Ferguson Affects Our Foreign Affairs?

With everything that has been going on with the Ferguson and Garner cases regarding racial inequality in the U.S, news has spread quickly to other countries, giving them, "free propaganda rides". Our problems with race have become "front-page news" and allow other countries opportunities to argue that our problems reveal "American hypocrisy".

The article, "Ferguson and Garner Cases Hurt U.S. Foreign Policy", by Jeff Stein, suggests that President Obama should “take a page out of Kennedy’s book”, and deal with the racial issues the U.S. is dealing with today the same way Kennedy did in the 60’s. Kennedy took action quickly, working to desegregate and rule out any reasons for Russia, with whom the U.S was in the midst of the cold war with, to the U.S hypocritical for trying to police the world without policing themselves first. JFK said, “We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home... but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other, that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or cast system, no ghettos, no master race except with respect to Negroes?”, convincing the country and others that racial inequality was not okay with him. By acting upon the issues at hand, JFK was able to “change the narrative abroad”, and in the article, President Obama is called upon to do the same. Mary Dudziak, a professor at both Stanford and Emery and author of Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, is quoted in the article saying that the, “racial problems in the U.S.” undermines “our ability to criticize”. She then suggests that “Obama needs to present [racial discrimination] as one of the nation’s most pressing and urgent problems”, claiming the alternative would be, “Ceding the battleground to the very dark forces now closing in on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria”. Nuclear war was at stake in the 60’s, but now, even though, “The U.S. has consolidated its power”, it, “still wants and needs a powerful, positive message to compete for young minds tempted by the siren song of Islamic revolutionaries”, closing with the fact that, “We can’t pursue a human rights agenda abroad if we’re not protecting them at home”.

The Monroe Doctrine was a US foreign policy announced in an annual address to Congress made by President James Monroe regarding Latin American countries in 1823. If the U.S was still following the Monroe Doctrine today, it would not be trying to set an example for other countries in the first place because of the “Separate Spheres of Influence” portion of the Monroe Doctrine, which states that the U.S wouldn’t meddle in any other country’s business and all of the other countries shouldn’t meddle in the U.S’s; so there would be no concern for setting an example in the first place. Also in the Monroe Doctrine is the “Non-colonization” rule which states that no country can dominate another. Although this portion of the doctrine is talking about colonizing and the idea of dominating other countries and the U.S. is not doing that, the idea of the U.S. being the golden country and police for all the others would not exist if we were still following the doctrine today. The last part of the doctrine is the “Non-intervention” portion which states that the U.S. won’t interfere in other countries’ affairs unless it directs the U.S directly. If we were still following it, the idea of setting an example and trying to help other countries’ with their issues wouldn’t exist anyways, so the issue of appearing hypocritical wouldn’t either.

   

The whole point of the article was that if President Obama doesn’t act fast, our country will appear as hypocritical to others because we would be policing other countries without policing our own. Our foreign policy today allows us to intervene, influence, and step in when other countries are struggling, which is great; but, it also unfortunately leads to bad press when it seems we don’t have our act together with our own country, causing the U.S. to appear as unfit and hypocritical when helping others. If the Monroe Doctrine were in place today there would be no issue of this, but, our country may appear as weak and selfish for not helping others and lending a hand when needed.

Article Source: Stein, Jeff. "Ferguson and Garner Cases Hurt U.S. Foreign Policy." Newsweek. NEWSWEEK LLC, 5 Dec. 2014. Web. 05 Dec. 2014.

Race: Then and Now

Simón Bolívar had the idea of uniting South American countries through the idea that they are all "South- American", using race and South- American identification as his convincing factors in persuading people of the countries he wanted to unite to get on board with his plan. He tried to paint the picture of one big culture coming together through Gran Colombia, but in the end was not able to fully complete his plan as many countries broke off right before his retirement.

Bolívar started out as a young officer in Caracas in 1810, whose goal was to liberate the whole of New Granada from Spanish rule. From 1811 until 1830 he worked to liberate and unite South American countries with the goal of creating “Gran Colombia”, one large South American Republic. But, due to the frequent reconquering of the countries by Spain and the many formal seceding’s by independent South American countries just before Simón Bolívar retired he was never able to unite all of the countries simultaneously thus causing his dream of one big republic to fall apart. He wanted to unite all of the countries through the idea that they could all identify as one thing; South American. Because the countries were so heavily divided by social class based on race at the time, the idea of all uniting under one identity was appealing to everyone, except the Spanish who controlled the countries of course. Due to frequent reconquering, the countries were forced to create their own identities to unite under in the meantime, as they didn’t belong in one place for long periods of time. Because of this development, once Gran Colombia was finally formed, many countries seceded from it; their individual country’s identification and unity being enough. Simón Bolívar was able to use race to unite South Americans through South-American-ness, inspiring those countries to individualize even further creating the cultures of the modern South American countries we know today.

The article I chose, “Chris Rock: How We Talk About Race in U.S. Is ‘Nonsense’”, from TIME.com, is written by Maya Rhodan, and is a piece describing Chris Rock’s thoughts on race in the US. It is not an article that is reactant to one particular event, but rather a perspective on racial progress of blacks and whites in the US as a whole lately and the misconceptions it carries. Racial progress is talked about often when referring to the way blacks are treated and the accomplishments black people make, and in the article, Chris Rock explains why he thinks it’s wrong to call it “progress”. Rock says, “There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before”, which is something I completely agree with. I think that race is still a huge part of the way people identify in this country, and I do think that politics are greatly affected by it, but the idea that black people are changing and being recognized because they finally have a reason to be is completely false. As Rock said, to call it progression the black people would have had to deserve the way they were treated before and would have had to improve as people in some way, but they haven’t. What has changed is the perception of them, and even people of other races. Generations and generations of white people have become educated and many have come to realize it is not okay to judge someone based on the color of their skin; allowing black people to finally be recognized in society and allow them to accomplish big things such as become president, etc. But that is not to say racism is dead, because it is certainly not. In my opinion, if Michael Brown were a white kid, and the officer were black, he would be indicted right away, no matter where the fault lays, because that is just the way things are at the moment in our country’s perception of black crime. The only progression there has been is the progression of tolerance and acceptance of other races, which should have been there all along. Black people are not becoming better, white people just are becoming more accepting.

Article Source: Rhodan, Maya. "Chris Rock: How We Talk About Race in the U.S. Is 'Nonsense'" Time. Time, O1 Dec. 2014. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.