Zakiya Carr Johnson hates the American system. She hates American culture. 

So Secretary of State Antony Blinken thought, Perfect! Let’s hand her a top role at the State Department!

That is indeed exactly what happened. Zakiya Carr Johnson, who has said that the United States is a “failed historical model” and that our culture is “deeply rooted in patriarchy, in colonialism, in racism,” has now been named the State Department’s new “chief diversity and inclusion officer.” 

Prior to being named to the role, Carr Johnson served as the director of the State Department’s “Race, Ethnicity, and Social Inclusion Unit” during the Obama administration and co-founded an identitarian progressive activist group, Black Women Disrupt. 

When Blinken announced her appointment last week, he effusively praised her, saying that her “commitment to inclusive leadership” would make the State Department “stronger, smarter, and more innovative.” 

The chances of that happening are slim. Carr Johnson’s extensive track record of radical anticolonialism suggests that she will seek to undermine the United States’ efforts to advance its interests abroad. Based on Blinken’s description of the role, her position at the State Department will be pivotal, making her impact all the worse. When Blinken announced the creation of the position in 2021, he said that the chief diversity officer would “hold senior leadership accountable” and that the officeholder would report directly to him. 

Carr Johnson is adamant that dismantling “colonialism” is one of her life’s central objectives. 

In a 2020 webinar, she was insistent that “traditional structure,” including “colonialism” and “patriarchy,” needs to be dismantled: “[W]e’ve literally got to be about dismantling that traditional structure at every juncture,” she said.

She also stated in that webinar that feminist leaders should be critical of “traditional systems,” “how we’ve always done things,” and “power dynamics and how we use power.” This is often difficult, she stated, because work environments are “laden with traditions that already carry power dynamics, be they from histories of colonialism or patriarchy or misogyny.”

In a 2020 action plan for the organization Fair Share of Women Leaders, she wrote, “I do not believe that the way we construct solutions to the most pressing issues we are facing in this world should model a colonizer’s map of how to do things.” 

Additionally, she has argued that “time has run out” on efforts to “tweak[]” our “failed historical model” and that the only option is total dismantling. “[T]he rules created in our organizations and baked into their very foundations are often riddled with racism, patriarchy and exclusion,” she explained. “These are chinks in the armor of traditional leadership that refuse to reconcile with a colonizing past, or recognize that time has run out for experimentation and tweaking of a failed historic model.”

When Carr Johnson assumes her new job at the State Department this week, there are a number of means through which she could implement her radical anticolonial agenda. 

One approach would be to undermine the State Department’s efforts to support Israel given that the brand of radical anticolonialism that she professes views Israel as a “settler colonial state.” She has connected herself to people who hold such views, as in 2021 when she appeared on Marc Lamont Hill’s show. The TV host was fired by CNN in 2018 after he called for “a free Palestine from river to sea” at a U.N. event. 

Carr Johnson could also oppose the State Department’s efforts to promote American values overseas given that she regards our system as a “failed historic model” and our culture as deeply misogynistic and racist. She could do this by seeking the removal of U.S. military bases in former colonies; lobbying against programs like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America; opposing the growth of programs that promote freedom of the press or freedom of religion; arguing against our strong economic and political ties with former colonies that some anticolonial activists view as a form of soft imperialism; or advocating for permitting other nations to commit abuses under the justification that American values are not universal.

In her capacity overseeing personnel at the State Department, Carr Johnson is likely to inject the most radical forms of the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” agenda. In the past, Carr Johnson has expressed her convictions that “feminist leadership” should be “anti-racist”; “White-centered feminism trends and narratives” should be countered; and “intersectionality” should be present “in all spaces.” 

Carr Johnson will be undeterred by any backlash she will face for seeking the total dismantling of American traditions, values, and ways of operating. “[D]espite the tension and discomfort that may come from questioning the way things have always been,” she wrote in 2019, “we must critically explore privilege, power and process to chart new ways forward.” 

For Johnson, tradition and accumulated wisdom are just excuses for those who are refusing to transform society. “‘It’s the way we have always done things’ is no longer an acceptable excuse,” she wrote. “We understand that a cultural shift is on the horizon and in order to save us all, we must be prepared to change.”

It is a major concern when a radical DEI activist wins a position at a corporation. But it is far more alarming when a radical who is ideologically opposed to the American system and who views its global influence as a form of colonialism becomes a top figure at the State Department. 

Before Carr Johnson is able to act, she needs to be removed. The taxpayers should not be funding the deliberate destruction of our efforts to promote American interests abroad.