Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently appointed Zakiya Carr Johnson as the State Department’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.
Her mission, according to Blinken, was to help build a workforce that reflects America.
Given that Blinken has previously promoted a politically correct agenda, for example, suggesting that employees avoid gendered terms such as manpower and mother, this comes as no surprise. Blinken justified this diversity effort in terms of national security, saying, “We will continue to pursue this mission aggressively, because recruiting, nurturing, and promoting the most capable workforce possible is critical to our national security.”
Since Blinken knew of Johnson’s earlier State Department service, he further added, “previous work promoting entrepreneurship and access to opportunity for underrepresented populations, as well as her commitment to inclusive leadership make us stronger, smarter, and more innovative.”
Yet, despite the Secretary’s heartfelt endorsement, critics condemned Johnson’s openly anti-American, anti-white statements.
She called America a “failed historic model” and demanded the destruction of tradition “at every juncture” on the altar of antiracism“ and “we live and work within systems… deeply rooted in patriarchy and colonialism and racism and otherism.” She also considers herself a feminist but with a racial twist who “embraces a ‘feminist’ leadership style, but one that “counter[s] White-centered feminism trends and narratives.”
Predictably, white supremacy was singled out for special ire, “We cannot have equity without dismantling structural racism, patriarchy and heterosexism … It will start with movements … that compel us to ask … uncomfortable questions. What does inclusion mean for example, if White supremacy remains intact?”
Johnson’s appointment will not strengthen America’s national security let alone attract capable job applicants to government service. More likely, the racialization of State Department hiring will sabotage recruitment and interject racial animus into decision-making. Moreover, since most State Department employees have job security through civil service-like protections, and are not political appointees, if Trump defeats Biden, actual personnel changes will be minimal.
What could possibly drive her hatred of America?
Johnson’s loathing of white society reflects her indoctrination in the anti-colonial, black nationalist ideology that increasingly dominates the thinking of educated American blacks. She is yet one more “beneficiary” of American higher education.
This racial separatist ideology enjoys a long history in America going back to Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) but it has found its strongest articulation in the successful anti-colonial wars of liberation in Africa. These varied across countries, but in each case, the indigenous black populations preferred black self-rule over colonial white administration despite the material benefits of colonialism. South Africa under white Apartheid enjoyed the most developed economy in sub-Sahara Africa, but its black population nevertheless demanded, and won. self-determination.
Today South Africa experiences high levels of poverty, crime and many vital public services barely work.
Zakiya Carr Johnson is thus part of a long revolutionary movement with notable successes in Africa and the Caribbean. Black political autonomy is also making headway in the United States. In more than a dozen cities such as Selma, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, and Camden, New Jersey, African-Americans exercise near-total power.
Racial separatism has almost found a home on college campuses with black-only graduation ceremonies, race-themed residential houses, black-only organization, and entire race-based academic programs, none of which help blacks academically.
In a nutshell, Johnson is not engaging in unobtainable fantasies — millions of blacks here and abroad have overthrown “whiteness.”
The push toward this racial separatism infuses the demands for “equity” where laws imposing disproportional negative impacts on blacks are eliminated or weakened. A prominent example is repealing quality of life” laws (broken windows policing) such as public drug use or loitering that disproportionately criminalize black behavior.
The quest for equity has also resulted in dropping high SAT scores for admission to elite colleges and ending the Bar exam to practice law. Similarly, some school districts have relaxed disciplinary standards since stringent rules are more likely to discipline blacks. Advancing equity is what the debate about “over-incarceration” is about — abolishing laws that disproportionately jail blacks.
Relentlessly pursuing this transformative agenda will accomplish few tangible benefits while deepening racial acrimony. The good news is that localism in the United States has traditionally accommodated a wide range of cultural diversity. There are towns where prostitution and gambling are legal together with countless bars and girlie shows. A few localities tolerate open drug markets. But there are also others that resemble theocracies and ban alcohol altogether. All this variety rests on popular preferences via elections, and those who object can easily move.
The bad news, at least for Johnson, is that efforts to impose cultural values, almost always fail with Prohibition being the notorious example. In effect, Zakiya Carr Johnson and her co-believers are trying to uniformly impose a black liberation ideology on whites and unlike nations where blacks pushed out their colonial rulers, the United States is not majority black. When the black writer Ibram X. Kendi’s demands a Constitutional amendment to create a Department of Anti-Racism to impose these black values cross the entire country, he is living in a fantasy world. Moreover, will a majority of blacks support this “blackening” of American if it risks ending our First World standard of living?
We have seen this movie before when African and the Caribbean blacks seize power from white colonial rulers and blacks replace white civil servants and gain control over the economy. It’s a disaster for whites, but also for blacks. No doubt, if Zakiya Carr Johnson had her way in the State Department, she would institute new rules to replace its “white” culture. Gone would be a culture that stressed punctuality, strict rules regarding English grammar and language, and merit as measured by written tests for promotions. This is about power, not improving national security. Guaranteed, white government employees would find this new regime oppressive, just as Zakiya Carr Johnson finds the current atmosphere oppressive. This would be a revolution.
Resistance to imposing racially related values is hardly hypothetical. Mllions of whites and other non-blacks routinely move (“white flight”) to escape majority black cities or neighborhoods. When public schools become black-dominated, white parents often withdraw their children. Conversely, black parents may seek out largely black schools and largely black towns. These examples can be multiplied but they all tell the same story—people want to live according to their own values and, fortunately, the United States’s localism facilitates these choices.
Zakiya Carr Johnson and her fellow believers who obsess with ridding America of “toxic whiteness” and replacing it with a more black-centered culture should recognize these limitations. Do they really believe that a few Diversity Inclusion and Equity (DIE) functionaries can force their “black values” on millions of unwilling white and Asian-Americans? Blacks dominate countless American cities and Zakiya Carr Johnson might be advised to move there versus fighting a futile battle against the Department of State’s “white” culture. Regardless of Secretary Blinken’s praise, she will fail in her new job but not before this crusade inflicts huge damage in the name of Diversity and Inclusion. It is no accident that Donald Trump’s campaigns denounces America’s slide into becoming a Third World nation, and this slide is Johnson’s aim — Make America Third World.
Image: Screen shot from U.S. Department of State video, via YouTube
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