This article is courageous, compelling & necessary. It will make some uncomfortable bc it says the hard, ugly truth out loud:

The State Dept - like most US institutions - was built on white supremacy, a system designed by & exclusively for white men https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/state-department-racism-diversity.html?smid=tw-share

Sound extreme? Look at the data in the article. After Clifton Wharton became the 1st Black person to enter the #ForeignService in 1925, the oral exam was used to bar Black admission.

He would be the ONLY Black person admitted to the FS for the next 20 years. TWENTY YEARS!

In the 1950s, after Black people were allowed to enter the FS again, the State Dept began to use the #securityclearance process to bar their admission, questioning their allegiance to the USG & claiming they were members of "subversive" orgs like @NAACP & other civil rights orgs

By 1957, State Dept still refused to create integrated eating spaces for Black FSOs to eat w/white colleagues at the Foreign Service Institute in VA.

In 1994 op-ed, in the President of the Foreign Service Association pushed back against Clinton administration diversity efforts.

These are just a few of the examples of systemic racism highlighted in this article. It comes as no surprise then that only 7% of FSOs are Black and there are only 3 (THREE!) of 189 US Ambassadors serving abroad are Black.

So what can be done? There isn't a silver bullet solution to this. It will take a large scale, all encompassing effort to revamp and rebuild the State Dept to make it an institution that actually reflects America's unique diversity - which is our strength.

Recruitment isn't enough and any solution that only includes recruitment or expanding the Pickering & Rangel Fellowships is lazy and insufficient. Must also look at how to RETAIN and PROMOTE talented Black officers.

Chris puts it simply: "the current system will not do. U.S. diplomats have an opportunity and an obligation to reimagine the State Department and rethink what it means to truly represent America. That is a department many former black officers would gladly return to."

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