 I'm Heather Hurlbert. I run the New Models of Policy Change Initiative here at New America, and I'm so happy to welcome you to this event co-sponsored with our partners at Women of Color Advancing Peace Security and Conflict Transformation. Six or eight months ago now, we and a group of authors and thinkers, some affiliated with New America, some with WCAPS, some of whom are here with us today, began talking and writing to think about the question, what would a national security strategy that put racial equity and justice at its heart look like? What would it look like to take the next step from rhetoric to actually trying to develop some policy directions and to think both how we think about security at home and abroad? And we at New America just couldn't have had a better set of partners or a more wonderful experience than the one we've had with the WCAPS team. Whenever we work together, I, number one, learn something and number two, meet someone I'm really excited to collaborate with more in the future, and I hope that will be all of your experience today as you listen into this conversation. To start us off, I'm really excited to introduce Shalanda Spencer, the Executive Director of WCAPS. Shalanda's background, which is in foreign policy, but also early education, hill work, political work, community, activism, is everything we think about when we talk about making security actually relevant to the lived experiences of Americans. I couldn't think of a leader who fits that description better than Shalanda, and I'm really excited to turn the floor over to her. Hello, everybody. My name is Shalanda Spencer, and I serve as the Executive Director of WCAPS. I first want to say thank you all so much for joining with us today on this remarkable conversation on equity and racial justice and foreign policy. It's been great working with New America on this collaborative effort, and we definitely appreciate their allyship. As the Executive Director of WCAPS, one thing that we aim to do is to ensure women of color voices are heard and elevated in this space. So therefore, discussions such as racial inequity within the national security field gives us the opportunity to share our global perspectives on how these issues affect our lives and communities. For a warm introduction to our moderator, Ilana Aquino, with over 15 years of experience in international development and peace building, she has worked on South Sudan return issues and as a peace building program officer. She focused on supporting locally driven women's empowerment initiatives, recognizing women as a crucial factor in solidifying peace gains. In Kenya, she was rapidly promoted from researcher to head of the key coordination between the government of Kenya and 17 international development agencies. She has led the prediction of the national joint assistance strategy for Kenya, targeting their strengths, facilitation communication strategies, supervising teams of experts, website development, research data and risk analysis. Benchmarking global best practices and nurturing partnerships. She has organized the first national development partnership forum in Kenya, which was co-chaired by the prime minister and the regional head of the World Bank with key participation from the UN agencies in the region. She's also a former fellow of the International Peace and Security Institute and currently serves as a chair of the Board of Women of Color Advancing, Peace and Security and Conflict Transformation. Without further ado, I will turn it over to Ilana. Thank you so much. I'm not sure if it was mentioned in there, but I am the U.S. Executive Director of Peace Direct just starting in January, so I'm wearing that hat as well today. I would like to go ahead and introduce our panelists. We are very fortunate to not only have this platform provided by WCAPS and New America who are pushing the leading edge on this topic, but we have four experts with us today who have written on various strands of this topic. So let me go right ahead and introduce them. First, we have Mari Faines. She's Director of Communications and Outreach at Physicians for Social Responsibility. She brings valuable experience to PSR from her background as a Corporate Project Manager, Podcast Host and Diversity and Equity Activist, building on her skills in business and client management, non-profit organizational development, policy, fundraising, communications and marketing. Faines holds a Master's of Science in the Politics of Conflict Rights and Justice from SOAS University of London. Faines also serves as the founder and host of the WCAPS UK podcast, Got Melanin. Welcome Mari Faines. We have also Ted Johnson. Ted is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Fellows Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. His work explores the role that race plays in electoral politics and the American identity. He's also a retired commander in the U.S. Navy following a two decade career that included service as a White House Fellow and speechwriter to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. A proud HBCU graduate, he is the author of When the Stars Begin to Fall, Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America. Next, we'll have Ileana Valle. She's currently serving as a Citizen Security Lead at USAID Colombia, where she oversees the Citizen Security Human Rights and Justice portfolio. Within the Venezuela Response and Integration Office. The VRIO Office works closely with the government of Colombia in its response to the current migration crisis. She also serves as the International Development and Training Lead at WCAPS. Ms. Valle brings considerable on the ground experience, leading locally driven and conceptualized, contextualized interventions worldwide. She has lived and worked in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and Italy. Ms. Valle holds a Master's Degree in International Relations and a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. She has bilingual fluency in English and Spanish with professional proficiency in Portuguese. Dr. Caroline Washington is a retired Army Officer, Colonel. She is an accomplished former Senior Foreign Affairs Officer, Military Diplomat and Attache with extensive Joint Strategic Experience working in Europe, Asia and Africa at US embassies and major regional military commands. And international organizations such as NATO, the United Nations, African Union, European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Dr. Washington holds a PhD in Global Gender Studies from the University at Buffalo with research interests that focus on landmark human rights document United Nations Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and its integration within NATO militaries. Her other degrees include an MA in National Security Affairs from the Naval Post Graduate School and a Master of Strategic Studies from the Army War College. Currently, she's a member of the Board of Directors of WCAPS. So with that, I welcome our very illustrious panel and so glad to have you all here today with this wealth of experience. We will now launch into our discussion. So let's begin. I would like to just note that we are talking about this topic. Reimagining foreign policy, talking about equity and racial justice and where they can fit into our national security strategy at a time where we are also experiencing war all over the globe, not just in one place, but a recent new flash point, of course, in Ukraine. So we do have to acknowledge that as we have this discussion. And to me, that brings up issues of we've been seeing some individuals are able to get out, some are not. So who can get out? Which lives seem to matter as we look at some of these issues and how our national security informs that. So let's start with briefly explaining, if you will, we'll just go one by one through the panel. How you see that U.S. national security focuses on, if it was centered on racial equity and justice, what it could look like in your imaginations? Is there anyone who would like to go first? All right, well, yes. No, I'll hop in because I feel like the first question is the most awkward. I think there are a lot of ways in which the world of national security would look incredibly different if we focused on equity and justice. I think you mentioned earlier, Elena, like talking about the current conflict of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rampant, honestly, anti-blackness that we've seen in the ways that we've treated immigrants and refugees freeing from that country. And so when I think about the ways in which we've handled this conflict, I've been impressed with the diplomacy first model that this administration has taken, I must admit. But when I think about large scale conflict where we've been involved as a country, I am a little taken aback in the ways in which we talk about the civilian and the humanness and the empathy that we show in this current conflict and the apathy that we've honestly shown when it's been conflicts in particularly located in black and brown countries. And I think what's been particularly interesting is so often the American public doesn't talk about foreign policy, right? They're not deeply digested into conversations that I think all of us have in our day-to-day lives due to the nature of our work. But the way in which the media has shaped what foreign policy should look like for America and the way that the general civilian is digesting that has been very interesting because it has called into question, how do we see humans? How do we see civilians and who do we see as equal? And I think if we're talking about a first step in changing foreign policy to be more equitable, we have to start talking about who we as a country deem as a good citizen, deem as a good member of the global community and who we want to help in a wider scale issue. Thank you for that. Yeah, and frankly, I would agree with everything Mari just said. Look, when right after World War II began, rather right after the United States entered World War II, there was a black cafeteria worker in Kansas who wrote into a newspaper that said, hey, look, I'm all for fighting for democracy, protecting the country. But when do I get democracy here? And he advocated for starting what he called a double V campaign where there's victory for democracy abroad, but also victory for democracy here. So a foreign policy, a national security policy in the United States that would that recognizes in centers, racial justice would see that the same challenges we have and have had in our country since our inception are if we're not careful, we will export those challenges elsewhere. As Mari said, anti-blackness has been a feature in how Ukraine has unfolded in parts. Our response to what's happening in Ukraine as laudable as it is, there's less folks who are walking around with Haitian flags on their bodies when climate migrants from Haiti or economic migrants from Haiti were trying to enter the United States. There's less sympathy, less empathy for black folks who have experienced what the Ukrainians are experiencing now because of the ontology of that country, the way the people look, the culture that they represent. And so when we have a foreign policy that doesn't reckon with the racism that exists here in our country, then we begin to view conflicts elsewhere just as we have viewed our history, which is to say we whitewash a lot of the things happening there and only pay attention to the pieces that are most comfortable and most aligned to our history and don't confront some of the more complicated uglier truths that undergird our conflicts around the world. Great. If I can jump in as well, and I absolutely echo everything that my colleagues have mentioned, and I think one thing that to also keep in mind, when we talk about U.S. national security strategies, and we at WCAS we've always talked about what it means to step out of traditional national security lens and redefining national security and what that can translate to more economic security, food security, climate security, and looking at it from the perspective of how communities of color, black and brown communities have been impacted by a lot of these issues, both domestically and abroad. And then to me, including that racial equity and justice lens, would mean to understand what that history has looked like and what it means for these black and brown communities facing some of these insecurities around the globe. And just looking at the way that just we focus on there's a term that we use a lot in sort of the decolonizing aid of movement when we talk about the white gaze. And so just kind of focusing on, whether it's the audience reading or whether it's who we're protecting, that sort of that white gaze and making sure that we diversify how we see conflict in war across the globe. And I think that's very important. It's been very disappointing to see how all of a sudden, yes, there's that significant empathy for the Ukrainian people, which I absolutely share, but there's also a great empathy that I also share for the Afghan people as well, that have also been adversely impacted by Russian aggression historically. So I think that that is very important to acknowledge and address. Carolyn? Working abroad and internationally and as a military diplomat, one of the things that I would like to see as an indication of racial equity is that I walk into a room and I am no longer surprised. I'm no longer surprised that I am the only person of color in that room implementing US foreign policy, whether civilian or military uniform. So what does that look like? What I think more equity looks like, especially in armed forces, since we're an important tool of promoting a US foreign policy abroad, is that first of all, there's 41% of the minority population in military and you look at that and you're like, hey, that's a great number. But when you peel back the onion, especially if you look in terms of black women in the army, you see that at 30% and you say, hey, we got a critical mass. But when you start looking, you find that they're mostly based in administrative, logistical, or communications type positions, which is nothing wrong with that. People need to get paid and other things need to happen administratively. But I think that we need to have a special recruitment effort to make sure that we look, we send our forces out, that we look like what we're trying to portray as a democracy, especially in the higher ranks where I served as what we call a foreign area officer. The first time I met another officer of color is in my 28th year of my military service and that person happened to be working in Africa and I was working in Europe. So I think we need to, as we project our military around the world, we need to show that we have diversity, especially at the higher ranks where decisions are being made, where policies are being implemented, that we look like the face of democracy. And that's one of the things that I like to see as we talk about racial equity, especially important policy as it concerns the armed forces. And there are some efforts to do that, to recruit more folks. In my case, I just received a letter and said congratulations, you've been accepted. And so I think we need to some smart person identify that, you know, I would be a useful person in that field and they made a decision to do that. So I'd like to see more diversity in terms of higher positions, military positions, especially as we are our presenters, our faces to the international community. Thank you. So we've mentioned some very interesting things here. I want to come back to the conversation about white gaze and linking that to our current national security strategy. So Eliana, I think you began to discuss it. Can you give a little bit more detail for our listening audience? What do you mean by white gaze? And how do you see it impacting our current national security strategy? Sure. So white gaze is essentially sort of the lens with which we you formulate policies of which we formulate our national security, right? Everything is based on sort of this white perspective or the white, you know, essentially the white supremacy culture, right? There's different lenses, depending on which community we're talking about and not just, you know, sort of the white community. And so when I talk about the white gaze international security, it's essentially how does national security affect black and brown communities, not just white communities around the globe, not just white communities within our, you know, here in the U.S. And so that's essentially, you know, eliminating that sort of prominent way in which we see our national security strategies or how we formulate public policies is the first step, in my opinion, to it's transitioning into more of a racial, more racial equity and justice sort of lens that we need in order to address a lot of the challenges that we see around the globe today. And so that's that can be that can be applicable to when it comes to national security, that's applicable when it comes to, you know, foreign assistance, that's applicable, just, you know, just about in anything. And we still continue to see the system with which a lot of these, even from our multilateral systems that we see today have been based on this white gaze that with which we see issues around the globe. So I'll leave it to my colleagues if they would like to kind of add a little bit more. Yeah, I just want to add here, just to give you a sense of like what this would look like in practice, when after World War II, you know, we, the United States, in turn Japanese Americans under the idea that maybe they were spying for the Japanese and we were now at war with them. But we were also at war with Germany and Italy, but we didn't in turn German Americans, we didn't round them up, we didn't round up Italian Americans, even though we were at war with them. And part of the reason of this, you know, it just goes alongside the racism we've been talking about, but also the fact that there were no Japanese Americans in Congress until 1959, I think. So the fact the lack of representation in our democratic bodies and institutions leads to a persecution of a certain kind of American and the sort of grace extended to other kinds of Americans, despite the fact that if we're thinking about this strictly from a national security lens, that led us to incarcerate Japanese Americans, there would have been a lot more folks rounded up after 9 11. If you, you know, we like to pay attention to all of the unity and the rally around the flag effect that happened. But if you were Arabic in this country, if you were Muslim in this country, if you were a Sikh in this country, you experienced a rise in hate crime, mosques were vandalized, and you felt excluded from this. And so when we have a view of foreign policy that mirrors our view of race in this country, we not only export bad foreign policy, we actually persecute fellow Americans, because we've allowed racism to cloud our judgment. So this this idea when we center white identity, and on top of American foreign policy, we end up doing both things that is domestic policy and national security policy very poorly, because we've got a biased and jaded view that ends up, again, not making us more secure and actually harming our ability to find unity here at home. On that very same note, I think it's been in this moment in particular, as we talk about everybody wanting to do diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. And justice, the white gaze and the white savior complex has played a very interesting role in how we've decided to talk about equity issues, both at home and abroad, because we've seen this moment where we've centered whiteness as a way to save other communities, because we are looking at other communities as a monolithic narrative. So whether we're talking about what are the needs of black people or Asian people or Latinx people or Arab people in the United States, we speak to what does that entire group need, but we don't actually get to the root of having conversations, whether we're talking domestically or abroad, going into spaces and saying, let's learn about these people, let's learn about this culture, let's understand. And I think that's where we're getting into trouble when we're talking about decolonizing spaces is we're skipping a step, like we actually have skipped a step both policy wise and on the ground where the listening ear that we need to have when we're understanding these groups is not central to our conversation, either the academic theorizing on who are these people from a centralized view of whiteness, which is centered as the majority, both in this country and in all Western contexts, if we're going to be honest. Thank you for those insightful comments. So with that said, and laying what we've been discussing so far as our base, does equity and racial justice fit in the national security strategy and the national security conversation? And if so, where? So yes, absolutely. And at every stage, the idea here isn't to sift every foreign policy decision and every national security decision through a racial equity lens, and then decide what comes out the back end, it's to integrate equity and justice at every phase of the decision making cycle to include who's making the decision who's in the room to include thinking about disparate impacts for when we implement decisions so that we're not maybe unexpectedly or unintentionally harming communities that we understand need help. And it also means taking a step back and assessing why we have taken the actions we've taken and the places we've taken them. Why have we decided to intervene in some places and ignore others? Why do we not think about the Rwandan genocide as much as we think about others? Why do we not think about economic inequality in sub-Saharan Africa or in parts of Southeast Asia in the same way that we think about it in Western economies? And this isn't to say that the people making decisions are intentionally racist or harbor racial hatred for other groups, but if you don't proactively think about where how biases play out in your decision making cycle, you replicate the hierarchies that existed when you began the decision making process. So to integrate justice throughout, to integrate equity throughout means to be very aware about all of the ways these that inequities can factor into decision making cycles and then take proactive steps to work those inequities out of it so that whatever how we present ourselves to the world, we're doing it in a way that's even and fair and just and not in a way that again replicates inequality and injustice that's happening already. I want to ask a question to Carolyn, but I first want to let our audience know, please feel free. In fact, we very much encourage you to formulate questions and share them so that we can see what aspects of this you'd like to hear more about. So Carolyn question for you with your military experience. Do you think that there is room inside of our defense of our military to conceptualize these kinds of ideas about racial justice and equity? I'm sorry, I missed the last part. You froze up. I don't know if it's my screen or your screen. What was the last part before you say conceptualize? Yes. Yes. I was saying with your experience and background, do you think there's room within the military to take on board these ideas of equity and racial justice? Oh, absolutely. In fact, when you think of the military, it seems to be a mystery to a lot of people because less than 1% of us actually are members of the military. We're a product of society, so we come in with the same ideas as other American citizens, and of course, there's room. In fact, I think the military has to make more concerted effort to ensure that there's gender and equality, racial equality, because we need to make sure that everybody's on the same sheet of music and that we have equality and equity within the forces so that we can go outward and work in other areas and promote that also. When Ted was speaking, what it reminded me of when he was talking about a lot of times, when I looked at working in military through a gender lens, I talked about gender perspectives and a gender analysis, a systematic approach that as you look at different security needs to those people that we're providing protection for, for example, you take into consideration, you're walking through the steps and looking at their security needs, their norms, access to resources, power and balances, all of that. And I think if you use the racial equity lens to do that, to mirror that, then you'd be able to do that. But of course, there's always room in the military to make sure that we practice that, especially since we're at the forefront of going out and actually showing us out through the world as part of the America's foreign policy. So absolutely, there's room and there are initiatives in place to do that. There is a gentleman, Bishop Garrison, and I can't think of this as a title, but he actually has the DEI, a program near and they're very concentrated efforts to make sure that we are inclusive within the military at all levels, especially as folks move up through ranks and make sure they're in decision making positions so that we can have more equitable decisions that reflect our racial diversity in the military. Thank you for that. And I think there are two things working at the same time here. So we have, on one hand, this sort of internal, our institutions internally in the United States, making sure that they are inclusive internally, working on our DEI, if you will, internally. And then we also have how we view ourselves as actors on the global stage in terms of our foreign policy and whether or not that is inclusive, whether it's equitable, whether we're putting the power in the hands of the people who are actually in the situations, dealing with the conflicts, some of the bravest peace-building people are local people that we can lift up. So speaking to that second element of how we shape our policy towards the world, what could we do better as the United States as a government to actually shape it in a more equitable way? So recently I've been of the ilk you have to get your house in order before you go over to somebody else's house and tell them how to clean their kitchen. And that is the, that is the, the mind frame I'm taking right now as we talk about how do we project our foreign policy onto other countries, particularly in other countries where whiteness is not centered, global majority black and brown countries. And so, you know, I think about this pandemic, right, this pandemic exacerbated the ways in which our health system in the United States is incredibly inequitable for black and brown people versus non-black and brown people. We saw that both about access to education, access to healthcare, who was going to work, we can run the litany of things. But then if you look on a global scale, right, the same thing was happening, who was getting access to vaccines, what was the WTO saying about who had access to patents, et cetera. And so when I was thinking about the ways in which we enter into conflict with others, the ways in which we decide who are we going to save, I think Ted said it earlier, we're projecting our own understandings of race onto other countries so often when we step into the space, the ways in which we've created a racialized hierarchy and decided what is best for certain pockets and populations and how they run a monolithic narrative that we must save them. We take that and then we implement it in foreign countries. So for me, the first place that we have to look, honestly, is inward. We have to decide that we are going to make real changes and implement real systems to put people in power who, A, understand these regions, B, are of these places, and C, understand these communities. Because until we get to a place where the conversation is not one-sided for one viewpoint, we're not going to push anything forward. We're going to keep continuing to instigate conflict in spaces where that wasn't necessary and not provide needs for people that they were actually asking for. Thank you for that. Anyone else want to comment? Yeah, I wanted to just chime in and echo a little bit. I'm absolutely in the same sort of way of thinking in terms of getting your house in order. One of the things that I'm currently based in Bogota, Colombia. One of the things that we always talk about from a Latin American regional perspective is the how unequal it is, the level of inequalities that exist throughout the region. But if you really take a look at the inequalities within the US, there's an actual statistic that measures inequality, the Gini coefficient. The US is one of the lowest ranking within the G7 economies based on the OECD. So starting from addressing inequalities at home and then trying to address inequalities in other parts of the world. Anybody else? Yeah, very quickly. Woodrow Wilson was the president that said he wanted to make the world safe for democracy. And he said this in 1917 when democracy wasn't safe for a lot of folks here. This is again the idea that as folks have said that you kind of have to have a better understanding of race here if you want to ensure that you account for race in the way it plays out in foreign policy elsewhere. If we mythologize our version of democracy as being the epitome of governance and then try to force Afghanistan, force Iraq to mimic American democracy as if we figured the thing out, then we shouldn't be surprised when that democracy crumbles in the same way that ours has in the past. We had a civil war with a million casualties that wasn't over nothing. We had a country that was founded on the idea that all men are created equal and they allowed slavery to persist at the same time. So again, if we don't address the paradoxes in our own democracy, then we shouldn't be surprised when our foreign policy creates paradoxes in the nations in which we insist on installing our version of it there. Well said, Carolyn. One of the things that can you hear me? You hear me now? Yes. I'm having some connection problems. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. One of the things I like about WCAPs is that its emphasis on redefining national security and especially redefining national security in terms of what it means to woman of color. And I think I agree with the other speakers who stated how we have to start domestically before we start looking at our foreign policy. I mean, for instance, how many folks think about having an encounter with law enforcement personnel and not coming out on the right end of that, you know, maybe it's going to be your last day or because of your encounter or going to get medical treatment as a woman of color and not being taken seriously for whatever elements that you present. So it's kind of difficult to present and talk about security internationally when you're feeling like you're not secured home. And I've talked to women of color before about things like the plight of the Afghan women and children and what they're going through and other issues of what's happening in Ukraine now. And their first thing is they feel very sorry about that. But they want to talk about the bullets that are flying in their own neighborhoods, the fact that they have to make a decision when they go to the gas pump between whether to fill up or put food on the table. And they're concerned about their girls finishing school, that sort of thing. So it begins at the domestic level, and then it filters out to our foreign policy. Thank you for that. It's very insightful. Okay, a final question before we turn to our audience who have been listing several questions. So what threats do you see to this new kind of foreign policy centered on equity and racial justice that we've been sort of imagining and describing together now? What threats are out there? I think there are a bunch of different threats. When I think specifically about what the U.S. traditionally describes as national security, I think of hard security. We talk about defense military spending that's got a $700 plus million dollar budget. We talk about that as a need for security. But a new and just form of national security for most populations, in particular for black and brown populations, is talking about fixing their insecurities. It looks like soft security. For me, the issues are things like fixing voter suppression and access to education, health care, worrying about things like police violence and racial injustice. That lit me up thing that we're just trying to get somebody from that, when we listed you want a constitution as three-fifths of a person to really being indemnified with the unalienable rights that you were supposed to have in this country. And so the challenges are, as we think about the midterms coming up in the elections and whatnot, we've already seen the backlash to this push towards a more equitable and just society. And that last quell of people who truly believe in this systematic racial white supremacy, they haven't gone anywhere. If anything, they've been more emboldened in this moment. And so for me, dealing with those issues, thinking about how do we push those things forward in ways that we have honestly not been able to do, the fact that it took 200 efforts to pass the Emmett Till-Lynching Act, that tells you a lot about where we are. And so fixing those places with people like that still in power is really a key challenge that I see right now and honestly moving forward. Yeah, whenever there's been a multiracial coalition that's formed on these shores, the way that coalition has been broken is by turning different races and ethnicities within the coalition against one another. Whether it's 1676 and Bacon's Rebellion, whether it's 1898 when in the coup in Wilmington where white and black folks won city government seats, and then a coup happened, the white segregation is overthrew that multiracial coalition to take over local government power, the Postal Strike of 1970, appealing to urban postal workers in one way and to white postal workers in another, all the time these coalitions are broken on race. If we are able to achieve a multiracial egalitarian society and have a foreign policy that is structured on that multiracial aspect of it, then other nations are going to try to attack us by turning races against one another within the United States. Racism has always been a vulnerability for us. You know, World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, other nations have tried to exploit racial difference to suggest that we're not one country. And we don't have to guess at this. Right now there are Americans who believe that this nation should be a white Christian nationalist country who admire what Putin is doing and want the same thing for here, for us to be centered on white identity and not on the idea that we're all created equal. And so the thing that gives us our strength, which is an ability to find solidarity across lines of race, is also the thing that other nations will try to attack in order to break up that solidarity and weaken the country at large. Thank you for that. Any last comments, Caroline, Eliana? Yeah, just kind of what I think. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, Eliana and then Caroline. Okay. Just to kind of echo on that, you know, that, you know, it's such a vicious cycle, right, with Mari mentioned, you know, access to education and just education, quality education and actually getting black and brown communities to be able to access some of the resources to then have careers in foreign affairs in government. As long as our government continues to reflect sort of this white identity, that's going to continue to create sort of this threat. You know, right now our current administration is focusing a lot on diversity, equity and inclusion, but how has that actually translated into, you know, what we see in government and not just in government, in positions of leadership and at the decision making tables. It continues to be, you know, the same folks, the same actors. We may have a few, you know, sprinkling of black and brown professionals, but at the lower levels, I mean, is that really going to make the difference that is needed? And so long as we don't get serious with reflecting what Caroline said earlier about what, you know, our diversity, a reflection of our democracy, then we're going to continue to be at this vulnerable, to have this vulnerability. What I consider to be a really big threat to national security is gender-based violence, and this cuts across racial lines, and it affects individuals both here in our country, and you can't have security, you can't have security in your own person in a threat from personal violence. And it's kind of hard for you to focus on other areas of national security. And I think one thing I do like that the current administration has done is they come up with a national strategy for gender equity and equality. And one of the 10 priorities of that strategy is elimination of gender-based violence, and they've even gone as far as to a call for the creation, which is in process now, of a gender-based violence national action plan, which actually looks at the different areas of gender-based violence and how they impact focus on women and girls, but women and girls are not the only ones who are suffering from gender-based violence. You have boys and men and also other genders, and I think this is an important step into first looking domestically and making sure that people are safe and feel good about themselves. And gender-based violence also is a leading cause of inequality and injustice because it's all about power. And so I think this is wanted to be one of the most pressing areas of national security that I consider a threat to national security as gender-based violence. And luckily, our government is taking some steps to ensure that we work towards eliminating this threat. Yeah, thank you for weaving that in, Karla, and raising our awareness and sensitivities of that. Okay, we'll now turn over to questions from the audience. Let's have a look. There's one specifically for you, Caroline, if you will. So someone asked, Dr. Washington, you spoke a bit about recruitment efforts to promote racial equity and diversity in the military. Are there any good models of what this looks like? Okay, in terms of, let me see, recruitment models. Well, I tell you what, in terms of what I would like to see, I would see I think a great recruitment effort and I don't know about models specifically, but I think a great recruitment effort would be to ensure that we not only have minorities who are seen to be segmented to certain professions in the military, and a lot of this is by choice. They come in and they choose especially professions that they think they will be able to transition to in civilian life. But recently, there was a model, let me go back a few years ago, where they had the highest number of Black women graduating from West Point. And I think it was a landmark thing that happened in about 30 plus, and they actually had a photo of these women. So I think, I don't know how that blends in with recruiting or whether these women were actually targeted, but I can see the results that for the first time you had this large group of Black women who were actually part of West Point and who will go on to be leaders. I think more can be done in terms of recruitment of officers, which a lot of times has to do with recommendations from congressmen and other key officials like that. I think they should look at their districts and have special efforts to go out and actually recruit within the Black community to make sure that we have a leadership that resembles what we think democracy should look like, because even with 41% of the military being comprised of minority members, when you look at the leadership, essentially the military is being led by white men. So I think that's one area that I would like to see some recruitment efforts. I think that would be a great model is for congressional recommendations to focus on going into the Black communities and Black schools to try to recruit folks for your service academies. Okay, so I think we have time for one question left because there are a couple of questions that I can combine that I would love to have each of your concluding thoughts on. So apologies to folks who may have put questions that we won't have time to get to, but here's one. The question is, is this an example the way our national security strategy currently is? Is it an example of institutional racism? How can we change this? And adding on the question of where can we, how can people get involved in these kind of conversations? Where can they get involved in this to discuss root causes and actually begin to deconstruct these frameworks? And how do we keep gatekeepers out of those conversations or minimize blockages to allow for the most free discussion of this? Anyone feel free? Yeah, so to the first question, actually let me start with the second one. The thing I would say is right, right, right. There are so many avenues now where people who have ideas about what our national security policy should look like, they don't have to wait until some major newspaper calls them to ask for their opinion. They can take to whatever mediums are out there and whether social media or, you know, substacks, mediums like these other places that don't have the kind of gatekeeping that only want a certain cohort of experts to participate in and to comment on. So it's critically important. The writing aspect of it is really important. It helps you hone your thoughts, but also helps get your ideas out into the public sphere and try to influence the conversation. So that's what I'd say to the second part of that question. When you look at the interim national security strategy, you'll see that there is an emphasis there on not only gender equality, but intersectionality, whether you're looking at race or a sexual orientation or any other the intersection factors that can contribute to racial inequality or other kinds of inequality. So I think that's a step in the right direction. And then you also see how that's filtered into other policies, government policies that I mentioned, like the national strategy on gender equity and equality. So I can see that there's some steps at least in writing to move us forward in those areas to ensure that we have greater racial equity in our foreign policy. I think to call, I'm going to attempt to tackle the first question and we'll see how well I do. I think to call this institutionalized racism would be simplistic if I'm going to be completely honest with you. America was foundationalized on a system that centralized whiteness, if you think about the fact that it eradicated an entire population and people and then invented shadow slavery and then continued to create cycles of oppression to continue systems of power, whether we are talking about from slavery to reconstruction to Jim Crow to civil rights, to the war on drugs, to mass incarceration. And we can talk about the ways in which those cycles particularly affected Black and brown people, the ways in which they attacked families and had gender issues and run the gamut and all of those things and all of those systems of power are foundational to what we talk about in a policy principle. And so when we're trying to do this work of decolonizing, of creating, you know, anti-racist practices, we're attempting to eradicate systems that have existed since the inception of this country. And so if we're going to attempt to do that, I agree with both Dr. Washington and she talked about, I can see that this administration is attempting to put steps on paper that says, this is how we might think about changing this. I agree with Ted in honing your voice, writing, finding your space. I encourage people to find groups like WCAPs like New America where people are having these dialogues. I started a podcast, it was really cathartic, you know, find the spaces where you can engage in this conversation. People are having these nuanced talks and the more that we can make the mainstream conversations, rather than siloed conversations, then we will start to see systems of power to change. There is power in grassroots advocacy and making policy implementation when it is unified. And I think that's what we're starting to see a little bit more of as we move forward. So, you know, just to chime in, I completely agree with getting involved, you know, the way that a democracy should operate is we hold our public officials accountable. So, although we see that there are great promising steps in the right direction, it's us, you know, a civil society, you know, keeping our sort of our leaders accountable for what they say that they're going to do. And getting involved and getting engaged and, you know, right now we have sort of this deficit of voices of color that need to come to the fore. And I know there, you know, WCAPs in New America is doing such a good job of sort of engaging these other perspectives from the communities of color. But it's, you know, one thing I should say is, you know, the new generations and not losing hope. I feel like there's, you know, there's a tendency to become jaded with how things have, how things were built, how things operate and just being part of the system and just learning how to navigate what currently exists. But I do encourage folks to challenge the status quo to, and by that, you know, is by bringing your perspectives. These are important to be included in the conversations. Otherwise, these white, you know, the white gaze will continue to predominate, you know, the dialogue that were that are being had. And so I do encourage that participation, particularly by our younger generations. And then in terms of getting engaged, you know, there's so many organizations right now having these conversations, getting, you know, understanding where they are, who they are, what they're talking about, you know, providing a perspective on what is being said. And I do encourage women of color to become involved and all plug sort of WCAPs here and become members, because this is a space that we've created, particularly to elevate women of color and elevate their voices in these spaces, from opportunities to write, you know, write, whether it's an op-ed or a kind of publication on a particular issue that's relevant to the community, to communities of color. And also elevating them to get to, you know, positions of power within, within, you know, our government apparatus and so on. So, you know, so far, one of my biggest efforts has been to include more of the Latino voice within these spaces that, you know, from the communities of color, you know, I tend to really see even less of the Latino voice, particularly as we continue to see more issues in the Western Hemisphere and getting those perspectives, you know, one thing that I find interesting, so I am working issues on the Venezuelan migration and how that's affecting the region. My parents, my parents are from Osavador and migrated, right? So, like, I have that perspective of what it's like to actually you know, grow up in a different country and what it's like to actually be a part of a diaspora community. And those are the unique perspectives that we need in these conversations. Well, thank you very much to each of you for your, for your perspective. I would just say conclusion before turning it back over to, to our host, when we envision it and imagine into what it could look like if our foreign policy was equity and justice centered, we can think about demilitarization, right? How much we spent on the military. Imagine if we spent even 1% of that on peace, on peace efforts and supporting people who are out there already risking their lives every day for peace. What about freedom of movement, you know, where people can move as a choice, not as a, as a force with violence. These are, these are some of the, the issues I think, you know, that we, we can count on involving youth. Youth leaders are out there. USAID and others have said that now they will focus much more on youth. Well, can we have a youth peace and security act to lift up youth and women. So I will leave it there. I think that this has been a risk, rich and robust conversation. Now I will turn it back over to our hosts, Shalanda and Heather. On behalf of New America and WCAPs, thank you all so much for coming today. Thank you for our tremendous panelists and you can go to wcaps.org or newamerica.org and find the set of essays that many of the panelists contributed to and participated and continue in the conversation that way. Thanks for joining us.