Introduction
There is a growing appreciation among international relations scholars of the linked themes of race and foreign policy. It is well-established that global currents, such as the Cold War, provoked American politicians to enact legislation outlawing Jim Crow segregation and disenfranchisement, moving the nation to act on its promise of equality for all. During this same moment, African Americans also factored U.S. race relations into their calculations of whether to support or oppose various U.S. foreign policy priorities. For instance, numerous African American intellectuals and grassroots organizers—most notably W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few—grappled with whether or not to cosign aspects of the Cold War agenda (such as anti-communism and the policy of containment) while the full rights of citizenship were denied to the majority of African Americans living under Jim Crow rule.
There is a relationship between domestic politics, specifically racial equality and social justice, and how African Americans think about the role the United States should play in various global initiatives. The results of a recent Carnegie poll show that there are notable differences in views on specific foreign policy objectives depending on how African Americans feel about the state of race relations in the United States. For instance, those who feel race relations are “good” are far more likely to think the United States should take a leading role in providing humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine or coordinating an international response to China’s rise. Quite interestingly, however, on collective action issues such as combating climate change and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, those who believe U.S. race relations are “bad” are slightly more likely to favor the United States taking a leading role on such initiatives.
Survey Design
The data analyzed are from an original online survey of 1,000 people of African descent—including African Americans (defined as individuals with residence in the United States for multiple generations), Afro-Caribbeans, and continental Africans—with residence in the United States who identify as Black or African American. The survey was designed by scholars at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and conducted by polling firm YouGov between May 2 and 10, 2023.
YouGov recruited respondents from its proprietary panel of nearly 2 million U.S. residents. Only respondents aged eighteen and above who are Black and reside in the United States were eligible to participate in the survey.
YouGov employs a sophisticated sample-matching procedure to ensure that the respondent pool, to the greatest extent possible, is representative of the African American community. All the analyses in this study employ sampling weights to ensure representativeness. The overall margin of error for the sample is +/- 3 percent. This margin of error is calculated at the 95 percent confidence interval.
Strengths and Limitations
One of the significant benefits of working with an extensive survey panel, such as the one maintained by YouGov, is that it provides access to large sample sizes that allow researchers to make reliable estimates about relatively small populations of interest. YouGov’s survey panel provides access to various demographics within the Black American community.
Online surveys have some drawbacks. The way in which a question is phrased plays a critical role in how respondents interpret the question and can influence their response. Careful attention has been placed to ensure that questions are worded in a simple manner in the hope that all respondents interpret the question in the same or similar ways. Even then, one cannot prevent various interpretations among respondents. Despite these limitations, this survey still serves as an important barometer in understanding African Americans’ views toward U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century.
Race Is a Central Theme in How African Americans Relate to the World
The Carnegie American Statecraft Program’s research provides good reason to believe that racial issues continue, as they have in the past, to be of great concern to African Americans. Respondents revealed that when they vote, racism and racial discrimination are a top priority alongside economic well-being (see figure 1). Thus, it is worth looking at African American opinions on U.S. foreign policy goals through the lens of domestic race relations as well as through the lenses of age, income, and education.
The survey asked respondents to place their opinion on race relations on a four-point scale ranging from very good to very bad (see figure 2). A majority (59 percent, or 562 respondents) felt that race relations in the United States were either somewhat or very bad, with 28 percent reporting they were very bad and 31 percent reporting they were somewhat bad. On the other hand, 41 percent (462 respondents) felt race relations were good, with 11 percent reporting very good and 30 percent somewhat good. These findings are slightly lower than, but still track with, a 2019 Pew Research Center poll that revealed that a majority of African Americans (71 percent) believed race relations in the United States were generally bad. Moreover, the Pew poll also found that African Americans were more likely than other racial groups to believe race relations were generally bad.
The survey also revealed interesting differences along the lines of ethnic heritage. Respondents who identified as being Black American—that is, respondents who did not have recent foreign ancestry or who were descendants of U.S. chattel slavery and Jim Crow—exhibited the strongest belief that race relations were bad. For instance, 61 percent of Black Americans—who comprised 80 percent of the sample—said race relations were bad, compared to 46 percent of Black people of recent foreign ancestry who felt the same way. More specifically, 42 percent of Afro-Caribbean people, 51 percent of continental Africans, and 51 percent of those who selected “other” felt race relations were bad. The number of Afro-Latino respondents was too small to make any significant conclusions.
Scholarship has explored the nuanced experiences of Black people of different ethnicities in the United States. Provided the unique experience of generational Black Americans (including their relationship with U.S. chattel slavery, the system of Jim Crow, and other noxious aspects of American racism), it is expected that generational African Americans tend to view race relations as being slightly worse compared to other Black ethnic groups that may have come to the United States in recent decades.
Race Relations and Views on Foreign Policy
Roughly half of respondents felt the United States should take a leading role on helping solve global collective action issues, such as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons (54 percent), limiting climate change (49 percent), and promoting human rights and democracy around the world (47 percent) (see figure 3). These top-line findings are consistent with views of the general American public. Compared to respondents who believed race relations were generally good, those who believed race relations were generally bad were slightly more in favor of the United States taking the lead on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons (57 percent vs. 49 percent) and limiting climate change (52 percent vs. 45 percent). Equal shares of the two groups felt the United States should take the lead on promoting human rights and democracy around the world (47 percent).
Along the lines of ethnicity, the research also revealed consensus on some collective action issues. Both groups, Black Americans and more recent Black immigrants, felt the United States should take the lead on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons (54 percent and 51 percent) and limiting climate change (49 percent each). However, 49 percent of Black Americans felt the United States should take the lead on promoting human rights and democracy globally compared to 40 percent of Black people of an immigrant background, with Afro-Caribbean people expressing the lowest level of support (33 percent). This difference can perhaps be a function of the relationship the United States has with the countries/regions of origin for some Black immigrants. For instance, the history of controversial U.S. interventions in the Caribbean (such as in Grenada in 1983 and Haiti in 1915–1934, 1994, and 2004) may make Black immigrants from those and surrounding countries skeptical about the U.S. role in promoting democracy the world over.
History has shown that African Americans committed to the fight for racial equality in the United States were simultaneously concerned with creating a more just and humane world, particularly for those in developing countries.
For instance, African American activists saw the issue of nuclear weapons as intertwined with human rights and environmental justice globally. In addition to being troubled by the devastating effects nuclear weapons had on people of color, activists saw the procurement of uranium from Belgian-controlled Congo and Euro-American nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert and South Pacific Ocean as having grave consequences for the environment. Many activists viewed the burgeoning topic of nuclear weapons as further evidence of the exploitative relationship between the Global South and the Western world.
In the case of the promotion of human rights and democracy around the world, African American intellectuals saw the fight for civil rights as being directly linked to decolonization and the fight for human rights in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. For example, following the political gains of the 1960s, African Americans were some of the most vocal voices in raising awareness about South Africa’s racist apartheid regime and rallying the cause for economic divestment. African Americans saw striking similarities between America’s Jim Crow policies and South Africa’s apartheid and felt the United States, the supposed harbinger of democratic values, should be the nation to lead the charge in eradicating racial injustice globally. It is possible that individuals who feel that racial cleavages and inequality remain pronounced at home may have a heightened sensitivity to issues that can harm humanity collectively.
In addition to this tradition of domestic and international activism, African Americans may believe that climate change, if gone unchecked, has a relatively high likelihood of impacting African American communities. For example, studies have shown that climate change will adversely impact the American South and coastal regions, where African Americans are highly concentrated. This could potentially lead people to believe that the United States should take the lead on attacking a global problem that will reach its own shores. The same logic could perhaps hold true for limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
The site of greatest statistical variance appeared on the topic of great power competition. Compared to collective action issues, fewer individuals favored the United States taking a leading role in coordinating an international response to China’s rise (36 percent) and providing military and humanitarian assistance to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia (32 percent). These top-line findings are also consistent with data from a nationally representative sample. On the issue of coordinating an international response to China’s rise, 45 percent of respondents who felt race relations were good believed the United States should take a leading role on the matter. However, only 29 percent of those who felt race relations were bad believed the United States should take the lead on such an issue.
The same held true for providing military and humanitarian assistance to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Again, 42 percent of individuals who felt race relations were good believed the United States should take a leading role. In contrast, those who felt race relations were bad were once again less inclined to believe the United States should take the lead on the issue, with only 25 percent in support (see figure 3).
To be clear, these findings should not be interpreted as the African American community wanting the United States to play no role whatsoever. A plurality of respondents who felt race relations were bad preferred the United States to take a supporting role, rather than spearheading the initiatives.
Whereas Black people regardless of ethnic heritage largely exhibited similar levels of support for collective action challenges, the same did not hold true for great power competition. Black Americans exhibited lower support than Black people of more recent foreign ancestry for the United States taking the lead in coordinating an international response to China’s rise and providing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. For example, only 34 percent of Black Americans felt the United States should take the lead in response to China’s rise, and 31 percent felt the United States should take the lead in providing assistance to Ukraine. On the other hand, 45 percent of Black people of foreign heritage felt the United States should coordinate an international response to China’s rise and 39 percent felt the United States should provide assistance to Ukraine. These findings track with previous Carnegie research that found that generational Black Americans display lower support for the use of force abroad compared to Black people of recent foreign ancestry.
Still, though, among Black people of recent foreign ancestry and generational Black Americans, those who felt that race relations in the United States were bad exhibited substantially less support for the United States taking the lead on issues related to geopolitical competition. Among Black Americans who felt race relations were good, support for coordinating an international response to China’s rise and providing assistance to Ukraine sat at 43 and 40 percent, respectively (see figure 4). On the other hand, Black Americans who felt race relations were bad reported 28 and 25 percent support for the respective initiatives. Similarly, support for both initiatives from more recent Black immigrants who felt race relations were good sat at 53 and 48 percent. On the flip side, Black immigrants who thought race relations were bad registered support for both initiatives at 35 and 29 percent.
Research has also shown that racism and racial discrimination have led many African Americans to exhibit lower levels of trust in U.S. institutions compared to other racial groups. Another possible explanation could be that African Americans who believe race relations are bad may not trust that the federal government would handle military conflicts in a manner that would not require excessive human costs from the community. After all, African Americans only represent 14 percent of the population but make up 18 percent of the armed forces and 22 percent of the enlisted ranks, down from 30 percent a few decades ago.
To better illustrate this point, scholarship indicates that the disproportionate fatalities experienced by Black soldiers at the beginning of the Vietnam War have made some Black people more sensitive to combat casualties. This feeling is not isolated to campaigns of the mid twentieth century. For instance, in the Gulf War and the twenty-first-century wars on terror, where Black casualty numbers were not imbalanced, African American activists and elected officials still expressed concern that Black soldiers would disproportionally represent casualties.
The question of recurring differences in support for overseas military interventions along racial lines has vexed policymakers for decades. The findings presented in this article are a reminder that policymakers cannot essentialize the African American community and, in fact, thinking on foreign policy matters among African Americans, most notably the topics of the use of force abroad and great power competition, is heterogenous. In addition to education, income, and ethnic heritage, perceptions of social justice and equality domestically also influence views on foreign policy attitudes.
Conclusion
In 1966, citing the death of Sammy Younge, Jr., a Black military veteran killed in Alabama for protesting segregation, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an African American student organization, publicly lambasted the Vietnam War effort. The group found it difficult to support U.S. efforts to promote democracy in Southeast Asia when the promises of equality were denied to many African Americans.
SNCC leadership filtered support for U.S. foreign policy initiatives through the lens of racial well-being, as just one instance in a long tradition of African American thought. Similar to activists of previous generations, the leaders wrestled with whether or not to support U.S. efforts to preserve democracy abroad while economic, political, and social inequalities existed along racial lines at home.
History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. As racial issues persist, such as vigilante violence, economic inequality, and the rollback of legislation meant to address historical harm, it is possible that some African Americans today may factor these issues into their calculations of whether to support certain U.S. foreign policies.
The data presented in this article detail how, for many, domestic politics do not stop at the water’s edge. There is a relationship between domestic politics, specifically racial equality, and how African Americans think about the role the United States should play in various global initiatives.
African Americans are not against the United States taking a global leadership role, but many want the role to be different from the past and to prioritize a different set of issues. To many African Americans, the U.S. role in the world should not lead to armed conflict and should not treat a unipolar or bipolar world order as the default. As the White House attempts to rationalize some of its most pressing policies, such as tension with China and Russia, to the American people, it will help to bear this in mind.