By Nellie Petlick

The United States is facing a global public opinion crisis. The Trump administration eroded America’s reputation on the world stage by disregarding the rule of law, disparaging U.S. allies, and fueling American nationalism. A major contributor to our damaged public image, however, predates Donald Trump. America’s fraught history of systemic racism, and of police brutality against Black Americans in particular, has been at the forefront of global consciousness since the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced in 2013. Footage of police violence quickly and easily disseminated on social media has shown the world an image of America that does not align with its professed values of freedom, democracy, and equality. The 2020 murder of George Floyd and subsequent crackdown on peaceful protests—in the context of a poorly managed pandemic response—substantially damaged our global reputation further.[1] The U.S. Department of State, the main body responsible for shaping America’s message and image abroad, needs to take bold steps to address this issue by strengthening and expanding its public diplomacy efforts. By reinventing its public diplomacy strategy to directly address topics of race and racism abroad, the United States under the Biden administration has a critical opportunity to repair its global public image and reassert itself as a leader on human rights.

Overview of the Problem

U.S. Global Standing

International public opinion of the United States is currently at a historic low. In 2019, the global approval rating of U.S. leadership was just 33 percent, unchanged since 2017.[2] America’s approval rating was on par with China’s and Russia’s, whose ratings in 2019 were 32 percent and 30 percent, respectively—up from 31 percent and 27 percent in 2017.[3] This should be a wake-up call for the United States, as it demonstrates decreasing confidence in democracy and increasing faith in authoritarianism. But some of this decline predates President Trump. Since 2013, the percentage of people in allied countries who believe the United States “respects the personal freedoms of its people” has been steadily falling, with many countries now reporting levels well below 50 percent.[4] These percentages fell distinctly in 2015, after images and videos were broadcast to the world of the riots and violent state response that occurred after a police officer shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, giving rise to the Movement for Black Lives.[5] As Steven Cook, a journalist and Middle Eastern scholar, observed, 

I am not convinced that America’s dismal image is entirely a reflection of the [Trump] administration. The protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 over the killing of Michael Brown seem to have been a turning point. People from all over the world watched some of the worst of America in real time via their social media feeds and good old-fashioned television news. To Arabs and Turks, the tear gas falling on the streets of Ferguson was no different from the tear gas falling on Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain, Mohamed Mahmoud Street in Egypt, or Istiklal Caddesi in Turkey. And a fair number of them were more than willing to take to Twitter to make that point.[6]

Global public opinion of U.S. leadership undoubtedly worsened when these issues again came to the fore following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. Floyd’s murder marked a boiling point: it came on the heels of two other highly-publicized murders of unarmed Black Americans, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, signaling that little progress had been made on issues of systemic racism and police brutality since the Movement for Black Lives organized six years ago. All three murders occurred in the midst of the poorly-handled COVID-19 pandemic that disproportionately affected Black Americans.[7] Though the majority of protests were peaceful, the world watched footage of Floyd’s murder, looting in American cities, the violent crackdown of law enforcement outfitted in military gear, and non-violent protestors tear-gassed to make way for the president’s photo opportunity in front of a church.[8] The global response to Floyd’s murder was overwhelming. A majority of people in allied countries—including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany—disapproved of President Trump’s handling of the protests.[9] Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people around the world marched and protested in dozens of countries, standing in solidarity with Black Americans while also calling attention to their own national struggles with racism.[10] While they may have been disapproving of U.S. institutions, many people around the world took inspiration from Americans’ demands for change.

On the other hand, U.S. adversaries took advantage of this opportunity to call attention to America’s hypocrisy. An editorial in China’s People’s Daily newspaper pointed out that the situation in the United States was a “vivid demonstration of American ‘double standards’…. On the one hand, protests over the death of an unarmed African American man in Minneapolis police custody have spread around the U.S.; on the other, the U.S. has threatened to impose economic sanctions on Hong Kong.”[11] Likewise, Russian state-sponsored Sputnik News captioned a graphic in one of its articles covering the protests “America 2020: Where anti-racists are terrorists and racists are president.”[12] Clearly, the mishandling of the response to Floyd’s murder and the continuing problem of police brutality against Black Americans greatly undercuts ideas of U.S. moral superiority. Other nations cannot take the United States seriously in our fight for human rights abroad when there are such grave violations of human rights in our own country. Advocating abroad for American ideals such as freedom, democracy, and equality has little meaning if our actions at home do not match our words. The message the world receives matters more than the one we send.[13] We have much work to do on the message the world is receiving from us.

Chronic State Department Weaknesses

It will be difficult to improve public opinion of the United States given the current grim status of the U.S. Department of State, the main body responsible for shaping America’s message and image abroad. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that 14 percent of Foreign Service Officer positions abroad have remained vacant for the past ten years, which has increased the workload of other officers, contributing to low morale and high levels of burnout in the department.[14] Not only is there an overall problem of morale and vacancies in the State Department, there is also a particular problem of promotion and retention of Black Foreign Service Officers. GAO recently reported that the percentage of Black officers only increased from 6 to 7 percent between 2002 and 2018.[15] As of late 2019, only 2.9 percent of the Senior Foreign Service was Black.[16] Many former Black diplomats have published accounts of the racism and apathy they experienced while in the Foreign Service, including one who said in a private conversation that one of the reasons he left was the “hostile indifference” with which his white colleagues reacted to domestic issues currently facing Black Americans.[17] It is difficult for the United States to promote diversity abroad in good faith when, at best, its diplomatic corps is not representative of America’s diversity, and at worst, creates a hostile environment for non-white officers. The Biden administration has a large task ahead, not only in reinvigorating and diversifying the hollowed-out State Department, but also in repairing the perception of the United States abroad that has been greatly damaged by the documented escalation of police brutality against Black Americans.

Recommendations

The best way to repair America’s public image abroad is by strengthening and expanding the State Department’s public diplomacy efforts. Although such efforts cannot singlehandedly fix America’s public image problem, robust and well-designed public diplomacy is one of the most valuable and cost-effective diplomatic tools that the United States has at its disposal.[18] People-to-people exchanges work: State Department studies routinely show that those who participate in U.S. government exchange programs have much more positive views of America from their firsthand experiences.[19] Given this, the State Department should create a robust strategy to better educate foreign peoples both about Black contributions to American culture and history, and about the current racial justice movement. 

This would not be the first time the United States has used public diplomacy to ameliorate public opinion on its handling of racial issues. During the Cold War, the State Department used ‘jazz diplomacy’ to great success to counter Russian anti-American narratives and accusations of hypocrisy. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the State Department recruited jazz ambassadors such as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong to share jazz with the world and build relations with emergent Asian and African post-colonial nations in particular. These highly publicized concert tours gave U.S. officials the opportunity to take up a self-aware campaign that contradicted worldwide criticism of U.S. race relations at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.[20] These ambassadors amplified America’s message of social justice and racial equity, while also promoting democratic ideals of market capitalism and free expression through jazz—a uniquely American art form.[21] 

While abroad, the jazz ambassadors collaborated with local artists, participated in Voice of America (VOA) programming, and played for foreign dignitaries and diplomats. Their efforts were highly successful in forging relationships and promoting a more positive image of the United States, as “their irreverence, egalitarianism, and creative brilliance as musicians achieved far more in winning friends than any sanctimonious pronouncements of U.S. superiority.”[22] In fact, these jazz artists were effective ambassadors because they did not blindly embrace American exceptionalism. For them, “patriotism and the democratic struggle went hand in hand”; they believed American ideals were something to strive for, while also recognizing there was much work to be done.[23]

Today the United States has a renewed opportunity to be honest about our legacy of race and racism—and to build off of lessons taught by jazz diplomacy. Although the efforts of the jazz ambassadors were effective, a blatant incongruity existed in this policy of promoting Black artists abroad while Jim Crow laws were still in place at home. This diplomatic strategy projected an image of America that was much rosier than reality. In this way, despite being immensely successful in promoting the achievements of Black Americans and reaffirming to the world that American ideals were still worth striving for, these tours fell short in that they did not explicitly acknowledge the injustices happening at home. Therefore, public diplomacy today must teach about Black contributions to American history, while also being forthright about our shortcomings and the current reckoning. Celebrating current leaders in the racial justice movement reaffirms that the United States supports those—both at home and abroad—who strive for freedom, democracy, and equality.

Prioritizing Public Diplomacy

The United States is faced with a vital opportunity to boldly reimagine its public diplomacy strategy to address the current public opinion crisis brought on by the continuing problem of police brutality and the protests following George Floyd’s murder. One of the most effective ways to restore American integrity and leadership on this matter will be by speaking honestly about issues of race in the United States while encouraging other nations to address their own. The State Department should spearhead this effort by formulating and disseminating a cohesive strategy and set of public diplomacy initiatives to embassies that can be adapted for local contexts, needs, and opportunities. In order to implement such a strategy, however, the first priority of the State Department needs to be increasing the budget for public diplomacy. In FY18, public diplomacy funding constituted only 3.9 percent of the entire State Department budget.[24] Considering that people-to-people exchanges are one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to positively influence foreign people’s attitudes about the United States, even a modest increase would greatly expand capacity for exchange programs, institutional partnerships, and cultural programming. 

Educational Exchange

There are many initiatives that could be integrated into already-existing educational exchange programs. The Fulbright program would be an apropos choice for this. As foreign Fulbright graduate students are limited in the fields of study they are permitted to pursue in the United States, Fulbright country offices could add degrees focused on race and ethnicity studies or human rights law as an option. International students could experience firsthand how these topics are studied in U.S. institutions, contribute their own valuable perspectives to the U.S. classroom, and return to their home countries to examine those same topics in their local context with renewed insights and knowledge. Fulbright could do the same in its scholar programs, either by facilitating direct exchanges of scholars who are researching similar topics of race and ethnicity at their respective home institutions, or by establishing partnerships between foreign and domestic university departments with a similar focus. This would not only benefit international scholars by providing them a new perspective in their field, but would also benefit American scholars and departments in deepening their understanding of racial issues with which foreign countries are contending. 

In addition to increasing opportunities for international scholars and students in the United States, the State Department should increase funding for racially diverse American students to study abroad. The Gilman International Scholarship Program already works to this end, granting up to $5,000 to undergraduate students to study internationally who otherwise could not due to financial constraints. Although not strictly so, the majority of Gilman recipients tend to be students of color.[25] In FY19, the allotted funds were enough to provide the maximum amount to approximately 2,500 students to study abroad.[26] Funding for this program should be expanded. Making this opportunity available to an even greater number of racially diverse students by increasing funding and allocating funds specifically for underrepresented minorities would expose foreign publics to a diversity of American perspectives, fostering a nuanced and holistic understanding of life in the United States. 

Cultural Exchange

In addition to educational exchange, it is worth reviving some of the cultural programming that was successful during the jazz diplomacy era. However, unlike during the Cold War, the State Department should explicitly acknowledge through its choice of programming the struggles for racial justice and equity that are taking place in the United States today. Acknowledging our shortfalls will help disarm accusations of hypocrisy from our adversaries; give credence to the efforts of many Americans who are working hard for racial justice and human rights, inspiring others around the world to do the same; and reaffirm to the world that we are committed to fulfilling the ideals of our nation’s founding, something that sets us apart from many other countries around the world. 

The first strategy to borrow from the jazz diplomacy era would be a robust series of tours that elevate Black artists and other artists of color who can serve as successful cultural ambassadors. The American Music Abroad program already recruits artists to facilitate musical and cultural exchange on behalf of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, but additional emphasis could be given to recruiting artists of color.[27] Another powerful program would be a State Department-sponsored international tour of the musical Hamilton. The musical speaks exactly to both the promises and shortfalls of our nation’s founding, while centering exclusively artists of color in an art form that is as uniquely American as jazz—hip-hop. As well as performing, the actors could collaborate with local artists working on projects with similar themes and facilitate programming for youth, such as hip-hop writing workshops, rap or spoken-word competitions, or theatre and performing arts workshops. There are countless other theatre artists who center racial justice in their work and could perform abroad and collaborate with local playwrights. U.S. Embassies could use their social media pages to highlight these exchanges and amplify local voices that are working on issues of race and racism, either through performance, academia, art, or grassroots organizing. Featuring such voices in State Department programming would offer legitimacy to those efforts while respecting the local context. 

Finally, those embassies that have a strong relationship with their Peace Corps and Fulbright counterparts could work to develop culturally appropriate curriculum for local Peace Corps Volunteers and Fulbright English Teaching Assistants to use in their classrooms, English clubs, and youth projects. Peace Corps Volunteers in particular are a highly effective medium through which to reach youth in any given country as they can adapt content specifically to their local context, are trusted members of their communities, and often work in rural areas otherwise not reached by U.S. government programming.[28] Such educational toolkits could aim to educate youth about Black history in America while opening the door to discussions about local issues of race and ethnicity.

Internal Diversity and Inclusion

It would be difficult to implement any of this programming if Foreign Service Officers themselves are, at best, apathetic to, and at worst, hostile to current issues of racial inequity in the United States. The State Department needs to think carefully about the officers they are recruiting and if necessary, amend their assessment process to ensure they are hiring diplomats who will support a diverse corps that represents America and will work towards global goals of racial justice. Although specific recommendations for internal reform are beyond the scope of this article, the State Department should adopt large-scale policies to directly address their problems of retention and promotion of Black and other officers of color. Centering issues of race and racism in their public diplomacy strategy by elevating Black Americans’ contributions to American history and racial justice efforts would be a meaningful first step.

Conclusion

The Biden administration will have to repair our significantly damaged global standing. Working with our allies—and adversaries—on common issues will not be possible until the United States can restore global trust in its leadership. If accompanied by substantial change at home, addressing our reputation abroad on issues of racism and police brutality will be a meaningful improvement, though a problem of this scale will require bold and creative solutions. Although America has never fully lived up to its promised ideals, the relentless efforts of so many Americans to continue pursuing them throughout our history is exactly what inspires others around the world in their own pursuit of racial justice and human rights. U.S. leadership has an opportunity to lead global efforts for racial equity, and empower others around the world to speak out—just as American protestors did in the summer of 2020. It is up to America’s newest leaders not to let that opportunity go to waste.

About the Author

Nellie Petlick is an M.A. Global Affairs candidate at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. She previously served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine and worked at EducationUSA, the State Department network that promotes U.S. higher education abroad. At Jackson, she focuses on public diplomacy and U.S. foreign policy, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Endnotes

1. Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Katie Benner, “Trump Deploys the Full Might of Federal Law Enforcement to Crush Protests,” The New York Times, June 2, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/politics/trump-law-enforcement-protests.html.

2.  “Can the U.S. Shake Its Image Problem? Rating World Leaders: 2020,” Gallup, 2020, https://www.gallup.com/analytics/315803/rating-world-leaders-2020.aspx.

3.  “Can the U.S. Shake Its Image Problem? Rating World Leaders: 2020,” Gallup, 2020, https://www.gallup.com/analytics/315803/rating-world-leaders-2020.aspx; “Rating World Leaders: 2018,” Gallup, 2018, 2, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000161-0647-da3c-a371-867f6acc0001.

4. Richard Wike, Janell Fetterolf, and Mara Mordecai, “U.S. Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,” Pew Research, September 15, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/09/15/us-image-plummets-internationally-as-most-say-country-has-handled-coronavirus-badly/.

5. The Movement for Black Lives is a coalition of more than 50 groups and organizations that represent the interests of Black communities across the United States, including the Black Lives Matter network. https://m4bl.org/

6. Steven A. Cook, “The Middle East Doesn’t Admire America Anymore,” Foreign Policy, February 5, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/02/05/the-middle-east-doesnt-admire-america-anymore/.

7.  “COVID-19 and the Disproportionate Impact on Black Americans,” University of Michigan School of Public Health, July 1, 2020, https://sph.umich.edu/news/2020posts/covid-19-and-the-disproportionate-impact-on-black-americans.html.

8.  “Demonstrations & Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020,” ACLED, September 3, 2020, https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/.

9. Darrell Bricker, “Global Support for Peaceful Floyd Protests in U.S. with Majority Saying Response Is Appropriate,” Ipsos, June 19, 2020, https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/Global-Support-For-Peaceful-Floyd-Protests-In-US-With-Majority-Saying-Response-Appropriate.

10. Damien Cave, Livia Albeck-Ripka, and Iliana Magra, “Huge Crowds Around the Globe March in Solidarity Against Police Brutality,” The New York Times, June 6, 2020, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/world/george-floyd-global-protests.html.

11. Ken Dilanian, “China, Russia, Iran Using State Media to Attack U.S. over Floyd Death,” NBC News, June 3, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-russia-iran-using-state-media-attack-u-s-over-n1223591.

12. Ibid.

13. Matthew Wallin, “A New American Message: Fixing the Shortfalls in America’s Message to the World,” American Security Project, 2019, 4, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep19827.

14.  “Department of State: Action Plan Needed to Reduce Persistent Foreign Service Vacancies at Overseas Posts,” United States Government Accountability Office, March 2019, 8, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-19-220.pdf.

15. Christopher Richardson, “The State Department Was Designed to Keep African-Americans Out,” The New York Times, June 23, 2020, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/state-department-racism-diversity.html.

16. Julie Nutter, “The Foreign Service by the Numbers,” American Foreign Service Association, January 2020, http://www.afsa.org/foreign-service-numbers.

17. Tianna Spears, “I Was a U.S. Diplomat. Customs and Border Protection Only Cared That I Was Black.,” POLITICO, August 30, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/30/black-us-diplomat-customs-border-protection-cbp-detained-harassed-325676; Charles Ray, “How U.S. Border Agents Mistreat Black American Diplomats,” Washington International Diplomatic Academy, June 7, 2020, https://diplomaticacademy.us/2020/06/07/ray-border-agents-abuse-black-diplomats/; Lara Jakes, “A Reckoning With Race to Ensure Diversity for America’s Face Abroad,” The New York Times, June 27, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/us/politics/a-reckoning-with-race-to-ensure-diversity-for-americas-face-abroad.html.

18. Mel Levine, Rockwell Schnabel, and Jay Wang, “American Public Diplomacy Is Our Country’s Best Foreign Policy Tool,” TheHill, September 19, 2017, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/351311-american-public-diplomacy-is-our-countrys-best-foreign-policy-tool.

19. Pamela Hyde Smith, “The Hard Road Back to Soft Power,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 8, no. 1 (2007): 117.

20. James E. Dillard, “All That Jazz: CIA, Voice of America, and Jazz Diplomacy in the Early Cold War Years, 1955-1965,” American Intelligence Journal 30, no. 2 (2012): 39.

21. Ibid., 41.

22. Ibid., 46.

23. Ibid., 43.

24.  “Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy & International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2018 Budget Data,” United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2019, 2, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-ACPD-Annual-Report.pdf.

25.  “U.S. Study Abroad Continues to Increase and Diversify,” USA StudyAbroad, November 9, 2018, https://studyabroad.state.gov/value-study-abroad/highlights-and-activities/us-study-abroad-continues-increase-and-diversify; Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, “The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program,” U.S. Department of State, May 2016, 10, https://eca.state.gov/files/bureau/gilman_infographic_report_-_2016.pdf.

26.  “Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Notice of Funding Opportunity: FY 2019 Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program,” U.S. Department of State, 2019, 5, https://eca.state.gov/files/bureau/fy19_gilman_scholarship_nofo.pdf.

27.  “American Music Abroad | Administered by American Voices,” https://americanmusicabroad.org/.

28.  “Peace Corps Works: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of 21 Host Country Impact Studies,” Peace Corps Office of Strategic Information, Research, and Planning, November 2016, 4, https://files.peacecorps.gov/documents/open-government/Peace_Corps_Works_Cross-Sectional_Analysis_of_21_Host_Country_Impact_Studies.pdf.