WASHINGTON — House lawmakers on Wednesday examined the lack of diversity within the State Department’s ranks, capitalizing on the national conversation around racial injustice in America to explore why the nation’s diplomatic corps is not more reflective of the country it represents. In recent weeks, U.S. lawmakers and diplomats, among many Americans, have used the moment of racial unrest to shine a light on the deep inequality they believe exists in the State Department, and they have implored the Trump administration to address diversity in an agency where the face of the country presented to the world is overwhelmingly male and white. “The department has lost too many of us because of bias, quiet discrimination and indifference,” said Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a former ambassador who is African-American. “This moment in America has shown us just how dangerous a culture of indifference can be.”Lawmakers at Wednesday’s virtual hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee noted that the lack of racial minorities and women at the State Department has plagued the agency for decades, and that the issue has reached a tipping point among many in the country’s foreign policy and national security community.

Source: New York Times June 17, 2020 22:18 UTC