It’s a big problem when the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations trashes her own country with abandon. But the bigger problem is the president who appointed her.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Wednesday gave a highly contentious speech to a highly problematic audience — namely Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, an aggressively ideological outfit often described by critics as a shakedown operation. And of course Sharpton himself, with his history of helping foment deadly riots, fostering anti-Semitism, and flagrantly evading his tax obligations, has no legitimacy as a respectable voice, no matter how often Democratic politicians kowtow to him.
As the ambassadorship to the U.N. is traditionally a far less partisan position (in terms of domestic politics) than most Cabinet posts, it is bad form for Thomas-Greenfield to speak to NAN and praise Sharpton for “a lifetime of activism [that] is an inspiration to all of us.” It is even worse (indeed, wholly wrong on substance and unacceptable from the person representing this nation on the world’s stage) to claim that “white supremacy” was “weaved” into the very “principles” of our founding and that racism is somehow the collective fault of the “society that produces the racist.” (See editorial.)
Much more could be said to refute the ludicrous claim about the principles of a nation specifically and (in its time) uniquely founded upon the “truth” that “all men are created equal,” in a declaration lauded by Frederick Douglass for “the great principles it contains” as he drew “encouragement” also from “the genius of American institutions.” Suffice it to say that white supremacy was not woven into our founding principles. Instead, over time, our nation’s founding principles undermined the practices of white supremacy.
Moreover, it is wrong to say a society that bled a half-million lives to eradicate slavery, which 57 years ago passed the Civil Rights Act, which has practiced affirmative action for half a century, and which aggressively promotes “anti-racism” in almost every sphere of public life is responsible for the remaining racist views held by some benighted individuals.
All this is far worse coming from someone in Thomas-Greenfield’s position. Her job is to represent the United States and its just interests to the rest of the world. Instead, by smearing her own country, she gives cover to truly evil regimes such as China’s to claim not just moral equivalency with us, but moral superiority — which Chinese diplomats did quite publicly just last month. The way to counter outrageous claims about American perfidy is to refute them with copious facts available in our favor, not to accept the castigation and vow to do better.
Alas, Thomas-Greenfield obviously isn’t freelancing. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations would not proudly feature video and full text of the ambassador’s speech to Sharpton’s group if her words didn’t reflect the Biden administration’s official position. For two days, there has been an outcry against her speech, but Biden hasn’t lifted a finger to ask his ambassador to backtrack.
Indeed, her viewpoint is his viewpoint. Biden gladly served as vice president to a man, Barack Obama, who in effect engaged in an “apology tour” for the U.S. Biden for years has pushed the canard that America’s society features not just residual racism, but widespread “institutional racism” that is entirely the fault of “white folks.” And he has a history of nastily playing the “race card,” such as when he told black people that Republicans under the thoroughly inoffensive Mitt Romney were “going to put y’all back in chains.”
Biden’s true colors are showing. A president who lets his ambassadors spread calumny about America worldwide is not a president fit to lead America.
