The world is watching America's response with eye on justice
At my first overseas posting in 1986, our Embassy press assistant brought to my attention a story in a small local paper that claimed that the AIDS virus had been invented in a laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, for the express purpose of killing people of color.
I knew immediately where the story came from and within 24 hours our press assistant and I paid a call on the editor-publisher and demanded that they retract the story and print an honest article on the origins of the virus.
He immediately called his managing editor to ask where the Fort Detrick story had come from and I heard him say "the Soviet Embassy?" Of course it was the Soviets. They had peddled that fiction for years.
Such falsehoods were common in the Cold War years as the Soviets and Americans fought a soft power battle for the hearts and minds of people, particularly in the developing world, and America's struggles with race were a prime target for propagandists given that most of the world is not predominantly Caucasian.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Soviet Union might be gone, but Russian propagandists have updated their technology and some classics just keep on providing a sharp stick to poke holes in America's image in the world. The significant difference is that now the target audience is not just in Africa or South Asia, but in the United States itself.
As our intelligence agencies have amply documented, Russian bots and trolls and well-trained propagandists use social media and divisive issues such as race to sow discord among Americans to try to weaken our society. And too often, we provide them with a good deal of ammunition.
No society is perfect, and it is not hard to find numerous examples of Soviet and Chinese policies and behaviors that are overtly racist, but the United States is different in that it is a nation based on an idea and not on blood and soil. So, when we fail to live up to our creed - that "all men are created equal" - it makes it all too easy for our foreign adversaries to find fault.
We saw this in the past week when the U.S. leveled criticism at China for its squeezing of Hong Kong. One Chinese reaction was classic "what-aboutism" - yeah, well, what about Minneapolis? That was beside the point, but it was an easy way to deflect. Don't question us when your hands are not so very clean.
When we tried through the years to showcase America's virtues, we often talked about freedom, but I found that in many countries the term freedom did not resonate in the ways that it does in American hearts. More often than not, the word that resonated was justice. Freedom seemed to imply a freedom from certain bonds that were central to their identity - that blood and soil again - while justice spoke to the righting of long-simmering wrongs.
The world is watching and nations that don't wish us well are all too happy to exploit America's current difficulties. Recently, a European writer, looking across the Atlantic at America's poor response to the pandemic, its millions of unemployed and now neighborhoods left smoldering, suggested that we are a nation to be pitied.
When America elected an African-American man to be president, many in the world rejoiced. A German journalist said to me, quite emotionally, that they saw Obama as their president, too. What he meant, I think, was that we all struggle to build societies that are more just and provide their citizens with a fair shot. Much of the world saw President Obama's election as a powerful symbol of a significant step forward.
When America succeeds, with its diverse collection of races and religions, the world is a more hopeful place. Thus, how America responds at this crucial moment will resonate far beyond our shores.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.