The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020

36 OCTOBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Why was there only one African American woman FSO in FAS, and why was I the first to take the test? department and, more importantly, as a society. As a mother and a Foreign Service officer, I believe in change, hope and promise. I confronted the importance of diversity early on in my FAS Foreign Service career. Nineteen short years ago, I took the For- eign Service exam, and from what was explained to me, I was the first African American woman to go through that process. At the time, there was only one African American woman diplomat in the department, and her name was Mattie Sharpless. She worked herself up the ranks overseas, and eventually she became USDA’s first African American woman ambassador. Yet I was to be the first to take the exam. And as with any fairy tale, there were trials and tribulations on my journey. That is what makes every story more interesting and makes every character stronger. The question that needed to be asked then was, Why? Why was there only one African American woman FSO in FAS, and why was I the first to take the test? Fast-forward to the present day, and the landscape has changed. Is it perfect? Not at all, but steps are being taken to rectify the barriers and issues that plague us. What has FAS learned about being an all-inclusive foreign affairs agency in the years since I took the exam? We have learned that a change of this magnitude must be collaborative. All opin- ions matter; they have a place and need to be addressed. The stories and legends that can engulf a small agency must be heard and learned from, to be able to dispel them or to right the wrong. The Office of Civil Rights is a key partner to work along- side the Foreign Service in this endeavor. It adds that essential perspective that can enhance the corps and help work toward widening the net through recruitment and onboarding of new officers. The OCR within FAS has conducted climate surveys and assessments, compiling various people’s perspectives across the agency. As a result, it was able to identify what triggers exist that may lead to barriers. Another important outcome was the real- ization that diversity means different things to different people. Perceptual filters play a role in how employees see diversity, and that is a launching point for where change must begin. As an African American woman representing the U.S. agri- cultural industry in foreign lands, I ammore often than not the only person who looks like me at the table, in a reception or at the podium. Often I get to be the one to educate the people I encounter overseas about the United States—who we are, what we look like, and who we are still striving to become. As an organization, we are deliberately focused on outreach to the next generation of Foreign Service officers. Who are they? What will they look like? Where will they come from? We understand that it is up to us to decide. We want to build up the community that we live in, and we know better than any- one else that the only way we can continue to grow and prosper is to continue to seek change. We in the FAS have chosen to start the dialogue. We have decided to initiate the change. We are diversifying, on purpose. As Mary Parker Follett, an early 20th-century consultant and pioneer in organizational theory who has been called the “mother of modern management,” once said: “Unity, not unifor- mity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Dif- ferences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.” n