that way, you see the linked fates that people share. And so I think that the more we begin to face who we are at home, the more we begin to heal these wounds and relate better in the foreign policy arena, because I think that it is a long held fallacy that these things are separate, right? A nation’s foreign policy is only an extension of its beliefs, its policies and its aspirations and its desires from home going out into the world. So I will stop there. And thank you for the question. FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. Dr. Plummer, over to you. PLUMMER: Well, your question is a very good one. It is also a very book-length question. I’ll try to address that. First of all, I would like to say that I find Mr. Adkins’ statement quite eloquent and can’t think of anything I disagree with in what he has said. There are a couple of things that we might consider as well. I think there are several issues embedded in this question of the relationship between race relations in the United States and it’s policies toward other countries. One of them is, I think there’s a difference between what policymakers intend and how American policy is perceived. There is also the question of precisely who is making and carrying out U.S. foreign policy. Now there was a time when that question I think could be very readily answered. But we’re now in an age where we have enhanced roles for the military and the intelligence community. We have private contractors executing American objectives overseas. And this really places a different spin on things, somewhat different from what we observe when we look at this only through a strictly historical lens. I think we also need to spend some time thinking about the precise relationship between race and racism and what we might call colonial, more of imperialist practices. You might look, for example, at what is the relationship between the essentially colonial status of places like Puerto Rico and the Marianas and the—how those particular people from those places are perceived and treated within both the insular context and the domestic context. Clearly, everybody on the planet is shaped to a large degree by the culture and the society that they live in, that they grew up in, right? And so it is probably no mystery from the standpoint of attitudes that certain kinds of people domestically may translate into similar views of people overseas. But I think one of the things we might want to think about is how our institutions, as well as prejudices, influence what takes place. People like to talk, for example, about the similarities between the evacuation of Saigon and the evacuation of Kabul and wonder what is it called when you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results? We might want to think about what is it, institutionally, which creates these kinds of repetitions, creates situations in which diplomats are forced to apologize and explain continually about race and other conflictual issues in American society. We might also think about what you perhaps could call a racialization process. Do we create categories of pariahs in response to national emergencies? Do we create immigrants from countries south of the United States as enemies because we don’t have a comprehensive and logical way of dealing with immigration? Do we create enemies out of Muslims because of our roles in the Middle East and, you know, the activities and actions of other states? There’s some historical presence for this—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, for example. So it seems to me that in addressing I think, you know, some of this very rich question, there are a number of ways and facets that we might want to look at and discuss more fully. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you very much. And now we’re going to go to all of you for questions and comments. So you can either ask your question by raising your hand, click on the raised hand icon and I will call on you, or else you can write your question in the Q&A box. And if you choose to write your question—although we’d prefer to hear your voice—please include your affiliation. And when I call on you, please let us know who you are and your institution. So the first question, the first raised hand I see is from Stanley Gacek. Q: Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor Plummer and Mr. Adkins, for a very, very compelling presentation. My name is Stanley Gacek. I’m the senior advisor for global strategies at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, representing 1.3 million working women and men in the United States and Canada in the retail, wholesale, food production, healthcare, and services industries. Practically all of our members are on the frontlines of the pandemic. I also served as deputy director and interim director of the ILO mission in Brazil in 2011 to 2016. And my question is this. I wonder if the speakers would also acknowledge that an issue for the United States in terms of its credibility with regard to racial justice, human rights, and of course labor rights, is a rather paltry record of the United States in terms of ratifying international instruments and adhering to international fora with regard to all of these issues. One example which comes to mind in my area is ILO Convention 111 against discrimination in employment and profession, which could—actually has gone through a certain due diligence process in former administrations and was agreed to by business and labor in the United States but still the United States has failed to ratify. I just wondered if you might comment more generally about how that affects our credibility in terms of advocating for racial justice, human rights, and labor rights throughout the world. Thank you very much. FASKIANOS: Who can address that, would like to address that? PLUMMER: Well, I have very little immediate knowledge of this, and I have to say that labor issues and labor rights have been kind of a missing element in terms of being heavily publicized and addressed. I think it has something to do with the fact that over the course of the decades the United States has been less responsive to the United Nations, to international organizations in general. But in terms of the specifics, you know, precisely what has fallen by the wayside, I, you know, personally don’t have, you know, knowledge about that. ADKINS: And I would just say more generally, not to speak specifically in terms of labor, where I’m also not an expert, but there is, of course, a long history of the U.S. seeking to avoid these kinds of issues in the international arena writ large as Dr. Plummer was just referring to. I just finished a book by Carol Anderson called Eyes Off the Prize, which is a whole study of this and the ways in which the U.S. government worked through the United Nations to prevent the internationalization of the civil rights movement which many—Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others—sought to frame it in the context of human rights and raise it into an international specter, and that was something that the U.S. government did not want to happen. And of course, we know that part of the genius of the civil rights movement writ large was this tactic of civil disobedience, not just to push against a law that we didn’t like to see in effect but actually to create a scene that would create international media attention which would show to the world what these various communities were suffering inside of America, to try to create pressure outside of our borders for the cause of freedom and justice and democracy. And so there is that long history there which you’ve touched on with your question. Thank you for that. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome. Q: Good afternoon and thank you for your presentation. I just wonder about U.S. foreign policy, how it lines up with the domestic politics, you know, in terms of race relations, because if one was to believe U.S. propaganda, you know, this country is doing good in the world, it’s the country to emulate. But you know, the events of—well, I guess the George Floyd case brought into graphic relief what most astute observers of the U.S. know, that race relations of the U.S. do not line up very well with the constitutional aspirations of the U.S. So what’s going to change now, you know? And then there’s also this pandemic and the way which race and class is showing us about the real serious inequalities in the U.S. So what’s going to change in terms of lessons learned? And then moving forward, is also multilateralism going to come back into U.S. foreign policy in some way? That’s it. PLUMMER: I think—I’m getting kind of an echo here. I don’t know if other people are. I don’t think anyone is—you know, who is thinking about this seriously doubts that the United States is in a crisis at the moment—a crisis of legitimacy not only abroad but also domestically. We have a situation in which an ostensibly developed country has large pockets, geographic pockets where there are, you know, 30, 40, 50 percent poverty rates. We have people who are essentially mired in superstition, you know, with regard to, you know, matters of health and science. And you know, I don’t think anyone is, you know—is, you know—who is, you know, thinking about this with any degree of gravity is not concerned about the situation. Once again, I think we’re talking here about institutions, about how we can avoid this sort of repetitive and cyclical behavior. But one thing I want to say about George Floyd is that this is a phenomenon that is not only unique to the United States. One of the reasons why George Floyd became an international cause célèbre is because people in other countries also were experiencing racism. There—other countries had issues with regard to immigration. And so really looking at a situation in which I think is—you know, transcends the domestic, but it also transcends, you know, simply looking at the United States as, you know, the sort of target of criticism. FASKIANOS: Do you want to add anything, Travis, or do you want to—should we go to the next question? ADKINS: Go on to the next question. Thank you. FASKIANOS: OK, thank you. Let’s go to Shaarik Zafar with Georgetown, and our prior questioner was with Brooklyn—teachers at Brooklyn College. Q: Hey, there. This is Shaarik Zafar. I was formerly the special counsel for post-9/11 national origin discrimination in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division—sorry, that’s a mouthful—and then most recently during the Obama years I was a special representative to Muslim communities. So this—I first applaud the presentation. These issues are very near and dear to me. I think it’s clear, you know, we have to own up and acknowledge our shortcomings. And I think, you know, I was really sad to hear that we actually worked against highlighting what I think is really an example of American exceptionalism, which is our civil rights movement and our civil rights community. When I was at State during the Obama years, we had a very modest program where we brought together U.S. civil rights leaders and connected them with European civil rights leaders. And the idea wasn’t that we had it all figured out but rather that, you know, in some respects the United States has made some advances when it comes to civil rights organizing and civil society development in that respect—and perhaps more so than other countries. I was just thinking, I would love to get the panelists’ thoughts on ways that we can continue to collaborate and—you know, on a civil society level between civil rights organizations in the United States and abroad and the way the U.S. government should actually support that—even if it means highlighting our shortcomings—but as a way to, you know, invest in these types of linkages and partnerships to not only highlight our shortcomings but look for ways that we could, you know, actually come to solutions that need to be, I think, fostered globally. Thanks so much. ADKINS: You know, the first thing I would say, Shaarik—thanks for your question—I thought it was interesting, this idea of framing the civil rights movement as a kind of example of American exceptionalism. And I think there’s a way in which I would relate to that in the sense that folks did, at least nominally or notionally, have certain kinds of freedom of speech, certain kinds of rights to assembly. But even those were challenged, of course, when we see the violence and the assassinations and all of the machinations of the government against those who were leaders or participants in that movement. And so in that sense, perhaps I would agree. I might push back, though, in terms of American exceptionalism as it relates to civil rights, because these people were actually advocating against the U.S. government, who actually did not want them to have the rights that they were promised under the Constitution. Of course, many of us would not be free or able to speak up without the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments. And so there’s a sense in which we celebrate them, but there’s also a sense in which they are actually indictments of the original Constitution which did not consider any of those things to be necessary elements of our society. In terms of civil society and where the U.S. government is engaged, I think that, you know, sometimes when we deal with these problems that are foreign policy related, you know, sometimes the answer is at home. Sometimes the answer is not, you know, a white paper from some high-level think tank. It’s not something that starts ten thousand miles away from where we are, because I don’t think that we would have the kind of standing and credibility that we would need to say that we believe in and support and give voice and our backing to civil society movements abroad if we don’t do the same thing at home. And so everything that we want to do somewhere else, we ought to ask ourselves the question of whether or not we’ve thought about doing it at home. And I don’t mean to suggest—because certainly no nation is perfect, and every nation has its flaws. But certainly, we would be called to the mat for the ways in which we are either acknowledging or refusing to acknowledge that we have, you know, these same—these same challenges. And so I think there still remains a lot of work to be done there in terms of how we engage on this. And you have seen the State Department come out and be more outspoken. You’ve seen the Biden administration putting these issues more out front. You have now seen the Black Lives Matter flag flying over U.S. embassies in different parts of the world. And some people might view that as co-optation of a movement that is actually advocating against the government for those rights and those respects and that safety and security that people believe that they are not receiving. And others might see it as a way to say, look, our nation is embracing civil society and civic protests in our nation as an example that the countries in which those embassies are in should be more open to doing the same kinds of things. And so it’s a great question. I think it remains to be seen how we move forward on that—on that score. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Molly Cole. Q: Hi. My name is Molly Cole. I am a grad student of global affairs at New York University. I was just curious sort of what y’all thought about what the consequences of foreign policy on punishment systems and institutions as it pertains to race relations in the United States would be, also in tandem with sort of this strive for global inclusivity and equity and just sort of, I guess, hitting those two ideas against each other. ADKINS: Can you clarify the ideals for us, Molly? So one sounded like it was about maybe mass incarceration or the death penalty or things of that nature? You’re talking about punitive systems of justice? And then the other seemed to be more about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the foreign policy space? But I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I just want to make sure I understand the question. Q: You hit the nail on the head. ADKINS: OK. Do you want to go ahead, Dr. Plummer? PLUMMER: Oh. Well, again, a great question but, you know, one of, you know, it’s—could write a book to answer. (Laughs.) Well, if you’re talking about the sort of international regime of incarceration—is that what you were referring to? Q: Yes, essentially. So when we’re—when we’re considering, you know, these punitive systems, I’m thinking in terms of, you know, the death penalty, mass incarceration, private prisons, sort of this culmination of us trying to come up with these ideals, but doing it sort of on our own, while also combatting, you know, what the nation is calling for, what the globe is calling for. PLUMMER: Yeah. I think this sort of pertains to what I had mentioned earlier about just, you know, who is making and carrying out U.S. foreign policy, or domestic policy for that matter. There’s a whole question of the state and, you know, what parts of the state are involved in this whole question of incarceration and are involved in the whole question of the death penalty. One of the things that we are aware of is that prisons have—some of the prisons are actually not being operated by civil authorities. They’re operated by private entities. We saw this again in—you know, particularly in Afghanistan, where a lot of functions which normally, you know, are carried out by civil authorities are carried out by private authorities. And so this really puts a whole different perspective on the question or the relationship of citizens to the state and, you know, to any other particular group of citizens to the state. So I think that, you know, one of the problem areas then is to tease out what in fact are the obligations and privileges of government, and how do they differ from and how are they distinguished from the private sector. Q: Thank you. ADKINS: And I would just add quickly on this notion of hypocrisy and saying one thing and doing another, there was an interesting anecdote around this when President Obama visited Senegal. And he was delivering a fairly tough message about the treatment of members of the LGBT+ community in Senegal. And President Macky Sall got up essentially after President Obama and was essentially saying that, you know, we kind of appreciate this tough love lecture, but I would remind you, you know, that Senegal doesn’t have the death penalty, right? And so on one hand we’re actually saying something that has a grounding. Of course, people of all human stripes can have dignity, and have respect and be protected. But he is then hitting back and saying, hey, wait a minute, you kill people who break laws in your own country. And we don’t have the death penalty. So who should actually be the arbiter of how is the correct way – or, what is the correct way to be? On the second part of your question, quickly, Molly, especially as it relates to the kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion piece, this is why also there has been a big push to look in our State Department, to look at USAID, to look at the face that America presents to the world. And all too often that face has been male, that face has been White. And that gives a certain perception of America, but it also means that we lose the tremendous treasure and talent of people who have language skills, who come from communities in which their own perspective on the world actually is a talent that they have. Specifically, because many of those communities—whether they’ve immigrated or come to America by different means—are also from groups who’ve been marginalized, who’ve been oppressed, who have a certain frame and a lens with which to engage with other nations in the world, either in terms of partnership, either in terms of deterrence. And so we lose out in many ways because we haven’t done a great job in that—in that matter. FASKIANOS: I’m going to take a written question from Morton Holbrook, who’s at Kentucky Wesleyan College. His question is: How should the United States respond to international criticism to the U.S.’s racial discrimination? And how will that affect the relationship between the U.S. and the international community? PLUMMER: Well, the United States, I think, has—(laughs)—no choice but to acknowledge this. Historically this has been a problem that when pressed on this issue in the past the response was always, well, you know, we know this is a problem and we’re working on it. And the most egregious examples of racism are the responsibility of people who are either at the margins of society or who represent some sort of relic past that is rapidly disappearing, right? That was the message about the South, right? OK, the South is, you know, rapidly developing and so soon these vestiges of violent racism will be over. Well, again, the reason why that doesn’t work anymore—(laughs)—is because we’re always projecting this future, right, that—you know, it’s always being projected further and further into the future. And we’re never there yet. And it seems to me, again, that this is a problem of institutions. This is a problem of the embeddedness of racism in American life, and a refusal on the part of so many Americans to acknowledge that racism is real, and that it exists. And you know, I think we see many examples of this. I’m thinking of one instance where a George Floyd commemorative mural was painted on a sidewalk and some folks came along with some paint and painted over it, because they said it wasn’t a racism corner, you know, while engaged in a racist act. So, you know, there really needs to be, I think, on a very fundamental level, some education—(laughs)—you know, in this country on the issue of race and racism. The question is, you know, who is—who will be leaders, right? Who will undertake this kind of mission? ADKINS: One thing I would say, quickly, on that, Irina, just an anecdote as well that also relates to really in some ways the last question about who our representatives are and what perspective they bring. Several years ago, I was on a trip—a congressional delegation to Egypt. And I was with several members of the CBC. And we met with President Sisi. And they were giving him a fairly rough go of it over his treatment of protesters who were protesting at that time in Tahrir Square, many of whom had been killed, maimed, abused, jailed. And he listened to them kind of haranguing him. And at the end of that speech that they were giving to him he said basically: I understand your points. And I hear your perspective. But he said, can I ask you a question? They said, sure, Mr. President. We welcome you to ask questions. And he said, what about Ferguson? And the day that he said that Ferguson was on fire with surplus military equipment in the streets of America, with, you know, tear gas and armed military-appearing soldiers in the streets of America who were seen, at least optically, to be doing the same thing, right? Not as many people were killed, certainly, but the point is you have this same problem. However, if that had been a different delegation, he might have scored a point in their verbal jousting. But President Sisi had the misfortune of saying this to two-dozen 70-plus-year-old Black people. And no one in America would know better than they what that is like. And so what they ended up replying to him by saying, exactly. No one knows this better than we do. And this is exactly why we’re telling you that you shouldn’t do it. Not because our country doesn’t have that history, but because we do have that history and it has damaged us, and it will damage you. Which takes on a completely different tone in our foreign relations than if it was simply a lecture, and that we were placing ourselves above the nations of the world rather than among them. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go to Ashantee Smith. Q: Hello. Can you guys hear me? ADKINS: We can. FASKIANOS: Yes. Q: OK, perfect. Hi. My name is Ashantee Smith. I am a grad student at Winston-Salem State University. In regards to some of the responses that you guys gave earlier, it gave me a question. And I wanted to know how you guys were putting the correlation between racism and immigration. PLUMMER: Well, yeah. The United States has a history of racialized responses to immigrants, including historically to White immigrants. Back in the day the Irish, for example, were considered to be, you know, something less than White. We know, however, that society—American society has since, you know, incorporated Europeans into the category of Whiteness, and not done so for immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, who remain racialized, who are perceived as being, in some respects by some people, unassimilable. We also have a phenomenon of the racialization of Muslims, the creation of outcast groups that are subjected to, you know, extremes of surveillance or exclusion or discrimination. So immigration is very much embedded in this, is a question of an original vision of the United States, you know, and you can see this in the writings of many of the founding fathers, as essentially a White country in which others, you know, are in varying degrees of second-class citizens or not citizens at all. So this is, I think, an example of something that we have inherited historically that continues to, you know, be an issue for us in the present. Yeah. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Pearl Robinson. Q: Hello. I am just so thrilled to see the two panelists here. I want—I actually raised my hand when you were talking about the labor rights issue. And I’m at Tufts University. And I’m currently working on an intellectual biography about Ralph Bunche. And I actually ran over here from the U.N. archives where I was actually reading about these issues. (Laughs.) And I wanted to just say that the discussion we’re having now, it’s sort of disjointed because we’re dealing with lots of erasures, things that are overlooked, and they are not enough Carol Andersons and Brenda Gayle Plummer professors out there putting these things in press. But even more importantly, they are not sufficiently in our curriculum. So people who study international relations and people who do international relations don’t know most of these things. So my quick point I just wanted to say was during World War II when Ralph Bunche was working for the OSS military intelligence, his archives are full of it, he went and he was interviewing our allies at their missions and embassies in the U.S.—the French, the British—asking them: What are your labor relations policies in your colonial territories? And this was considered important military information for the United States, as we were going to be—as Africa was an important field of operation. When you get to actually setting up the U.N., I was struck in a way I hadn’t, because I hadn’t read archives this way. (Laughs.) But I’m looking at conversations between Bunche and Hammarskjöld, and they’re restructuring the organization of the United States—of the United Nations. And there are two big issues that are determining their response to the restructuring—the Cold War as well as decolonization. And I actually think that those two issues remain—they’re structuring that conversation we’re having right now. And they—we say the Cold War is over, but I love this phrase, of the racialization of the current enemies or people we think of as enemies. So I actually do think that this is a really good program we’re having where we’re trying to have the conversation. But the dis-junctures, and the silences, and the difficulties of responding I think speak volumes. The last thing I will say, very quickly, that incident about the discussion with President Sisi that Mr. Adkins—that needs to be canned. That needs to be somehow made available as an example that can be replicated and expanded and broadened for people to use in teaching. ADKINS: Well, I always listen when my teacher is talking to me, Dr. Robinson. Thank you for sharing that. And I’m working on it, I promise you. (Laughter.) FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to—we have lots of questions and raised hands, and we’re not going to get to all of you. So I apologize right now. (Laughs.) We’ll do the best we can. Jill Humphries. Q: Hello. My name is Jill Humphries. And I’m an adjunct assistant professor in the Africa Studies Program at the University of Toledo, and have been doing Africa-based work, I’m proud to say, for about thirty-three years, starting at the age twenty-two, and have used Dr. Plummer’s work in my dissertation. And hello, fellow ICAPer (sp). So my question is this: There’s an assumption that I believe we’re operating in. And that is race and racism is somehow aberrant to the founding of this country, right? So we know that Saidiya Hartman and Frank Wilderson, the Afropessimist, make the argument that it is clearly key that it is fundamental to the development of our institutions. And so my question is this: You know, the—in the domestic scene the sort of abolitions clearly state that unless we fundamentally transform our norms and values, which impact, of course, our institutions, then we will continue to have the exact outcomes that are expected. The killing of George Floyd and the continuing, I think, need to kill Black bodies is essential to this country. And so my question is, in the context of foreign relations, international relations, are we also looking at the way in which, number one, it is not aberrant that racism is a constituent element in the development of our foreign policy and our institutions? And that unless we fundamentally first state it, acknowledge it, and then perhaps explore the way in which we dismantle, right—dismantle those norms and values that then impact these institutions, that we’re going to continue to have the same outcomes, right? So for example, when Samantha Powers visited Ethiopia, if you’ve been following that whole narrative, there was a major backlash by the Ethiopian diaspora—major. My colleagues and friends, like, I’ve had intense conversations, right, around that. Same thing about the belief about Susan, former—Susan Rice’s role, right, in continuing to influence our foreign policy, particularly towards the Horn of Africa. So my question is: What does that look like, both theoretically, conceptually? But more importantly for me, because I’m a practitioner on the ground, what does that look like in practice? And that’s where I think Professor Adkins, working for USAID, could really kind of talk about. Thank you. ADKINS: Thank you. Yeah, you know, I think it goes back to Dr. Robinson’s question a moment ago. And that is the first the acknowledgement and the calling out and the putting into relief and contrast the context in which we’re operating, especially when we think about not even USAID specifically, but the industry of development—aid and development assistance kind of writ large. Because essentially what we have is a historical continuum that starts with the colonial masters and the colonial subjects. And then that because what is called, or framed, as the first world and the third world, right? And then that becomes the developing world and the developed world. Then that becomes the global north and the global south. All of which suggests that one is above, and one is below. That one is a kind of earthly heaven, the other kind of earthly hell. That one possessed the knowledge and enlightenment to lead people into civilization, and the other needs redemption, needs to be saved, needs to be taught the way to govern themselves, right? That this kind of Western notion of remaking yourself in the world, that your language, that your system of government, that your way of thinking and religious and belief and economics should be the predominant one in the world. And so I think, to me, what you’re saying suggests the ways in which we should question that. And this is where you start to hear conversations about decolonizing aid, about questioning how we presume to be leaders in the world in various aspects, of which we may not actually be producing sound results ourselves. And thinking again about this notion of placing ourselves among nations rather than above nations in the ways in which we relate and engage. And I think that it’s one of the reasons that we continue to have challenges in the realm of development assistance, in the realm of our diplomacy and foreign policy. Because, again, there is a pushback against that kind of thinking, which is rooted in a deep history that contains much violence and many types of economic and diplomatic pressures to create and sustain the set of power relations which keeps one group of people in one condition and one in another. And so it’s a huge question. And how to bring that kind of lofty thinking down to the granular level I think is something that we will have to continue to work on every day. I certainly don’t have the answer, but I’m certainly answering—asking, I should say—the questions. PLUMMER: I think I might also think about how is in charge. And this is—you know, it goes back to something we talked about before, when U.S. foreign policy is no longer exclusively rooted in the State Department? So in terms of, you know, who represents the United States abroad and in what ways, and how is that representation perceived, we’re really looking at, you know, a lot of different actors. And we’re also looking at, you know, changes in the way that the U.S. government itself is perceiving its role, both at home and abroad. And one of the questions was previously asked about the system of incarceration speaks to that, because we have to ask ourselves what are—what are—what are the proper roles and responsibilities and burdens of the state, the government and, you know, what is leased out—(laughs)—in some ways, for profit to private concerns? So I think that, you know, some of this is about, you know, a sense of mission that I don’t see out there, that I think will in some respects have to be restored and reinvented. FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Erez Manela. Q: Thank you very much for this really terrific and important panel. My name is Erez Manela. I teach the history of U.S. foreign relations at Harvard. And my question actually—I don’t know if Irina planned this—but it follows on directly from the previous question. Because I kept on wondering during this panel what—I mean, the focus that we’ve had here, the topic that’s been defined, is the way in which domestic race relations, domestic racism, have shaped U.S. foreign policy. But of course, U.S. foreign policy has been shaped—as the previous questioner noted—has been shaped directly by racism and perceptions of racial hierarchy for—well, since the very beginning. And Professor Adkins spoke very eloquently about it. And of course, Professor Plummer has written eloquently about that, including in her books on Haiti and international relations. But I guess I’m wondering if you could speak more about the specifics about the history that needs to be recognized in that realm, and then—and this is maybe self-interested—whether you have any recommendations, in the way that you recommended Carol Anderson’s really terrific book—for reading that we can read ourselves or give our students to read, that would really drive that point home, the influence of racism, race perceptions, race hierarchies themselves on—directly on the conduct of U.S. foreign relations historically. PLUMMER: Well, Professor Manela, I appreciate your own work on Wilson. And you know, that in some respects—that would be a book that I’d recommend. (Laughs.) Might also think about Mary Dudziak’s work on Cold War civil rights, and her law review article, Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative, which, you know, directly addresses these questions. Again, what I would like to see is some work that will—perhaps not necessarily a historical perspective—but will address this whole question of the sort of growing, I don’t know what you’d call it, multiplicity or multivariant character of American policymaking, you know, as we—as we go forward, you know, past the Cold War era. There’s an interesting item by a man named Andrew Friedman, who wrote a book called Covert Capital. I think the subtitle is something like Landscapes of Power, in which we discussed the rise of Northern Virginia as what he sees as the true capital of, you know, parts of the U.S. government, in being a center for the military and for intelligence community. And their shaping of that environment at home, as well as their influence in shaping U.S. policy abroad. So, you know, there’s a lot of room for work on these—on these issues. ADKINS: And I would also just follow up—and thank you for the question—and add another book that I just finished. Daniel Immerwahr, from Northwestern University, How to Hide an Empire, which deals in many ways with U.S. foreign policy and the way in which it is explicitly racialized and ways in which that goes understudied in our—in our policy circles, and certainly in the world of education. FASKIANOS: I’m going to try to squeeze in one last question. And I apologize again for not getting to everybody’s question. We’ll go to Garvey Goulbourne as our final question. Q: Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? FASKIANOS: We can. Q: Yeah. My name’s Garvey Goulbourne. I’m a student at the University of Virginia, actually studying abroad this semester in Rabat, Morocco. And my question to you both is: What mechanisms do we have to orient the narratives that our foreign policy leaders are brought up with? Thinking particularly of American exceptionalism and how we kind of place ourselves on a pedestal, whether they be foreign affairs schools or various institutions at different levels of American education, what tools do we have to address the foundations of American perspectives of themselves and our nation in relation to the rest of the world, particularly the global south? FASKIANOS: Who wants to go first? An easy question, of course, to close with. PLUMMER: Go ahead, Mr. Adkins. ADKINS: Sure, sure. Thank you for your question, Garvey. And congratulations on the move out to Morocco. Great to see you there. I think the first thing I would say, of course, is our tools, as far as I am concerned, relate certainly to education. And it’s one of the reasons that I am in the classroom. But I know what that fight is like, because even education is taken over by these notions of White supremacy, by these notions of singular historical narratives. And this is why there’s been such a push against the 1619 Project of the New York Times, why there is this kind of silly season around the misunderstood origins and contexts of critical race theory. There is this battle over who gets to tell the story of what America is, because it is more than—but it is more than one thing, obviously, to a multiplicity of people. And so I am kind of remiss—or, not remiss. There’s no way for me to elucidate for you now a series of tools that will resolve these problems, because these are challenges that people have been wrestling with before our mothers’ mothers were born. And so we only are continuing that fight from where we sit. And certainly, in the classrooms that I am in, whether they are in prisons or on campuses, we are always digging into the origin of these themes. And the main frame through which I teach is not just for students to understand this history for their health, but for them to understand this history as a lens through which to view the current world and all of the events and challenges that we find ourselves facing, to see if we can come up with new ways to address them. PLUMMER: Well, one of the things that Mr. Goulbourne could do, since he is in Morocco, is to make use of his own insights in his conversations with Moroccans. So, you know, there is still a role, you know, for individual actors to play some part in attempting to make some changes. FASKIANOS: Well, with that we unfortunately have to close this conversation. It was very rich. Thank you, Travis Adkins and Brenda Gayle Plummer or sharing your insights and analysis with us. We really appreciate it. To all of you, for your questions and comments. Again, I’m sorry we couldn’t get to all of you. You can follow Travis Adkins @travisladkins, and that’s on Twitter. And our next Academic Webinar will be on Wednesday September 29, at 1:00 p.m. (ET) with Thomas Graham, who is a fellow at CFR. And we’ll talk about Putin’s Russia. So in the meantime, I encourage you to follow us at @CFR_Academic, visit CFR.org, Thinkglobalhealth.org, and ForeignAffairs.com for new research and analysis on global issues. So thank you all again and we look forward to continuing the conversation. ADKINS: Take care, everyone. Thank you. (END)

The murder of George Floyd iin 2020 catalyzed an anti-racism protest movement that echoed around the world. Global protests, mostly in support of Black Lives Matter, lasted for months and were reignited this year after increased attacks on Asian Americans and other communities of color. This panel discussed the direct relationship between race, racism, and U.S. policy; the role of protests and the media in prompting discourse about that relationship; and how racism at home affects U.S. credibility abroad.  LINDSAY: Hello, everyone. I'm Jim Lindsay, senior vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the ninth annual Conference on Diversity in International Affairs. Today's event is jointly presented by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Global Access Pipeline, and the International Career Advancement Program. America's ethnic and racial makeup has changed dramatically in recent decades. The ethnic and racial makeup of America's foreign policy community, however, has not. The composition of the U.S. foreign policy community is not likely to change significantly without a concerted effort to identify talented members of underrepresented groups, expose them to career possibilities in foreign policy, and actively recruit them for positions. We hold the Annual Conference on Diversity in International Affairs to help make that happen. We want to celebrate America's diversity in the fact that we as a country have ties to virtually every country around the globe, which is a great strength and a complex and ever-changing world. You want to lift talented voices, the unique perspectives that are not being heard, and make them part of the foreign policy debate. We urge all of you to follow up after today's session and tomorrow's sessions by learning more about how you can help play a role in international affairs. Two outstanding organizations that share the Council's commitment to diversifying the foreign policy community are our partners for this conference, the Global Access Pipeline (GAP) and the International Career Advancement Program (ICAP). Both GAP and ICAP have been with us from the start of this conference. For those of you new to GAP, it is a collaborative network of organizations forming a pipeline for underrepresented groups in the United States, from elementary school to senior leadership positions. ICAP as a professional development and leadership program for highly promising mid-career professionals in international affairs in the United States. I want to thank the GAP and ICAP leadership teams for their work on this conference and in the broader field of international affairs. I want to specifically thank Rita Amir, Ivan Carpio, Nima Patel Edwards, and Lilly Lopez McGee. We all owe a special debt of thanks and gratitude to Tom Rowe, who oversees both GAP and ICAP and who has been a leading voice in the field. I also want to thank my colleagues here at the Council on Foreign Relations Meetings Program and Events team for their work in planning this virtual event, especially want to say thanks to Nancy Bodurtha, Stacey LaFollette, Teagan Judd, Sarah Shah, and Krista Wessel. I also want to give a shout-out to my colleagues Jan Mowder Hughes and Shira Schwartz, who were instrumental in making the conference happen. Without further ado, I'll turn things over to Reena Ninan who will moderate today's session. I know you will enjoy it. Have a great day. NINAN: Jim, thank you so much, so grateful to be here to have this conversation. And so grateful to the Council on Foreign Relations for having this conversation. It's an important one. It's not an easy one. And I'm glad that we have the panelists that we do because not only have they covered foreign policy and been in the space extensively, they've also been personally affected in many ways as well. We've got Karen Attiah, who's the global opinions editor at the Washington Post. We also have Congressman Andy Kim, who is the U.S. representative from New Jersey, Democratic Representative and Keith Richburg, who is the director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. And Keith, if his name sounds familiar, you've probably read his byline many times in the Washington Post. We are grateful all of you can join us. Keith, I want to turn to you and I just want to make sure that you guys, you can't see me yet. Is that correct? RICHBURG: Right. I can see you. NINAN: You can see. Okay, Okay, perfect. I want to start with you, Keith, because I want to thank you. It's 4:00 a.m. where you're at in Hong Kong. Thank you for staying up to be taking this conversation. I want to ask you, since you're in Hong Kong, it's really fascinating to watch how the Chinese government has taken the Black Lives Matter movement and sort of this awakening of race in America and placed it repeatedly over and over on the front pages. How is that really affecting how foreign policy, U.S. foreign policy is perceived abroad? RICHBURG: It's a great question. And by the way, thanks to the Council for doing this. So that's why I thought it was worth getting up at four in the morning because this is such an important topic to be discussing at the moment. But you know, I've seen this I've been involved in foreign affairs issues for you know, going back over three decades and you know, every time there is a problem of race in the United States and it explodes, whether it's Rodney King or the George Floyd murder, you know, our rivals, our enemies try to take advantage of it. And that's definitely what we saw here in China. You know, right after the first Black Lives Matter movement protest started after the George Floyd murder, the Foreign Ministry spokesman put on Twitter just the words "I can't breathe." And that basically the Chinese kind of propaganda machine started comparing the protests going on in the United States to the protests that had been happening in Hong Kong a year earlier. They recycled an old tweet from Nancy Pelosi saying that the protests in Hong Kong were a beautiful sight to behold. And so they kind of juxtapose that over, you know, some scenes of vandalism in the United States saying, a beautiful sight to behold, you might recall during that first meeting that the Secretary of State had with his Chinese counterparts in Alaska, you know, they the Chinese opening statement was basically a long harangue, saying, you know, get your own house in order, black people are being slaughtered in the United States, you've got Black Lives Matter protests. So it's, it makes it more difficult, I think, for the U.S. to criticize the human rights record of others, when they can turn around and say, clean up your own house first before you criticize us. So you know, America's "race problem," and I will call it that, has always been kind of a sore point for the U.S. when they are trying to promote human rights around the world, people always can throw that back. And so that's the, it's been a constant problem, you can go back to the civil rights, movement, etc. when the Soviet Union during the Cold War used to use the Jim Crow laws, treatment of black people as a propaganda tool. And it's happening again now. NINAN: Congressman, you have extensive experience as well with what it's like to be in the system and to face discrimination. You were an advisor at the State Department and you made the very brave step of speaking about it publicly. And you tweeted about this. I'm going to read the tweet because I think it speaks to the moment it says, "I'll never forget the feeling when I learned that my own government questioned my loyalty before Congress. I worked in diplomacy at the State Department, I once received a letter banning me from working on Korea issues just because of my last name." What was your response? How was that experience? KIM: Yeah, well, thank you, Reena. And thank you everyone for joining up. And I'm going to stop complaining about my Zoom schedule, when I hear what Keith is doing waking up at 4:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. So look, you know, I worked at the State Department as a career person, career officer, and worked on Iraq and Afghanistan issues, served out in Afghanistan had top secret security clearance. And then one day I just showed up at Foggy Bottom, and there was a white envelope on my keyboard one morning, I opened it and it was a letter telling me that I was banned from working on issues related to Korea. And I was so confused because I wasn't even trying to work on issues related to Korea, I was not applying for any jobs. It was just a proactive and preemptive letter just kind of warning me and telling me not to do this. And I just I found it really hurtful. It really, it felt really painful. I still like feel it inside me right now. Because it just felt like this experience I've felt other times in my life, where it just feels like I'm being told I'm not 100% American, you know, it's telling me, you can work on these other issues. But when it comes to your ancestral homeland, and you know, I was born in America, I don't even speak Korean very well. You know, it's just this feeling like, if I were to work on Korea, my government worries that I might not actually represent America, you know, that they worry that I might not be able to do my job, simply because of that connection. And that's a hurtful feeling. You know, that questioning of my loyalty and questioning of whether or not I can do my job and be American? And, frankly, made me question whether or not I could stay at the State Department. I questioned whether or not I could find my, you know, whether I could envision a career moving up the ladder and getting a job on the seventh floor as an advisor one day. It made me question if I could do that if I had this black stain on my record. And I know so many number of other Asian Americans that experienced that and others. So, you know, it's something that now I'm on the Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress, and I'm trying to change but when it gets to it fundamentally, is this true question of like, does America think that our diversity is a strength rather than a threat and a concern? And if so, what are we going to do about that? Especially at a place at the State Department, which is literally our face to the rest of the world? And that's why I just feel like it's something we absolutely need to confront. NINAN: I want to get to the what do we do about it in a moment, I want to turn though Karen to you. The media play an important role in how foreign policy is examined. I know you've been influential in getting different voices into the Washington Post and into the papers. What has your experience been like? And over the past few years—I know you got Jamal Khashoggi to write for the paper—what have you seen? Have you seen a change and what gives you the most concern at this point? ATTIAH: Thanks for this; thanks for this conversation. And thanks to CFR for having me. I think you know, already from what has already been discussed a lot of what I think we're trying to grapple with, and frankly, trying to correct, are our issues of representation and very fundamental, I think, to the American promise and the American ideal that everybody has a voice in how their society should be, should be shaped. And so the animating ethos behind Google opinions, which was started back in 2016, or so was just this idea to what congressman was talking about, which is basically, that it's a strength, that you have a connection to your country, that you have a connection to your culture, and that you should have a voice and be heard about how you see things going on in your country and in your culture. And that's really what you know, in our little corner of resistance sometimes was what we were, we are trying to do is to give people who are from these countries to be able to speak about their own knowledge, instead of having it always be kind of filtered through kind of what out you know, called sometimes the interpreter class, I think, in Washington. Whether, you know, think tanks and analysts and correspondents, but again, this idea that is a universal human truth that the power of one's own story is how we construct truth and how we construct meaning. I think where, look, I mean, similar to, I get this question of representation, and media has a long way to go, we are actually further behind than we were perhaps two decades ago when it comes to diversity amongst the top ranks in in media, in journalism. And when it comes to Black, Latino, Asian American representation, frankly, it's pretty embarrassing where our where our industry is. So it's, and with the reckoning over George Floyd's death, it's that these issues are now much more in the forefront. But I think it comes back down to does our industry, is our industry willing to commit to having our ranks represent the direction of the country, that it's going in demographically, values wise, and I think, to present to the rest of the world as well, that we are capable of listening to the rest of the world, especially as we're making foreign policy decisions that literally are life and death matters for many people around the world. So I think for us, it's this idea that you know, drops in the bucket, but we hope that having these voices from around the world will at least give Americans a chance to broaden their imaginations about the rest of the world and in the hope that they can vote for, demand better policy if they're able to read and empathize with others who work from around the world. NINAN: It's such a good point about also seeing the interpreters' looking glass and how they see the world and the importance of diversity. Congressman Kim, I want to talk to you a little bit about the rise of AAPI hate. And when you're talking about diversity in Congress, I mean, while this is really the most diverse Congress we've ever had in the history of our nation, there are still complex issues of race that Congress just doesn't understand. What have you learned at your time in Congress about the way we communicate with Congress, what works and what isn't working and getting through? KIM: Well, one thing I learned is, you cannot make any assumptions that someone else will stand up and raise the issues that you care about and fight the fights that you want to see made. You know whether that was the work that I did, I was the only Asian American on the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis last year. And, you know, I saw how important it was for us to have diversity on that committee to raise different issues of racial health disparities and other challenges when it's coming to our economy. And when it comes to just the last year, you know, I really, you know, just this narrative about what's happening with the violence and the discrimination. Yes, things are incredibly bad. I've not seen this level of fear and anxiety in the Asian American community during my lifetime. But will we recognize it? No. For those of us who are in the communities that the discrimination and the racism and frankly, the violence that we see, that preceded COVID, it'll be there after COVID. This is not just some new phenomenon. And I think that that was really important to add to the conversation. I think I had literally members of Congress coming to me and telling me like, "Oh, I'm so sorry for what your community is going through right now. But look, the pandemic's almost over, it's going to get better." And I just find that to be very frustrating that these are, you know, members of Congress, that these are people that I work with that seem to not understand the root of, of these challenges for different communities. And that's why I took to talking very personally about the challenges that I experienced before COVID, at the State Department or my family, is to show how this is much deeper than that. And yes, we passed an important piece of legislation last week that the President decided addressing hate crimes facing the Asian American community, writ large, other communities. But we know that that single piece of legislation is not going to change everything, you know, it's not going to necessarily make, you know, all these Asian American grandmas that I talked to, who are fearful about going outside, it's not going to make them immediately feel like they're safe. So there are challenges that we face. And what I have really taken away is that, that we need to build a sustained attention and engagement to really address this. I want people to understand and care about the challenges that the Asian American community faces, not just one, there's something horrible on the front pages of newspapers about our community, or during the month of May in Heritage Month, you know, I want them to care about the Asian American community in June and July and August and September. And I want us to stand up against hate and all for not just that, which you know, is directed towards people that look like us. So those are some of the longer-term goals I'm trying to put into the work that I'm doing in Congress. NINAN: And it's just so fascinating, your background about how you, what you experienced at the State Department, then going into your life in politics and trying to change that as well. Keith, I want to turn to you. I want to talk a little bit about a trip that President Obama actually took, I believe is back in 2009. When he came to China, you spoke a little bit about how present-day China, how they're really playing up these race issues in America. What was it like in 2009, covering President Obama, a Black man becoming president of the United States? How was that received? RICHBURG: That's really interesting, because you know, during the entire campaign, the propaganda machine, meaning the state-run media, which follows the same official line, they consistently said that there was no way Obama was going to win against Hillary Clinton, because America is a racist country. That's kind of the you know, Chinese Communist Party line, America's deeply racist, they would never elect a Black man. And so therefore, Hillary Clinton was going to win. And then once Obama won the Democratic nomination, the party line became, well, John McCain is going to win because America is a very conservative country and it's also a very racist country, and there's no way they're going to elect the Black man. And then when Obama won, everything went silent for a couple of days, because they had to kind of figure out "what do we say now?" And then finally, Xinhua came out with the narrative that they all had to later on repeat saying, "well, Obama did win but you know, he went to Harvard, and he's actually only half Black so that shows the elite, they're still in charge in America. They made it a class issue. And so it was really interesting. They had an official narrative they like to keep out there is that America is a hopelessly racist country, it's a hopelessly divided country, that Black people are all being slaughtered in the streets or in being put in jail. And the Obama presidency kind of turned that around on its head. And so that's that was actually quite fascinating. And that's why I think they, you know, the official propaganda machine is much more comfortable with the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter being protests in the street, because that's something they could get their heads around. And so you see, "we told you, it was a racist country," you know. And again, it's interesting going, listening to what the Congressman is saying to every time there is one of these, these anti-Asian hate incidents in the U.S., that also becomes front page news, here in Asia, because they're basically saying, "hey, all of you people in Hong Kong who want to emigrate, look how bad it is in the West so you'd better stay here." And so you know. So that is, it's interesting how the propaganda affects but one more thing about the Obama trip, because I was traveling around Asia at the time and to China, you know, people pay attention to what happens in the United States. And when Obama was elected, all of a sudden, you started seeing these kind of hope and change candidates coming up all over the world. I mean, in Indonesia and elsewhere. You know, "hope and change" became kind of a slogan in many campaigns. Likewise, in 2016, when President Trump was elected, suddenly started seeing these populists popping up everywhere and kind of emulating the Trump style so you know, what, if I guess the whole point is in foreign policy, what happens in the U.S. matters, the rest of the world does pay attention. You know, when our president is talking about fake news, all of a sudden, you've got the dictators and authoritarians all talking about fake news all over the world too. So what happens matters? And so that's why we have to get this racial reckoning right. Because that could be something that would go around the world and be a real signal. NINAN: Okay, part of the problem, though, that I've seen in my time abroad is, so often people of color don't see themselves as being of any sort of diplomatic caliber. There's an issue in the State Department with retention, how do you change that perception? How do you get people of color to see I mean, we heard directly from Congressman Kim, his ethnicity was a liability, it was viewed as a liability. How do we change that? RICHBURG: Yeah, personally, I think it's one step at a time, but you have to do it by having people who you know, who are diverse, you know, diverse backgrounds there to serve as mentors for others. If you can look up and you see people there look like you, then you know, then you could think I can do that job. Look, I joined the Washington Post way back in 1980, when I graduated from college, but there was a Black city editor and a Black assistant managing editor, and I could say, "wow, there are people here who look like me." So that's part of the thing. And I think you have to go even younger, you have to go into high schools, and talk to young people and let them know that this foreign policy space is a space for them, and again, so it's mentorship, it's seeing people who look like you there. And look, you're already seeing changes in the State Department. It's a big ocean liner to turn it around. But right now we've got, including right here in Hong Kong, you got a lot of diplomats who are here with a same sex partner, that's something you never would have imagined. Because a few years ago, being gay would have been something that might have gotten you kicked out. And all of a sudden, now we have that it's not a big deal. And so the State Department can change, it can become more open and diverse. And I think that's, as others have said, that's really one of America's secret weapons is our diversity in the fact that we have people who are from different cultures. And it's really fun when you go to an embassy Fourth of July party and you see all kinds of colors and all kinds of faces, and you say that's America. NINAN: And I have to say, personally, you know, my I started my career at the Washington Post TV set during the Iraq war. Seeing you in Paris, your byline made me realize, you know what is possible for a woman of color like me to one day be abroad, and I ended up going to the Middle East. So thank you. Karen, I want to let you have the last word, I want to look at a study that I keep coming back to I'm so fascinated by the study, and I quote it all everywhere. It's from the Truman Center, and it looked at the lack of diversity at the State Department. And it found in 2002, Black women represented 2%. In 2017, fifteen years later, that number change to 3%. That was even before Trump that they were looking at. Secretary Blinken has named his first Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley who I've heard wonderful things about from inside the State Department because she has worked and been ambassador in the State Department. And she's looking to transform the place. What does she need to do there? ATTIAH: Yeah, this is a really fascinating and, and frankly, I think tragic situation for black women who are were interested in foreign policy, actually, me myself, before I joined the journalism world, I was a Fulbright Scholar, so had some ties to the State Department and kind of got a little bit of the inner workings and the challenges to advancement there. And I would say I learned kind of very early on, the pipeline to get to positions within foreign policy, the State Department, I think I read that a sixty percent or so of those who work in top levels of foreign policy have an advanced degree, many of them have an Ivy League degree, I was privileged enough to be able to go to Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, but I realized that even being able to get your foot in the door is such a huge barrier. And I think some of that is very, very similar to even journalism, frankly, which is very much dominated by those who have advanced degrees, by those who have the mentors and the guides in high school. And if they are able to go in college, you can tell them and say hey, you actually are pretty good at languages have you thought about maybe signing up to do programs that could help track you into the State Department. Whereas I think a lot of people even in the neighborhoods that I grew up in here in Texas, are more likely to be tracked into signing up for the military. That's their form of foreign policy experience. So I think you know, what needs to happen and you're reading about this topic is you know, basically looking at a hiring spree that the talent is out there. But it is a cultural change. And a lot of these institutions, it comes down to a cultural change. Back to what was already said before that America has a lot of soft power. And part of our stories, the world is the story of this melting pot experiment where people from different walks of life, different colors, those who are descendants of enslaved people can serve and represent proudly, this grand experiment. So I think, I think a lot of what needs to happen is a huge rethink, in not only in recruitment, but what just what message they want to send and not just for optics, but within so when somebody walks in, they're not thinking whether or not their connections to a country or tests of loyalty, people will try to pronounce their name correctly in the door. These things, I think, and also, again, just starting from maybe perhaps programs, even from the high school level, even from the college level, where that it can be shown to kids that you can represent your country abroad in more ways than just signing up for military service, but that you can help build bridges and be a diplomat. NINAN: That's so great, because I don't think that's heard enough Karen, you’re the point that you're trying to make about that. I want to thank all of you for your experiences and for sharing it with us. And I know we've got a ton of questions from our participants, I want to turn it over. But I also want to say as much as we talked about how difficult it's been, I've never had as much hope as I have in this moment, particularly in the words coming out of Secretary Blinken saying the need for more diverse lived experiences, and it sure feels like there's more to this. So I want to turn it over. At this time, I want to invite participants to join the conversation, I want to remind everyone this is on the record. And as a reminder, there's also a virtual networking happy hour that's going to follow this and we'll have that information in the chat. I also want to thank very much for putting together this panel of Sara Shah, who has been just a force at CFR who's leaving for new opportunity. I want to thank you, Sarah, for helping to organize this discussion. And I know you're going to shine where you go next. I'm going to turn it over to our operator, Sara. STAFF: We will take the first question from Maryum Saifee. Q: Thank you, Sara. My question, I'm Maryum Saifee, I'm with the State Department and actually worked on the report that Reena mentioned the Truman Center report on building a more just and equitable State Department. My question is for Representative Kim, firstly, thank you for your courage and sharing your experience. That's something that the culture of the department, we usually are kind of hardwired to keep our heads down and not talk about, you know, adversity. And so I think your story is emblematic of many State Department employees of color, myself included, who face some of this racism both in the department and abroad. One thing that's been a challenge in the department in advancing diversity work is the lack of disaggregated data collection. So we're often told that our stories of racism are anecdotal or sort of bad luck, rather than systemic because we just don't have the data. So how do you see disaggregated data collection is a mechanism for transparency and accountability, and frankly, an antidote to some of the gaslighting. Thank you. KIM: Yeah, no, thank you. First of all, appreciate your comments there. And I know after I, you know, talk publicly about my experience, I did have a lot of people that are currently at State Department or formerly at State Department or other parts of national security come and told me that they had similar issues and similar experiences, you're right that the culture there doesn't lend itself to one of speaking out on this. I remember when this happened to me, I went to higher ups and told him I want to try to appeal this. And I was told that there's no way for me to appeal this unless I was actually seeking a job to work on Korea issues. And I tried to just say, "I don't want this to stay on my record." And I was told by a number of people more senior than me, to just let it go to not talk about it. Since I'm not looking for a job in Korea issues. They were like just don't make waves. And that was really, really rough and again, didn't make me feel make me feel like people understood why it was that I was protesting this. It wasn't just about deal to get a job. It was about, you know, respect. And, you know, when it comes to trying to understand this on a broader level, you know, I've had conversations with Secretary Blinken and the deputy secretary about this, I look forward to speaking to the chief diversity officer. We are trying to get a better sense of just the totality of the problem. Whether it's, it's with what I'm talking about there or just the bigger issues when it comes to recruitment, retention, and promotion. You know, we're having a lot trouble understanding, you know, just where exactly, the traumas lie, and they're trying to get that kind of data. So I hear you on that front, we are trying to be more data driven, and really try to understand the scope of it. So we can push back against these claims that these are just simply anecdotal. We know that it's not, we know that it's more systemic. And, but trying to get that data to be able to do it, and then try to then understand how this day the data in itself, the transparency is not going to fix it on its own. It's a matter of what steps that we can take and how we have metrics to be able to fix that. So I don't have a specific answer to your question but know that I am working to get that data that I have assurances that we will get it in a fuller form and be able to tackle this in a much more substantive way. And I'm going to hold the Biden administration to that. NINAN: Right, Sara? Can we have the next question, please? STAFF: Sure, we will take the next question from the written Q&A, we have a written submission from a Anisa Antonio, who asks, and I believe this goes beyond the State Department, is representation truly enough? Can we go beyond that to develop systems of support that guarantee the voices of people of color will evolve into real systemic change addressing under representation in every level of the government? ATTIAH: I'm happy to take a crack at that. Is representation truly enough? I believe it's not. I think that representation is a step, is a tool is utterly necessary. But what we are talking about is even beyond just diversity. What we're talking about is, frankly, the willingness to share power, to share resources, to build environments that are not just, you know, not just diverse, but frankly, actively anti-racist. And I think that sometimes the, there's, there's been a lot of sound and fury and hiring of DEI officials and consultants. And then you know, where we are asked, and those of us who are, you know, frankly, have probably tons of stories of not feeling or not feeling seen or not being heard or are asked, you know, well, how do we change this? And a lot of times, I start to ask, that's the question to those who created the institutions, as James Baldwin said, you know, how long are we supposed to wait for your progress, as he said to a white reporter, actually back in the 60s. So I would love to see, you know, more questions and forms to those, you know, who do hold the power, would you help hold the purse strings, hold the hiring decisions as to what the holdup is. And I think that things are changing, again, demographics, I can social media, frankly, has played a huge role in making these things visible. Because you know, as a member of the media, we're realizing that we are not as much of the gatekeepers as we used to, used to be, and that, particularly people of color, those who've been marginalized, have found ways to find community and make their voices heard. So I do think that things are changing. But I think ultimately, what a lot of us a lot of people are asking for is for America, in particular, to basically live up to its promises, and that it's not enough to have, you know, people of color around the table if they don't have power, if they don't have decision-making power, if they don't have the ability to be able to mentor and bring and bring people up because ultimately at the end of the day, whether journalism, whether it's policy, whether it's science, it makes for better policy, better journalism, better science. And I'm wishing for the day that we didn't have to have numbers, the biggest business case, that it is just the status quo. NINAN: Great point, Karen. You know, accountability is so important, having a mechanism for that, but also having data collection, being able to get those points. We're not there yet, not to have it, but it's really important. You raise a great perspective. Sara, would you mind giving us the next question please? STAFF: Sure. We will take the next live question from Danielle Obisie-Orlu. Q: Hi, thank you. My name is Danielle Obisie-Orlu, I am from the University of Pittsburgh. And my question is to all of the panelists. As an American-Nigerian who grew up in South Africa, I hold my experiences and connections to different countries and cultures around the world to be one of my core strengths when engaging in discussions on diplomacy transatlantic and foreign policy and human rights advocacy, quite simply because of the diversity of thought that my experiences bring to those rooms. Upon hearing what Representative Kim has said, how does someone who considers themselves a third culture kid, but who has goals to work in diplomacy and with the United Nations as an American citizen, remain hopeful? And what steps can I take when my background presents itself as a liability? Thank you. NINAN: Keith, do you want to take a crack at that one? RICHBURG: Wow, yeah, I was going to say I think your background is fantastic. It's not a liability, it's a strength. I really, I really do believe that, you know, I've, I've just gotten involved in this new organization that's just an ad-hoc group of it's called the African American China Leadership Forum. And it's for people like myself, or in the China space to serve as mentors for young people, either in government or business or in my case, media to help them along. But my mentee, the person I'm meant to mentor for is a fantastic young journalist working in Taiwan, she speaks Chinese, her mother is Vietnamese immigrant and her father is a Nigerian immigrant and she grew up in Texas. And I said, wow, that's the exact perfect background, that's the American story, two immigrants met in the U.S. got married, you know, produced her, this is fantastic. That's a fantastic story. In fact, I'm trying to encourage her to write a book about that, you know, about her life as a go to Vietnam and beat that side of the family, then go to Nigeria, meet the other side of the family. I mean, again, you know, I'm sorry that even the word liability came up in that because again, that's what makes America so unique. So you know, it's a melting pot country, but it's more and more becoming a blended country. I think about two censuses ago, they finally started putting mixed race as a category and the census, because that's one of the fastest growing categories in the U.S. And I read somewhere that the, you know, by 2050, basically, America is going to be a majority-minority country, or there's going to be no majority in the U.S. So again people like the last questioner, or the person I mentor, that's, that's America. That's the face of America. That's the future of America. So I think, really, I really think those are those are strengths, not, you know, something to be cherished. KIM: You know, if you don't mind, I'd love to just jump in real quick here. And, Danielle, thank you for raising what you said, and I want you to know that I loved my time at the State Department. I love my time in government service, I would not have tried to continue to work in Congress and these other efforts had I not enjoyed my experience. I hope to have an ability to serve my country for the rest of my life. So I don't want you to take my story that I shared as anything that says that I had a bad time or that it was, you know, that these are things that will make me reconsider this, if I had to start again. I raised these as things that we need to fix, that issues that we need to shed light on and work deliberately to change and improve. But I want you to know that I found it's such a rewarding experience. And what I will say is, if this is something that you're interested in, stay in touch with me and others, you know, like I would not have had the career that I had, if I didn't have good mentors and others looking out for me. And you know, while there is a systemic problem that we need to address, about how we engage and recruit and promote and retain and, and work with, there are good people there that are that helped lift me up and gave me those chances and gave me those connections. And if I can be that to you or to others, or if there's others that can step up to help you and help you explore what is possible. I want you to explore that. So I'm excited for you and your background, I agree with Keith is extraordinary. And I cannot wait to see what you do. NINAN: Congressman Kim that on that topic, you know, Karen mentioned the importance also of mentorship. How do you change that, you know, the perception of someone like her saying, you know, I don't think that I might be qualified, I'm not sure. How do you get to those people to say, yeah, you actually are qualified and you should give it a shot? KIM: Yeah, I mean, I think that that's something where we need to do better at. And Keith kind of mentioned this before, but like, we need to be going out to the rest of America. I think that State Department employees, ambassadors, assistants, others, they need to be going out and engaging in the American community and having those types of connections and conversations, finding ways that we can really identify people that we think should be stepping up into government office. I know for me on the elected office side. I started an organization called In Our Hands that is actively trying to identify and recruit young Asian Americans to get engaged and run for office, and not just wait around for them to raise their hand. But a lot of times, people of color, and I'll speak for the Asian American community, a lot of times, we don't really know that this is possible. I as a son of immigrants growing up in Burlington County, New Jersey, never thought that I could become a United States diplomat. That was not in the realm of possible jobs for me when I was growing up. And that was something only that I kind of came to later. And certainly elected office is not something I thought that I could hold. So what we need to do is, is strategically engage and widen the net of who it is that we're talking to, and expand their understanding of what is possible, and utilizing the diversity that we already have, and others to then multiply, use that as a multiplier effect. And then that's something that I just don't see us doing, at the level that we need to certainly not at the State Department or elsewhere. And I think that that would be a much better thing for us to do in terms of recruitment. But it also just be a much better thing for us to do to just spur this debate and conversation more broadly with the American people about what this foreign policy mean to you? And be able to bring that to people's schools and their living rooms, not just in the Beltway, and not just at summits or in capitals around the world. But foreign policy starts at home. I see it in my district with people in my district. They're the ones whose sons and daughters along the Afghanistan and, and their sons and daughters are the ones that are they're worried about the jobs that they'll get. So we wouldn't be stronger for it just a broaden dialogue write large. NINAN: Policy starts at home. It's a good line. Sara, if you wouldn't mind, we'll take the next question. STAFF: Sure. But before I do, Karen, and Keith, did you want to jump in on that? ATTIAH: Yeah. RICHBURG: Go ahead, Karen. ATTIAH: Yeah, I would just say super quickly as someone who is, I'm the daughter, Texas raised, a daughter of Guinean immigrants. And again, my first ambition was I wanted to be, I wanted to be a diplomat and working more formally, the diplomacy space, particularly with Africa. I would say just very quickly that these things are recycled. When I first came to Washington in maybe 2009-2010, there was a huge push and impetus particularly for those of us who are from the African diaspora that, you know, from, from State Department from groups that were active in Washington, that the fact that we were sort of bridge builders, connectors was a plus. And, and I found many groups, many organizations, diaspora, African women's networks, we're helping each other with opportunities, forums, dinners, all of that. So I think part of it is also to certain extent on us, those of us who are interested in these things to come together, but there's Facebook, Clubhouse, and also on us to build these communities of support for each other and frankly, kind of strategize, I think about how to support one another because it's not just enough to be once or even in the room. It's also about, we haven't talked about this at all. It's also about how to stay. How to stay in the room. We haven't talked about burnout; we haven't talked about the amount of people who—I have a lot of friends who do work in the foreign policy space—who are the toll on sometimes the mental health to be the only one. So I think that a large part of this is to kind of know each other who we are and to kind of get that particularly I think for women, particularly for women, that that support group, so that not only like once we get there, we stay there, and we can actually survive there. So sermon over. NINAN: That's a great sermon, and you're right, retentions a huge problem. Keith, I want to let you weigh in as well. RICHBURG: Yeah, just a quick, just a quick note, you know, you know, I'm from Detroit, Michigan, I grew up there. But you know, I always was fascinated by international relations, I studied in university, but I didn't have a passport until I was 21 years old. I mean, to me, going to Canada was going overseas, you didn't need a passport for that and so one of just one practical thing I think that could be done is what if there were more money going into schools to allow younger people in high school to get an experience going overseas, like I never had. You know, to be able to actually expose them at an earlier age. And when I went to when I first went to the Washington Post, I knew I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but I was competing with a lot of other people who had spent summers in Europe or had traveled around Asia, or went backpacking around India, and as I thought Toronto was a foreign country. So, again, I was coming into it not ever having had that kind of experience that so many other kids had had. So that's one thing that practically could be done is to open up more exchange programs to get every young person should have some kind of overseas experience and then language experience, but especially communities of color where they may not have that advantage. They may not have families that take vacations overseas or let them travel. NINAN: Great point, Keith. It really is. Sara, I think we can take another question. STAFF: Sure. I'll take another written question. This comes from Leland Smith, who asks, I am a private sector attorney that works with a lot of senior officials and foreign governments. And we have thankfully, but only recently taken an all-in approach to leadership and celebrating diversity. The foreign offices and countries we deal with do have varying levels of diversity. So my question is, to what extent can the private sector help drive the celebration of diversity? Or will it also require government-driven top-down policymaking? NINAN: That's a great question. How important is it to get corporate buy-in to this as you're trying to change an institution that desperately needs to be changed quickly? Congressman Kim, you want to take that? KIM: Yeah, I'll give some reflections. I mean, you know, that question about what is possible that I raised earlier. I mean, I think that doesn't just extend only to government work and public sector. And I think trying to understand, you know, what that means, in terms of private sector in different industries is certainly important. And what when we see the nexus between that, and government, we know that there is a lot of cross pollination, a lot of movement between, you know, mid to senior level positions, in particular, between the private sector and government. And that is something that as well, that, you know, we can look for, but I do think it sets a tone, you know, I do think that again, it sets that idea of what is possible. And, you know, for me, as a young, Asian American grown up when I was thinking about what career path to choose, you know, kind of to Keith's point, you know, I turned to kind of look and see, you know, whether or not, you know, there are people with my background, or some of those experiences there. And I thought, you know, we use a phrase earlier that I think Reena that you kind of pulled it from either Tony Blinken or someone else, but about just like the lived experience, and really trying to broaden that element. I certainly think that that is a goal that should be embraced both in terms of the public sector and the private sector. So where that nexus is, I'm intrigued by that's a really interesting point. And I'm kind of curious to see, you know, what we can do to kind of leverage that to strengthen. And again, not necessarily even just here at home, in the U.S., but as this person asking the question, saying about, you know, other countries and governments too, I think that would be an important step. NINAN: Keith I want to get you to weigh in on that, because you're abroad in Hong Kong, you know, they talk about China as well, the importance of business relationships, you see all of that behind the curtain there? How important is it to get corporate buy-in when you're talking about something like changing an institution like the State Department? RICHBURG: Well, I think it's, I think it's crucially important to get corporate buy-in when especially because you know, what it is with you in Hong Kong here, for example, you know, the U.S. consulate here is one pillar, but the American Chamber of Commerce here is also pretty strong and pretty powerful as well. And so, you know, people are going to be looking at the American Chamber as much as they're going to be looking at the consulate here, and that's all over the world, I mean, people, business is almost going to become a separate pillar of U.S. policy abroad, and the probably the biggest export in this part of the world was probably Hollywood, at least before the pandemic when they were making movies. So that sort of diversity in the ranks of corporate America is important too, and having their buy-in as well, that, you know, and again, there's going to be a lot more, there probably is some, but there could be more synergy between corporate America, people going back and forth between corporate America and the State Department, for example. But, again, I mean, corporate America has to do a little bit, especially in the international space, has to do a little bit better job as well, fostering diversity, you know. If I can go to the Bank of America and Citibank here, I don't see a lot of diversity in some of these jobs as well. So that's, that's another issue of media. The ranks of the media not are not terribly diverse as well. And then I heard Karen speaking about the issue there at the Washington Post, I mentioned, I'm from Detroit 1967, we had what was then the worst riot in American history, and then the Kerner Commission by Lyndon Johnson came out and said, one of the major problems that sparked that 1967 Riot was the lack of diversity in the media. And here we are now all these years later, still talking about the lack of diversity in the media. So all sectors have to do it. Media, corporate America, Hollywood, you know, the State Department, they all have to kind of be pushing for the same goal of increasing diversity. NINAN: In Hollywood, I can't get over I don't know. Total aside, but the John Cena apology in Chinese, you know, over calling Taiwan a country? You know, it was I just couldn't believe it. It was pretty remarkable to watch. Karen, did you want to weigh in on this as well? ATTIAH: Yeah. I mean, I think I have two like concrete examples. I mean, for my experience with the private sector, I mean, to think back-to-back to what he said, I mean, I think that providing opportunities for students to get international experience sponsoring trips abroad to learn just to learn about other countries. I think for me, again, it was my first chance to study in Spain back when I was in college, it really made me want to explore more in the world. But for so many, particularly for those of us who are third culture, kids who, who hear that the only way to make it in America is if we become lawyers or doctors and just foreign policy is not something that is encouraged, really, I think that could help. And also, from, you know, I used to cover it and do some work with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which is an arm of U.S. policy that works with developing countries to try to formulate compacts for development projects. And often, that was in conjunction with private sector. And I remember projects from GE, in Ghana, that they were working on trying to fix the issues of electrification and power supply, energy supplies. So I could imagine that again, another reason why maybe corporations like GE, or others that are working abroad, as well could find first of all ways to diversify the ranks of those types of international or global projects. But then also, again, I could see these corporations sponsoring trips for kids who are interested in electrical engineering, to go and do projects in other countries and learn not only to represent America, but I think we have to understand that we have a lot to learn from the world. I think the way I think the pandemic maybe in some ways has shown that I think in America, we have a lot to learn. And there's a lot that can inform our domestic and foreign policy by what we learn from other countries and other cultures and communities. So I think that the private sector again, not only diversifies and not only diversifies their international and global operations, so that those abroad can see that. But if they get more involved with people from a young age and getting them that international experience that only helps add to the pool that our foreign policy, journalism, national security apparatuses can draw from. NINAN: While they're young. Absolutely right. Sara, I think we've got a couple more minutes. Maybe we can squeeze in one quick question, if you don't mind? STAFF: Sure. So we'll take the last question from the written question queue. And it's from Alyssa Taylor, who asks, and this is for Karen, but it can apply to the whole panel. I know Karen talked about how elitism is widely seen in journalism. I can imagine that the same is seen in foreign policy as well. How can students who do not attend these prestigious institutions or have connections get their foot in the door? NINAN: It's such a great question, Karen, the Ivy League pool that goes directly into some of these major media institutions. Talk a little bit about that. ATTIAH: I have so much to say, for what I will do to try to keep it short. First of all, there's active efforts and I can say this for the Washington Post to expand outside of that and to recognize and to reach out to, whether it's journalism students at Howard University in our backyard, to those who are who demonstrate a knowledge and a passion for, for writing and for telling stories and who have unique perspectives. And I think, you know, there is a lot of work being done to try to expand our imaginations about who needs to be heard. And what I would say is advice. I mean, frankly, I didn't, in terms of like the journalism kind of route I didn't do the kind of traditional, like internships and I wasn't on the college paper. I didn't think I wanted to be a journalist. I think my advice would be, and this might be heresy to Keith's ears, but I will say it anyway. But I think it's journalism you learn on the job it's a craft, I'm still learning. I still have editors and colleagues who are like, yeah, you need to fix how to do this lead or net graph, but I think for me, my experience before was to find a subject community issue that you're really passionate about. And with social media, with blogs, I think for me like I wasn't I felt outside of the system, I felt very, not a part of it. But I tweeted a lot. And I found those, those circles of people who are tweeting about Africa policy, and I just kind of like butt my way into those conversations. I mean, obviously, now that space is so crowded, but I think what it is, is that when people ask me, How do I, how do I get started? I just say, just start writing, start writing, start putting yourself out there, I think, particularly for women and women of color. I know this is kind of addressed a little before, but I would say pitch put yourself out there, frankly, the divide with women and men in terms of who pitches you feels, I think, you know, I'm in my experience, I think we women sometimes tend to be like, oh, well, it's not perfect, I shouldn't submit. Men don't have that insecurity issue. But I would say right, find what really like engages you that the journalism you will learn you will have mentors, and that's why this is so important. But I was always told to find a place where you can be that kind of expert and have like a bit of a niche, find with that to what sets you apart. But at the basis of it, it should be this passion and strive to tell the stories. And I believe, I hope, I hope that our institutions are catching up with the fact that, frankly, those who are outside of the quote unquote elite circles need to be like they are the complete, our job is to serve them, not the other way around. So I think we're trying, we're getting there. It's a work in progress. But I was just saying, put yourself out there, pitch, write blog tweets, and talk to people, read as much as you can, be things cannot be, and travel as you can. And practice journalism. It's a craft. It's a practice. NINAN: Okay, I know we were talking about exporting democracy around the world. But exporting journalism is equally important. You are from a journalism Institute, they're in Hong Kong, I'm going let you weigh in. We only got about a minute left. RICHBURG: I'm going to agree with everything Karen said, I didn't study journalism either. Even though I'm teaching journalism now. I studied politics and international relations. But contrary to Karen, I learned it on working for the school newspaper, which was the Michigan Daily. And I should say, by the way, I went to University of Michigan. So when I showed up at the Washington Post, I was the only pretty much the only one in my row or on my floor, who went to a public university, everybody else, but that, you know, Ivy League schools, or California, Stanford or something. So I had to look around. And fortunately, we had Len Downey, who went to Ohio State who was the editor. So we were the two public school guys. But, you know, again, I mean, diversity means a lot of things. And it means partly just looking beyond the, you know, East Coast, Ivy League schools and the West Coast schools and looking at schools, like University of Michigan, where I went and other and other places as well. But again, it's absolutely right. It's just get out there, get that experience and do it. Karen was absolutely right. You know, when I, when I got hired, there were quite a few, you know, African American, Latino journalists around me, and most of them ended up leaving early after only a few years, because they felt frustrated that they weren't moving up faster. And you know, because again, I mean it with women as well, I think there's somewhat of a reluctance to put yourself out. And I've heard it over and over again, I don't think I'm ready for that job yet. Whereas a lot of other people know, they're not ready for the job, but they have that bravado when they apply for it anyway. So that's what we have to, that's what mentors can do. Just say you are ready for it, get out there, apply for it. NINAN: Just do it. I love it. I want to thank all of you, Karen Attiah, Keith Richburg, where it's 5:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, you've got up early at 3:30. Thank you so much. And Congressman, thank you guys, for being candid for sharing your personal experiences. It doesn't happen unless we're open about what we've endured and gone through and what needs to change. And on a happier note, as we are still virtual without a happy hour at about 5:15 I'm going to remind you guys as well, the audio and the transcript of this entire event will be available at CFR.org if you'd like to check it out. And we hope to see all of you at the virtual happy hour at 5:15. The link is posted in the chat box below. I want to thank all of you for joining us and for having the interest in this topic and big thanks to CFR for hosting this and seeing the importance and having these discussions. Thank you guys. (END)