It is mid-winter break so I also haven’t put a ton of thinking or research into the topic, even though it is an important one. It’s been rolling around in my head for a while.

In Fall 2023 I participated in the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, one of the signature programs of the German Marshall Fund. It was a privilege to spend three weeks traveling throughout Europe. As I wrote before Europe is impossibly far away from Hawai’i where I grew up, and only a hair closer to the West Coast where I now live. Before the fellowship, I rarely spent time thinking about international politics. I spend a lot of time thinking about city and local politics and policy. For many people and communities of color international politics don’t often feel relevant, and the media and policy think tanks rarely make the connections clear. I’ve heard communities of color ask why should we care about what happens abroad.

I get it. Local problems are in our face. they impact our neighbors and our friends. There is never enough money, attention, or time to solve everyone’s problems. There is also a feeling of if we can’t fix something like ensuring we have good schools, why are we funding and supporting international aid.

First, we should re-frame the conversation. Both are big problems and complex problems. One isn’t simpler to solve than the other. School funding, fentanyl addiction, local gun violence, and so on are problems that need to be fixed right now. The war in Ukraine and Gaza, immigration, climate change, and so on are also problems that needs solutions immediately. This is where we need to value both local and international problems.

For communities of color, it can feel like the conversation on international problems is sucking the oxygen out of the room. There is also a feeling of when will our problems receive attention; don’t tell us to wait cause we’ve always taken a backseat while other problems are fixed first. That said we also need to pay attention to and work on international problems as well.

It is only lately I’ve been paying closer attention to international politics. I still don’t understand 95% of it, but in paying attention the more I see the connections to local politics and policy. The conflict in Ukraine matters to communities of color because military action has always impacted communities of color. As an example, as artificial intelligence (AI) evolves and is used in military applications, such as removing the human element of harm with drones or the decision making around targets these can both be seen as advantageous to war efforts. But what happens when that technology is employed at the local level with law enforcement locally? What safeguards are in place to ensure it doesn’t harm communities of color? The questions are all interconnected and should haunt us.

Fentanyl usage and addiction is hurting many directly or indirectly in the US, especially in our communities of color. While the drug use is local, the problem extends from our borders to international politics when we look at the sources of the ingredients for the drugs. Communities of color cannot fix these problems on our own. This needs to be a coordinated local and international fix.

It is well-documented that climate change is impacting poor people of color differently than wealthier people. It is also true we need international solutions to get ahead of climate change. No individual community of color can fix it. Yet many of our communities of color are on the front line of finding solutions that work. The disconnect is are we listening to communities of color?

In a future post, I’ll explore more about what the international policy community needs to step up and build better relationships with communities of color to recognize the unique and different needs by communities of color.  

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