*Disclaimer: Somehow I am going to manage a post that combines race and blogging and pop culture (admittedly, from the 80s) and some experiences about being black. I will probably not master all of those things and this will be a little uncomfortable. Trust me when I say that this isn’t an easy place to be me, either. All I can offer is that it’s been festering for some time and like any good boil, it gets too close to the surface and needs to pop.
Maybe it’s because I brought the topic of moms and marketing and women of color several years ago at a popular blogging conference. Maybe because I was quoted in Bitch magazine after that. Maybe it’s because we live in post-racial America.
No. Surely it isn’t that last one.
But Danielle brought it up again with her excellent post on checking out sites where there is a severe lack of diversity.
Karen, me, Stefania, and Heather at our panel at BlogHer a few years ago on the topic of diversity.
This is the kind of thing that is around my cortex, swirling around at a dizzying rate and yet has the power to make me sluggish about the lack of diversity and my power to change the things I think are wrong with that glaring omission. Allow me to illustrate.
Recently, I was watching my favorite Sunday morning news program, CBS Sunday Morning. It has been a tradition of mine since I was featured in a little segment over 20 years ago. At that time, I was a teenager watching shows far beyond my age but not out of my maturity level. When all of my friends were watching Beverly Hills, 90210 I was obsessed with Thirtysomething. Michael, Hope, Elliot and Nancy were my role models because I had something in common with them and it wasn’t being thirty-something. It was that they were parents. Of course, the thing that was lacking in that show for me was a teenaged parent, but I happily overlooked that fact because I desperately tried to grasp the concept of mothering a child and related to the issues of teething and crawling for the first time. Whatever banal things were happening on 90210 were lost on me when all my high school friends discussed this. I didn’t know I was missing anything.
CBS Sunday Morning normally has the power to give me something interesting to watch and something by which I can identify, but two weeks ago that show, like so many others, failed me miserably.
Growing up in Chicago in the seventies I saw a lot of people who looked liked me and my family. Hyde Park was so diverse that I assumed the whole world looked like this until we took trips up North to visit my mom’s relatives or down South to visit my dad’s. The University of Chicago is there and when I went to the grocery store, the clerks resembled some shade between my father and my sisters. My schoolmates were largely from mixed heritages. The kids on my block were either black, white, or mixed. This world, which I saw through a child’s eyes, was perfect and I never felt all that different from the people within my immediate surroundings.
There were times when I wondered why combs went easily through my mom’s hair yet I required a pick, some detangler, and a metric ton of hair grease. But overall, I knew that there were other kids, girls especially, whose genetics demanded the same hair routine as I did.
This was never true when I became a pre-teen and started noticing the teen magazines that were aimed at me. Those people, by their very definition of that elusive world of supermodels, didn’t look like me. Cheryl Tiegs and Christy Brinkley and Kim Alexis were pretty, there was no doubt about that, but these women were white and blonde and none of their makeup looked good on me. I couldn’t feather my hair like Farrah Fawcett. Basically, it was the beginning of my own issues of being pushed out of the beauty circle and the more news I read and the more television I watched it became apparent that my people, however you care to define that, were invisible.
I am not the first person of color to feel this way. I will not be the last.
But in 2011, when I search media I am astounded when I see those glaring omissions smack me in the face. I was watching CBS Sunday Morning and it was, admittedly, one of the worst episodes I had seen. It was all about animals and pets that Americans have and their relationships with them. They highlighted a man (a white man) in New York who owned a cat and would put a harness on it and take it for a walk. The show also highlighted a woman (a white woman) who owned two Portuguese water dogs and how they help keep her mentally sharp. Lots of other stories seemed to bore me a bit and by the second half hour of the show I was getting agitated. There it was again, under the surface of a lifetime of me looking: I wanted to see someone who owned a pet that looked like me.
It is not something that I feel comfortable complaining about. But there you have it. Ever since I was a little girl I have been, like every other human being, searching for the familiar. What I want is to see someone of color on an hour and a half television program that doesn’t exclude me. Is that too much to ask?
Sure, they finally showed one image of a person of color with her pets. Do you know who that was? Oprah. Not that I don’t have anything in common with her. I am sure I do. But one 5-second still photo of Oprah isn’t enough to comfort me. As the marginalization of it all settled in, I screamed at the tv.
Really? Are you serious? You do an entire show and the one person of color you put in is Oprah? And you have this whole segment on how one of the American presidents is responsible for saving the koala bears from becoming extinct but YOU CAN’T FIND ONE PERSON OF COLOR WHO OWNS A PET THAT I CAN RELATE TO?
Honestly. I yell at the television a lot when it comes to this. I don’t consider myself a naive person, but this is where it all starts to settle into my brain, once again, that I am not important or that my image, or one that even resembles being racially ambiguous, is worthy. When I get to this point, I remember posts like Danielle’s that asks where the writers of color are represented in those ridiculous contests and awards that social media loves to hold. Hot Bloggers? Well, sure. But not representative of the writers that I know. Yet, someone just wants to insist that you read their list and that it’s inclusive. Shorty Awards? The Bloggies? Babble Lists? I left any consideration for these a long time ago and, as a writer/blogger of color, sort of laugh when they come out. Do you want me to be really honest about race here for a second? Then I’ll tell you the very same sentence that goes through my head any time they are mentioned: Oh, another contest to highlight all the white bloggers so they can feel good about themselves and create competition. There. I said it.
Trust me to know how horrible that sounds to admit. It’s why there are things like Blogalicious and Blogging While Brown. I am not fond of admitting these things, but the truth is this: when I see a blogging conference and the panels of speakers are published, I am doing two things: looking for GOOD writers and looking for DIVERSITY. If I don’t see both of them right off the bat, chances are I am clicking the red dot in the upper corner of my browser and never returning to that page again. If a list is published about Moms on the Internet and the influential leaders, I am most certainly looking for GOOD and DIVERSE again. But honestly, it got weary for me long ago and the competition is enough to make my skull split open and park myself here at my own blogging corner. My corner is of a woman of color in a heterosexual gender normative, unmarried relationship with a blended family who has a story to tell about her journey here. My race isn’t the most interesting thing about me, but it surely has colored my way when I review it from a global perspective and find my path. This is what gets to me about CBS Sunday Morning. If I lived in another country and watched that whole episode I would assume that only white people own pets in the United States. Well, white people and Oprah.
There are, to be fair, very nice invitations that have come my way as a blogger and I have tried making lists of other bloggers of color who would love to get the same opportunities as their white counterparts. No doubt, I will continue to point them out and link them just as I will any white or Asian or Hispanic or Indian blogger. And if I were totally honest I would admit that I still get jealous when I see some opportunities pass me right on by. Believe me when I say that I would much rather not have to fight for the same slice of the pie that seems to just be out there for my white counterparts. Recognition feels all too elusive and the saddest part of all is my own resignation of it. Like many other bloggers of color, I am just used to it. I have had a lifetime of practicing that.
*Yes, I know that a “disclaimer” is meant to disarm you, but I very nearly closed comments on this post. I know many of you will have much to say though, so I will keep them open.
As a non-mom blogger, I live in a whole different world of discrimination. The offers that come to moms don’t come to me. As an older single woman, I don’t exist for most marketers. I started blogging in 2005 and I have been invited to exactly one blogging related marketing event. I get maybe one pitch a month if I am lucky.
I don’t even look for myself to be represented in ads or media except as a crazy cat lady. The weird part, to me, is that I, by myself, make way more than the national average family income, yet no one seems to want to convince me to spend my money on their products. I guess I am just too weird to want as a customer.
I’ll comment on this.
I didn’t know you were writing this post but was not surprised when I read it. I’ve been around you long enough to feel sorry for the television from time to time for an editors lack of “diversity”
All I can really add is this: there is still a ton of room left for all of us to really consider how we feel about race and color in this world. You and I have talked for many hours about how I was raised as a mid-western white boy and bow my eyes were opened in q great way by a dew experiences.
“and bow my eyes were opened in q great way by a dew experiences.” It’s either damn you, autocorrect, or damn you, really good pot, but the Cuban has got to get it under control over there.
Keep beating the horse, Kelly. Thank you for continuing to be the one who says what many of us are thinking but don’t because we don’t think anyone is listening.
And also by how my iPhone has a few glitches…
Bottom line is this: anyone who still has any superiority feelings in today’s day and age is purely clueless or just flat out stubborn.
Now I’m headed back to the kitchen to get your lunch ready and treat you like the queen that you are because you deserve it. Not because you force me to agree with you or anything of the sort… Ma’am…
Love you
Good stuff, Kelly. I’d like to know if the show had shown ONE non-Oprah person of color, would it also be offensive? I would think yes. It seems the show really was weak …
Let me add this point, for discussion: When I design pieces (brochures, etc.) and try to be diverse, it feels creepy to add one “token” Asian, Latina, African American, etc. And I worry that every person of color would laugh at the obvious attempt of trying too hard.
By creepy, I meant that I myself feel creepy doing it. I want to capture our true diverse world without it looking/seeming/being orchestrated. If that makes sense.
I hate being that commenter that just leaves one liners like, “preach on, lady” or “thank god for this entry.” But you’ve left me speechlessly stirred up and nodding in agreement. Again.
So preach on, Mizz Kelly. You’re totally the big blogging sister I never had.
Many years ago I was watching an episode of 20/20 (or some news program) where they had a segment on how the lack of diversity in things we see every day was affecting children. To illustrate this, they took a young black girl, held up a white Barbie doll and a black Barbie doll and asked her which was the pretty doll and which was the ugly doll (keeping in mind that they were identical except for the skin color). My heart broke as this beautiful child pointed to the black doll as the “ugly” doll. But when everything she sees… from television to magazines… was telling her that “beautiful” people had white skin, what else was she supposed to think? The news segment went on to explain how young girls of color were having to be UN-BRAINWASHED to see themselves as beautiful. This is wrong on so many levels and still haunts me to this day.
Which is why when I read about you as a pre-teen feeling that you’re being “pushed out of the beauty circle” I kind of freak out. You are easily one of the most beautiful women I’ve met in real-life, and I find it unfathomable that there was ever a point that you felt otherwise. But, unfortunately, I “get” it. Yes, somebody can point to Obama, Oprah, and Tyra(?) as “irrefutable evidence” that we are living in “post-racial America” (whatever that is supposed to mean) but when you look at every-day situations like blogger conferences (or YouTube comments) it’s painfully clear there’s a long, long way to go.
So keep beating that dead horse. Somewhere out there, there’s a little girl looking at the world and wanting to see herself as belonging in it. Sadly, that’s not going to happen without you.
Oh, I can tell these comments are going to be good. So far, I have laughed at them (my poor, sweet Cuban who got autocorrected when he tried to comment) (who also totally packed me a lunch today because he is THAT. AWESOME.) and cried at them (Dave2, you just blew me away with that challenge, and you are absolutely right that it won’t happen without me) and even “hmm”ed at them. Lisa, I will be honest and say that I’d rather see an obvious image of diversity than none at all.
Yes, one person of color that was non-Oprah (I see a catchphrase starting here!) would have been so much better but that particular segment was on famous people with pets and we all know how much she loves her dogs. The average, everyman would have been an improvement since that was their goal in the first place. Without it, I am sadly longing to be an “everyman” and it points out, once again, that I am not.
Also? I totally have a dog.
I’m not a woman of color, but I have often wondered why non-white bloggers are not featured as prominently. I want to see diversity wherever I am, including on the internet. Why don’t these social media awards and contests realize this? What will it take for them to alter their current trajectory?
It’s interesting that you mention that part about people from other countries believing only white people and Oprah have pets in America. Because I went to Denmark in the 70s to visit my uncle, who could very likely still be the only black person in Copenhagen, and I met a little girl who thought I must be from Africa, because she had no idea that there were black people in America.
I too have spent too long worrying about marginalization, and tokenism, etc., and I think now that there is so much opportunity to create our own that I wonder why we wasted so much time fighting for a piece of pie. There are ovens and ingredients available for us to create as many pies as we can. Let them have their pie.
Great post, Kelly.
What bothers me most about talks like this is the idea of “tokenism” versus “inclusion.” When you include diversity, people assume tokenism. They assume that diversity isn’t natural, therefore any effort to include it is fake. And this is where the problem persists – when you don’t *see* diversity, you forget to be inclusive of diversity.
I’d rather be the token black person than left out of the conversation entirely.
After reading your first paragraph, I knew I needed to leave my perspective in a comment. It’s good to talk about these things. Race is definitely still an issue, even though I probably would have denied that just a couple years ago.
I honestly didn’t know how I would respond to your post, though, until I read Danielle’s comment above. I get frustrated with forced diversity initiatives, especially in the business world. Shouldn’t we be beyond that? If everyone is equal (and we are), then shouldn’t the best/hardest working/most talented rise to the top despite skin color? I think they should.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re not beyond that yet. Maybe we still need that extra push to make sure those with a bit more pigment than myself get all the same opportunities as myself. Maybe we still need to try extra hard to represent diversity.
Some places in the world “get it.” I’ve lived in places where race didn’t seem to be an issue at all. Now I live in a small town where I occasionally hear others make racist remarks, and I feel I have to point out how uncool those remarks are.
I guess I don’t know where I’m going with all this, except to say I agree that it’s still an issue we all need to work through together. Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
Some horses deserve to be beaten!
I can’t be the only whitey who craves a lot more diversity in my life.
This is a horse that has to continue to be beaten until people and companies get it. As a blogger, I have gone to many events where I could count the women of color at no more than about 20. I do believe the organizers of events I have gone to are trying to have more diversity in the events. What I would like to see is different people, not the same five or six popular women of color.
Same time, I am not expecting hand outs or invites to speak or participate with brands, but what I am expecting is a serious effort to reach more than the typical “niche” blogger and give me some credit for having the ability to reach a diverse group of people with my style of communication. You keep going to the same people, your conferences get boring and your brand gets boring. Diversify and mean it.
There is just so much here that I want to say. But I’ll start with saying I don’t want my (very white) children growing up and thinking Oprah is the only black person in America and I’ll end by thanking you for reminding me to make sure they don’t.
Dude. The horse isn’t dead until things change.
We put together a (if I may say so) kick-ass panel of women to discuss diversity and the new “normal family” at Mom 2.0 (which was, by the way, partially inspired by that wonderful BlogHer panel y’all did), and it was a really good discussion. BUT. There were five of us on the panel, and maybe eight – ten other people who attended?
BEAT THE FUCKING HORSE. I’ll help.
Poor Cuban
You deserve THAT level of awesome, Kelly.
This is a wonderful post and I love you for writing it, for speaking up and out and for encouraging the comments and discussion, too. Thank you for opening people’s eyes and for just being you.
It’s pretty spectacular when I can say that a post has touched my heart, given me some serious food for thought and made me more aware. <3 Kudos, friend.
Oh Kelly, this topic is still so important. We too love Sunday Morning at our house, but since we have become white parents of black children, I notice the stark lack of diversity in our media. Too often the only faces of color on our TV are on the news and the it usually isn’t good and if it is good, it almost always involves sports.
I search everywhere for a glimpse of diversity that is positive for my children. I have made sure to fill their lives not only with kids that look like them but with families that look like ours. They attend private school which is sadly not as diverse as I would like, but my kids add to diversity and expose others to diversity that is so absent.
Thank goodness for Little Bill our my kids wouldn’t be able to see themselves reflected in any children’s program and they certainly don’t see themselves in most general TV. We do have newscasters of color her in St. Louis but we limit the news because of what I mentioned earlier–most of the criminal shots are of people of color and that is not a script I want my children to read from. I want them to have positive associations with their color.
We need conversations like this. I look at commercials and other advertising and do not see my children represented and it makes me sad. We need to fix this. We need to have discussions about it and open and honest discussions–I don’t care if it is hard because it is so important. Thank you again for not leaving the horse to languish in the ditch completely ignored–because it isn’t dead yet.
This is exactly frustrates me. I hate to admit it but I do the same thing when it comes to those blogging suggestions or awards.
I’m glad we have you to point out the lack of diversity and TALK about it. No one ever wants to be the first or ever.
Beat it, baby! In times of war and political strife and bad economies (which is to say, always) people find it easier to spend their stash of worries on things close to home. Sometimes being served a dish of tenderized horsemeat is just what we need as a reminder that just because something isn’t a problem for us, that doesn’t mean it’s not our problem.
Add me to the list of female mommy bloggers of color who would like a slice of the pie. Please?
I hear you. And I’m glad you’re beating the supposedly dead horse. I agree with Lynn that it would be nice if “diversity” didn’t have to be an “initiative” – for God’s sake, it’s what this country and the world ARE. So why do we have to try so hard to represent that? But the fact of the matter is, we do. Because no matter what the world IS, there are so many people with a vested interest in portraying it as a predominantly Caucasian world with a little yellow, black and brown “sprinkled” in, like we’re just a teaspoon of spices in a friggin recipe. (And I won’t even go into how spice is what REALLY adds the flavor…) And Lu, yes! I love that bloggers of color have received recognition and begrudge them NOTHING . But along with the recognition comes the “tokenism” – hey, let’s haul in Chookoloonks and MochaMom to show how diverse and hip and cool we are and pat ourselves on the back for being inclusive. Well, yes, they ARE all that and a bag of chips but have you looked BEHIND them to see who else is out there?
Is it our fault? I know for my own part, I haven’t “tried” that hard to be noticed. I have so many things going on that blogging often falls to the wayside, so as much as I want to be noticed I know I also have to earn it. But I know the names I see over and over when I put my finger on the pulse of what’s happening now (ode to Flip Wilson, can I get an amen?) and I think, wow, really? I guess I need to dig a little deeper!
And so, the dead horse – it’s not really dead, is it… sigh.
I think we’re living in a “want to be post-PC society.”
We’ve come so far from slavery and women not being able to vote and legal segregation, etc. etc. etc. that no one wants to hear anymore about how we STILL have minorities and we still have to PUSH for diversity.
I find mentions of that can make people in the majority group feel defensive, maybe even more so than in decades past because now it’s generally accepted that “isms” are wrong.
But we have to keep pushing. We have to keep making people uncomfortable and giving a bullhorn to the people who are willing to say “hey, I’m not represented here” AND to the people in the majority who are willing to respond with “really? Tell me more about that.”
As someone in the white majority, I want to tell you again that I am always willing to lend my voice to you in anyway I can.
And forgive the fast typing…MochaMOMMA. Not MochaMom. DUH.
Great post, Kelly. I think that you have to keep beating the horse, too.
The comments from people about “forced/fake” diversity make me a little crazy. I work for a huge corporation, and diversity is an out-front issue because it needs to be. It doesn’t just HAPPEN. It isn’t fake or forced to put an emphasis on it, it’s the majority recognizing that HEY! We are not the only ones who need to be considered here. If we want diversity in the workforce, we have to make this a welcoming place for diverse groups of people. That means a cultural shift, which doesn’t just happen without effort. I don’t see any of my coworkers of color complaining that our diversity efforts and networks are “fake” or “forced”, and I absolutely love working for a company that says up front “Diversity is important to us. We will purposefully focus on making sure that we have a diverse workforce, and that we embrace the different cultures that brings to our organization”.
I had a conversation with a white male coworker not long ago. He was complaining that “Everyone has to have a network now, where’s my network?” Meaning, the white dudes network. I have to admit I have little patience for this way of thinking but I put a lid on my “OMG white dude!” automatic response and had a conversation with him about why everyone has a network. How people have been excluded since God knows when, and now they are not and it’s a good thing. I don’t know if he got it or not, but I felt good that he broached the subject with me because he knows I’m married to a black man and he could have just kept that conversation among he and his white friends. We are talking about this stuff, and it’s GOOD.
So thanks for keeping us talking, girl.
I’ve started to feel really sad for any website, conference, group, company or individual that is oblivious to their biased, white, heteronormativeness. Seriously, in 2011, needing to make an effort to diversify is a RED FLAG of imbalance that is absolutely as whacked as extremist retro-fetishizing political beliefs. If you look at your feedreader, top blogger list, friendship group, staff, and they are all straight white non-latina married people of a similar age WTF? Who wants to live in that bizarre, anachronistic insulated version of the world? It is absolutely not reflective of the real world, so why is anyone–marketers, yes, and also bloggers who support those systems–perpetuating it?
You know one show that has hardly, if any, women (or men) of color or minority?
Hoarders.
I’m putting that in the racial win column.
I’m glad you exist.
So Deb, you feel sad for the oblivious, but you flip the coin in the next sentence and say that you think diversity efforts are wrong? Can’t have it both ways. Those two contradictory sentences make people feel like they can’t win and don’t further dialogue. They stop dialogue dead in it’s tracks.
When I was little, I thought there was something wrong with me because frosty pink Cover Girl lip gloss looked terrible on me.
(What? It was the eighties.)
Eventually I figured out that it was because none of the models in the ads looked like me. But when you’re little you don’t know that it’s not you, it’s them.
All this to say, keep on beating that horse.
Great post. I hope that diversity will be the norm for my children. We chose where to live based on that desire and because each of us grew up in severely white neighborhoods which I think is a disadvantage. No, I’m not saying that I deserve a cookie because my neighbors are a variety of colors. Just that I think it’s important to expose yourself to diversity and if diversity isn’t easy to find you might have to look for it. I’m from Detroit which is residentially segregated but not as segregated in the workplace. A co-worker from another office was surprised once by how many black people I worked with and asked me what were they like. Um, they’re just like us only darker. That was a strange question and I realized she was even more segregated than I was. I hope the next generation sees more similarities than differences.
I agree with what you have to say about diversity, and even if I superficially meet the criteria for what the “norm” is in mommyblogging, I still feel like many of the sites/lists/events/etc. do not mirror myself back to me. I guess my only criticism, as always, for pleas for more diversity stems from the fact that I’m not sure where the line is drawn — I’m not sure we can ever have a sense of diversity in which everyone sees themselves or something like themselves mirrored back at them. I’m wondering where the point would be that it did feel closer to that, though.
Kelly, I have always been proud of your quest to include more people of color in how the world in portrayed. I heard somewhere that HGTV actually consciously pursued this end–and they’ve been rewarded with increased ratings.
I, of course, did my stint teaching in inner-city schools so many years ago and was often surprised at how completely foreign I was to my students–my hair, my skin, and the way that both reacted to things like stress, makeup, pressure, etc. I, in turn had no clue about the hair and skin of my African American students (which was at least 90% of them). I found that hair texture and fullness were discussed constantly and dry skin was rampant whereas I spent my teen de-oiling at every chance. Calling someone “bald” was a terrible insult, but one that I found bizarre as all the kids did have hair.
I guess what I’m trying to say that we don’t just want, but we NEED to see ourselves reflected back. Otherwise, what’s the point? I know that my son is in a wheelchair and I seek out other parents with the same kinds of challenges. I just don’t know how to relate to a conversation about whether Madison (who’s five) should be enrolled in Dance or Tumbling. I think that’s why blogs and other forms of social media have been so successful–because they reflect the diversity that is so obviously missing from mainstream media.
@kathryn I think Deb’s point is that if you’re just making an effort toward diversity, you’re behind the eight ball. Diversity should be built in, automatic. That’s the ideal.
This isn’t just a white people vs people of color problem. This is a learners vs non-learners problem. If you want to be a learner, you have to push yourself beyond the comfort zone of hanging out where everything is what you are used to. That scares a lot of people.
if you want to expand the diversity of your blog reading, a friend of mine is writing an amazing blog right now on the experience of parenting young girls as they start to reach the age she was when her sexual abuse began.
It’s not for the faint of heart, and a hanky is frequently required, but she’s amazing for putting herself out there.
Here’s the link: Soggy In Milk
@suebob I agree, it should be built in. But it’s mostly not in a lot of places and so we should encourage those who are embracing it. Because how you get to “built in” is by making a conscious effort, which is being a learner. It kind of sounded like she was saying “If you’re not all the way there already you suck”, but maybe I read her wrong.
between this and the obama-birth-certificate noise, today has been all about color for me. it’s 2011…do you know where your diversity is?
Keep talking! I love the discussion, and I agree with (just about) everything said above. We’ve got to be more intentional about diversity in this community. It’s not tokenism to put a value on diversity and to then put our actions behind that value.
I agree somewhat with Suebob in that this is more than just an issue of color. I believe it’s deeper than that. My 6 yr old attends a school that is, thankfully, very diverse. Race is just not an issue for him. These kids are just his friends, he couldn’t care less if they were black, brown, red, yellow or purple! He sees them for who they are and enjoys them. I love that!
Sadly, it’s, many times, the grownups who make race an issue, and it works both ways. It’s fundamentally wrong to judge someone because of the color of their skin or to exclude them from something because of it. That doesn’t just extend to non-white people either. I have seen someone put down and ridiculed simply because he “must belong to the good ol white boy network” because he is a middle aged, educated, married, white man living in the suburbs. I have been overlooked simply because I am a stay at home mom and, therefor, must not be very intelligent. All I’m saying is, as we strive for diversity in the media, in the workplace, in our school, churches, in life in general, let’s not forget to be totally inclusive. As a Native American, I applaud your horse beating and will gladly loan you a whip and jump in there with you. I would love to see a world where people are judged on their character and not their color, or their station, or their occupation, and that includes everyone.
This always sort of fascinates me in a horrible way because you are wondering what’s going on that you get people making the world look completely white…But it’s this self-fulfilling thing–you have a white staff and white writers except for such a small # of exceptions. And they literally don’t hear it when non-white people speak out because to them white is universal–it is the universal thing.
You can’t stop talking about this PLEASE. Also please don’t say it’s a dead horse!!! It drives me crazy when people are like ‘oh, that again?’ Like it’s all over because SOMEONE TALKED ABOUT IT ONCE. Well, nothing’s changed so let’s not shut up until it does!!!
I remember that panel that’s described in the photo – it’s the reason you didn’t attend my panel that was at the same time: “White Men and Why We’re Awesome”.
It’s surprising to me that this would even be an issue in the blogosphere. Color is something that shouldn’t matter in any setting but in a setting that is really and truly grounded in words it is baffling.
As a side note, I was right there with you taking care of a baby while my friends were wrapped up in stupid teen dramas and Thirtysomething was a brilliant show.
Diversity in general is a huge fail in many parts of the US. I’m in an interracial relationship and wish both that there was more diversity in my community, but also that there were more examples of diverse family and relationships on TV – mixed families, interracial couples, mixed religions, women CEOs, etc. All of this is to say that diversity needs to be seen for every one, and everywhere – and it’s lacking.
It’s everyone’s responsibility to promote diversity and mutual respect.