Cold Wars and civil rights: an American reversal
Civil rights advancement was key to ideological competition with the USSR, but today’s China Cold Warriors work against racial justice
The Cold War was a catalyst for advancements in civil rights in the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans and Soviets competed for hearts and minds around the world. Peoples in Africa and Asia strived for self-determination. Decolonialization was in full swing.
In this ideological marketplace, America’s selling points were democracy, liberty and freedom. However, a “democratic United States had a problem,” the State Department’s diplomacy museum explains. “It could not claim democracy as the best form of government when millions of its citizens experienced racial discrimination and segregation.”
“Early on in the Cold War, there was a recognition that the U.S. couldn’t lead the world if it was seen as repressing people of color,” said Mary Dudziak in an Atlantic article that attributes her book, “Cold War Civil Rights,” as the seminal work on the topic.
Soviet propagandists took full advantage, using real incidents and images to portray the United States as riven by racial bigotry and segregation, undercutting America’s attempt at conveying shared values to what we call today the Global South. The Soviet message sunk in because everyone could see it was accurate.
American policymakers responded by doing what was not only politically opportune but morally right. 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate schools. 1956’s Browder v. Gayle to desegregate buses. 1964’s Civil Rights Act. 1965’s Voting Rights Act. There was common cause between those Cold Warriors and the civil rights movement.
Today, some claim the United States is in a New Cold War with China, such as former Congressman Gallagher and former Trump adviser Matt Pottinger, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the Heritage Foundation.
Like the Soviets, today’s Chinese propagandists are also playing up racial injustice in the United States, claiming racism and “political disorder, inter-ethnic conflicts, and social division” as evidence of the corruption of the American political system. And like the USSR, this criticism is highly disingenuous given the societal racism and officially-sanctioned ethnic repression inside China.
The Black Lives Matter movement sparked waves of sympathy and support for racial justice around the world. But the New Cold Warriors are not following the lesson of their predecessors. In fact, they are doing the opposite.
Rather than seek common cause with racial justice advocates, the political confederates of the New Cold Warriors are blocking teaching of the history and study of racism in America, trying to dismatle diversity efforts at federal agencies and prevent anti-racist diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The Supreme Court has rolled back civil rights achievements, including the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action.
Back then, U.S. policymakers sought to win the hearts and minds of a sympathetic global public. But the New Cold Warriors are giving the middle finger to global opinion.
They portray this New Cold War as an ideological competition with China. Yet when offered a chance to draw a bright-line contrast with China, they decline, and instead act to confirm the central message of the Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
It’s a matter of priorities. In the Cold War, U.S. leaders chose to counter Soviet propaganda with domestic policies to elevate America’s image around the world. By contrast, the New Cold Warriors weaponize the CCP propaganda to smear the Black Lives Matter movement. They took CCP propaganda and made a choice to use it against fellow Americans. To hell what the world thinks, book me on Fox News.
In prioritizing domestic political messaging over a complex and nuanced policy response that would be necessary if we were indeed in the ideological competition they claim, it causes us to question the integrity their entire New Cold War/ideological competition narrative. If their motivation is domestic politics rather than foreign policy (as Mike Pomeo’s testimony shows), we should treat it that way.
A better foreign policy approach to China would be to take the high ground. If we seek to be credible in our criticism of the PRC’s inequalities and discrimination against ethnic minorities, we must show the people of China and the world that we are serious about inequality discrimination at home too.
By contrast, the New Cold Warrior approach mimics the CCP response to ethnic discrimination by denying the problem, repealing policies of redress, and banning books and the teaching of history of racism. That is not going to win hearts and minds.