Race Relations in the Public Diplomacy Space
All of my UN Week commitments have been canceled this year due to COVID-19. I have worked in media development around the world for nearly 20 years. In light of the racial reckoning happening in America right now, I thought I would repost the article below I wrote in 2017 about race on the international stage. You might also be interested in my exhaustive review of Richard Wright’s Color Curtain, which explores race and identity in the developing world.
Last year we commemorated the 55th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many people were behind organizing the historic event, including many Hollywood actors. Following the march, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) recorded a roundtable discussion with Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Joseph Mankiewicz, James Baldwin, and moderator David Shoenbrun as they discussed the march and race relations in America.
USIA’s mandate at the time was to provide an honest assessment of American life to an international audience. The participants both criticized and praised American values. USIA films at the time were not shown in the United States due to the Smith–Mundt Act.
“No matter how bitter I become I always believed in the potential of this country,” says James Baldwin in the film. “For the first time in our history, the nation has shown signs of dealing with this central problem.”
While the march and the roundtable, which were broadcast around the world together, were received favorably globally, many Americans criticized USIA for “putting out our dirty laundry” to the world.
So much for democracy…
But the real question here is if all these men were still alive today, would they met for such a discussion, considering Charlton Heston became a conservative later in life. And why were there no women invited to be part of this discussion?