The U.S. should have had the courage to argue its case, and make its position heard in international circles.

When the World Conferences Against Racism convened in Durbin on August 31, fifteen heads of state and leaders from around the world were there but not U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell was ordered to stay home as President Bush decided to send a low level delegation instead. The Bush administration didn't wasn't to discuss reparations for slavery and didn't approve of this anti-Israeli statements and sentiments in the documents leading up to the conference. But the U.S. Should not have spurned the conference just because it disagreed with part of an international program or with many of participants. The U.S. should have led and Colin Powell should have gone to Durbin.

The United States has a story to tell about racism, and, as Secretary of State, Colin Powell was the right man to tell it. Think of the nation's past: Founded in Slavery that took the bloodiest war in our history to end. Scarred by legal apartheid- segregation - that took another 100 years and too many martyrs to end. Still burdened by unequal treatment, racially biased profiling and sentencing, mortgage lending and more. Yet we have come a long way- and we have an experience with a multi-racial society that others should hear.

When Powell stepped off a plane in Durbin, it would have said a lot about America being a multiracial, multicultural society. His being denied the ability to lead the American delegation to a global conference on racism both isolated this nation and diminished his stature. As Christopher Edley Jr., co-director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, noted. "The symbolic value of (United States) being represented at a ministerial level by a minority (could have been) a powerful lesson to countries where people are murdered by the thousands because of racial differences."

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