NPR journalism and diversity

But this diversity is the only thing that makes Michel Martin's "Tell Me More" possible. Without the ability to discriminate events and behaviors by racial, ethnic, or other white/non-white distinctions she would have no show at all and would be forced to thrash about at large in the great soup of ideas, whims and feelings. Martin Luther King's dream is the Sword of Damocles that hangs over her show career and over the career of anyone who profits from our discrimination by race.

It amazes me that some white people still are playing by the allegedly colorblind vision of Martin Luther King. That, if it existed at all, lasted about 5 years. Then it was affirmative action -- supposedly temporary help to a group that had been held down. Then, because a significant number of those sneaking into preferred classes under the "affirmative action" were born to those who came to this country voluntarily (see Eric Holder's ancestors) and/or well after the Civil Rights Revolution -- the "diversity" ideology developed. But it's really about power -- how much demographic or moral power blacks or "Hispanics" can wield. That is the nature of multi-ethnic societies. Unless whites learn to play the game, white children, like the bloghosts own offspring, are in for a rough time.

Rod,

I generally agree with your viewpoint on this. The association's pitch strikes me as tone deaf given the broader concerns of the media marketplace. I would rather them put resources into explaining how ethnic diversity (among and including other forms of diversity) might actually provide solutions for media's woes. 'Be constructive, not just critical' might be a worthy motto here. Where is the support for the growing number of ethnic minority bloggers who are demonstrating that to present a minority point of view is not just to give into one stereotype or another. If anything the opening up of social media and the web presents an ideal entry for ethnic minorities into the media market and for more economical ways of training them.

It's also worth noting famous boxer Jack Johnson got rejected from the Titanic and he deftly decided not to press the point and avoided its demise.

But as for comments like this:

"Unless whites learn to play the game, white children, like the bloghosts own offspring, are in for a rough time."

There must be some version of Godwin's law applying to race/diversity discussions that boils down this kind of argument, and that's unfortunate. stari, speaking as just one of those ethnic minorities, I think you give us wayyy too much credit for some latent ability to engineer our way into the pinnacles of society by playing moral scare tactics. If only it was that easy to succeed, most of the time its not. As for a "rough time", the far majority of white offspring aren't in for a rough time anymore than any other offspring are with our various societal breakdowns, transitions and adjustments.

How does anybody know the race of radio announcers?

In my experience, the non-white ones often make a point of telling their audience what their ethnic background is. The ones that don't mention anything usually turn out to be white.

A couple decades ago I noticed that many women in academia published using a first (or first and middle) initial with their last name, instead of their first name. In other words, Mary A. Smith would publish as M.A. Smith. Not all women scholars did this, but I noticed that a significant number of women did -- presumably to avoid having their work be prejudged as the work of a woman, when the reader saw a female name identified as the author. But I also noticed that, for the most part, the people doing this tended to be women. After awhile, when I read an academic article by someone identified as "L.R. Jones", I tended to *assume* that L.R. Jones was female, and, on the occasions when I found out who L.R. Jones was, I turned out to be right far more often than not. So, by going out of their way not to identify their gender, they ended up signaling it anyway.

"I don't care whether the people who write and edit my newspaper (or produce my favorite news radio shows) are white, brown, black, or spumoni-colored. I don't care if they're gay or straight."

and the only time you find out a journalist's ethnicity in print media is when they become a columnist and you get to see their photo atop their column. I have no idea how you cold tell whether or not someone is homosexual or heterosexual unless the paper provides a tag identifying them as such

I am shocked and scandalized that an advocacy group for black journalists is advocating that a news outlet hire more black journalists. How dare they?! Seems a bit presumptuous to me…

David J. White: Not only did women used to use their initials, ANYONE of either gender who was classified by our culture as "Negro," or "colored," or "black" or whatever the term du jour was, used to use their initials in the same way, becaue it deprived people who chose to think of themselves as "white" of the opportunity to address them disrespectfully by their first name. (Like, the Alabama police officer who once addressed Dr. Alvin Poussaint as "boy" and "Alvin.")

Now, those days ARE mostly behind us. If a number of "black" upper level staffers have been LEAVING NPR, if these are VOLUNTARY departures, then NABJ doesn't have much to complain about. The post sort of read like they were, but I can't tell for sure. Surely NPR has no obligation to hire one black journalist for every one who chooses to resign and pursue other opportunities.

Sooner or later, people with dark skin are going to have to recognize that the very identity "black" was IMPOSED upon them by white supremacy, and throw it away. It would help if the rest of us throw away the identity "white," which is equally artificial. Nobody talked like that until the last 500 years or so. Nobody in Africa or North America referred to Europeans as "white" or thought of themselves as "black" or "red" or "colored" until they learned English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and most of all Portuguese. It was the Portuguese who first invented this blanco/negro nonsense, which makes it a bit of a joke that late 19th century Portuguese immigrants were considered non-white for a time.

Being that people do exist in somewhat separate sub-cultures, just as it is useful to circulation and news coverage to have Spanish speaking people on the staff of the Dallas Daily News, it is good to read a competent and balanced columnist in my local paper who grew up in a "black" neighborhood and has his finger on the pulse of neighborhoods where almost everyone thinks of themselves as "black." NPR can use some of that. But they are not at fault every time their numerical ratios shift a little.

After decades at an NPR affiliate, I see zero chance that anybody here could even buy a clue when it comes to "diversity." REAL diversity -- that is to say, viewpoint diversity -- frightens public radio types. They will go down with the ship before they try it.

Other than the democratizing force of the Internet (for good or ill), there's a theory that newspapers are collapsing because, well, they just haven't been that great. The product hasn't evolved with the times, reliance on he said-she said journalism, continued failure to reflect a variety of perspectives, classes, races that is America. The question is, how do we make a good product? The answers are innovation and doing what you haven't before.

If any editor believes that white suburban communities only want to read news that reflects white suburban communities, that's an echo chamber, not a newspaper. Why shrink your customers' perspective? You're to give them the world, not a mirror. You're to give multiple viewpoints because white suburbia isn't an island. Last time I checked we all share, contribute to and fight over local and federal gov't budgets and services, no? The editor who thinks as you've propositioned is the raison d'etre for orgs like NABJ. sf