The Biden State Department this month called its first-ever unique agent for racial equity and justice. The recently appointed envoy, Desirée Cormier Smith, had criticized white diplomats for being excessively “protective” of the United States and lacking the “empathy” of their minority counterparts.
Smith, a self-described “Black activist,” made the remarks in an October 2020 interview. At the time, Smith acted as a senior policy advisor for Open Society Foundations, the think tank moneyed by Democratic billionaire donor George Soros. The State Department on Friday revealed Smith’s visit to the post, which was produced to “confront systemic racism and injustice around the world.” the State Department characterized Smith as a “racial justice expert with a deep and steadfast commitment to equity and justice for all.”
Smith might need to temper her racially charged views in her brand-new function. The State Department forbids declarations that reveal “hostility toward an individual because of his or her race.” Department guidelines also prohibit discriminatory harassment in the form of “racial epithets, ‘jokes,’ offensive or derogatory comments, or other verbal or physical conduct based on an individual’s race/color.”
In an interview with the Black Diplomats podcast, Smith discussed her earlier work as a foreign service officer. She stated her white coworkers showed an “ownership” mindset when granting visas to foreign candidates. White diplomats, Smith stated, “were so protective of the United States, and they didn’t want anybody who could sully the image of the United States because it’s this perfect shining city on a hill.”
“We also come with a certain humility that I would say that a lot of white foreign service officers lack,” Smith said of her fellow minority diplomats. “We approached it with so much more empathy.”
Smith has actually spoken honestly about her activist function at Foggy Bottom, where she has actually functioned as a senior advisor in the Bureau of International Company Affairs.
“Black activists like myself are still working through the United Nations to defend human rights and freedoms for all,” Smith wrote in a column for the Grio in March. She said she worked “relentlessly” to elect a critical race theory scholar, Justin Hansford, to the United Nations Permanent Forum of People of African Descent.
Smith is not the only Biden State Department official to come under fire for questionable declarations.
Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the department’s chief diversity, and inclusion officer complained in a 2020 podcast interview about the “white male-dominated” national security field. She said that as a minority woman, she was “probably better prepared than my male colleagues, certainly my European-American colleagues.”
Jalina Porter, who till just recently worked as deputy spokesperson at Foggy Bottom, has said the ”largest threat to U.S. national security are U.S. cops.” Porter left the State Department earlier this month.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
H/T The Washington Free Beacon
