Racial Tension in US Foreign Policy

Professor Nikhil Singh

What role did the American history of racial conflict play in setting its post-9/11 foreign policies? Is racial tension in the United States responsible for American actions abroad? Professor Nikhil Singh of the University of Washington attempted to answer those questions and others in a lecture entitled, "Race and Empire in the Logic of US World Power." Sponsored by the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR), the lecture was held in West Hall on March 28.

Singh began his talk with a brief history of racism, beginning with the American Civil War (1861-65) and continuing with the civil rights era in the mid-twentieth century. But despite advancement in the struggle against racism, he said, prejudice against black Americans has not yet been completely eliminated.

Professor Singh pointed out what he perceived as racist intentions behind the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and also indicated that racism may have been behind the war in Vietnam. Touching on the ongoing war in Iraq, Singh pointed out that the American wardens in Iraq's Abu Ghraib military prison had once been discharged from service for being "too violent" or for cases of torture. He concluded by arguing that the racist nature of US foreign policy is the reason why the most influential American diplomats in times of war have been colored, including current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell.

Singh is associate professor of history at the University of Washington. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1995, and he is the author of Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2004) and co-author of the upcoming The Afro-Asian Century (Duke University Press). His most recent research focus is on post-World War II fascism and modern US imperialism.