For too long in the West, primarily the United States and Western Europe, the continent of Africa has been viewed as peripheral to world affairs. It was thought of only in terms of the natural resources that could be extracted from it or as a place of poverty, violence, and disasters—natural and man-made.

Given their life experiences, People of Color (POC) and women already possess many of the skills to succeed in diplomacy. These include cross-cultural communications, linguistic competence, and acceptance of practices absent from life in the United States and Western countries.

The Biden administration faces the opportunity to reset U.S. policy towards Africa and possesses a variety of tools to use in doing so, including traditional diplomacy, economic statecraft, development assistance, and military engagement.

When I served as the U.S. Department of States Diplomat in Residence at the University of Houston (TX) during the 2005-2006 academic year, in addition to recruiting and mentoring college students interested in taking the Foreign Service Exam, I did a lot of speaking on diplomacy and foreign relations in the southeast and south Texas.

What is a Diplomat in Residence in 2020?

In order to reach out to potential future Foreign Service Officers (FSOs), the Department of State places experienced officers at colleges and universities in sixteen regions of the United States.

The deaths of Christopher Slutman of Newark, Delaware, Robert A. Hendriks of Locust Valley, New York, and Benjamin S. Hines of York, Pennsylvania take the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Afghanistan this year to seven.

During my 50+ years in government, 20 years in the military and just over 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, I have been privileged to have been assigned to a number of challenging leadership positions.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Harriet Elam-Thomas spent a brilliant Foreign Service career successfully encouraging communications between American publics and our foreign interlocutors in order to promote mutual understanding and support for U.S. foreign policy.