Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek, a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had on Wednesday fired off an extraordinary diatribe on Twitter over the Baltimore rioting, telling the US State Department acting spokeswoman Marie Harf to “come on blonde, answer now.”

“Where are you stupid blonde, who accused Turkish police of using disproportionate force?” he added, referring to US criticism of the harsh response by Turkish police to demonstrations.

Harf herself had refused to rise to the bait of the comments, saying in Washington: “I really don’t think I’m going to dignify them with a response.”

Later adding 

"I would put our record here in the US that openly, transparently addressing challenges when we have here at home up against any other country on the planet.

"That is a record of transparency and self-reflection."

Now that's an example of an appropriate response worthy of the US.  

The US ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, had his own response to this form of hair shaming, race and ethnic baiting, nation slamming.  No, he didn't refer to the mayor as dark haired and dumb in his social media reply; he was more creative.  

But US ambassador to Turkey John Bass took to Instagram to make his response, posting a picture of himself with his normally brown hair turned blond.

“American diplomats: we’re all blonde,” he wrote in English and Turkish.

It was not immediately clear if the ambassador’s hair had been photoshopped or if he had actually dyed his hair.

Diplomacy in the era of public social media is tricky; at least in this instance Americans are acting effectively.  And diplomatically.  And often--not always, but often--cleverly.  No shame there.

Not that it makes any difference when dealing with countries such as Turkey though.