Outgoing US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Tuesday (local time) said on his official Twitter account that woke-ism and multiculturalism are not what America is about and "they make us weaker."
"Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms -- they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker," he wrote on Tuesday on his official account @SecPompeo.
According to CNN, the secretary of state's assertion that "multiculturalism" is not part of the American ethos was denounced as a shocking and racist affront to the workforce he leads, the agency he represents and the values it is meant to espouse.
"Unconscionable," one diplomat said. Another diplomat asked how this is supposed to make diplomats of colour, or those of non-Christian backgrounds, feel.
Career diplomat Conrad Tribble said on Twitter -- as quoted by CNN -- that multiculturalism "is one of our greatest strengths as a country, and I go to that well often as an American diplomat. It's hard to overstate the global soft power impact of America's cultural diversity."
"We need to do a better job of representing that, not reject it," he said.
"This is a truly unfortunate and disturbing statement for the secretary of state to make at a time when the task ahead for this country it to pull all of the diverse sectors of our country together and become the 'United' States once more," said retired Ambassador Charles Ray, who served 30 years in the foreign service and 20 in the US Army as quoted by CNN.
"It also sends a troubling message to those countries struggling with interethnic strife and dictators who exploit the ethnic and cultural divisions within their societies."
( With inputs from ANI )
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