Condoleezza Rice on Civil Rights Secretary of State Latin
American leaders were comfortable talking to me about their
struggles with racial equality and efforts at affirmative
action, perhaps because I was honest with them about America's
own struggles. In fact, as I often said, the US State Department
was no model of racial diversity. "I can go all day and not see
another person who looked like me." I appointed the department's
first chief diversity officer, and championed programs to
interest minorities in Foreign Service careers. “This is an
issue that can be debated and can be discussed in our country
with respect for every human being,” Rice told the News & Record
of Greensboro, N.C. “When we get into difficult debates about
social policy, we get into difficult debates that touch people’s
lives. The only thing that I ask is that Americans do it with a
kind of sensitivity that real individuals and real human beings
are involved here.“ In a major defeat for President Bush and
other Republicans who hope the