“White people are often sincerely and greatly pained by racism, but rarely are they pained enough. That is not true because they are white, but because they are human…Earlier this year, Foer edited an anthology of TNR writings titled Insurrections of the Mind, commemorating the magazine’s 100-year history. “This book hasn’t been compiled in the name of definitiveness,” Foer wrote. “It was put together in the spirit of the magazine that it anthologizes: it is an argument about what matters.” There is only one essay in Insurrections that takes race as its subject. The volume includes only one black writer and only two writers of color. This is not an oversight. Nor does it mean that Foer is a bad human. On the contrary, if one were to attempt to capture the “spirit” of TNR, it would be impossible to avoid the conclusion that black lives don’t matter much at all.”
If you read the Toast, you read Ta-Nehisi Coates, so in the strictest sense, there’s no need for me to draw your attention to his piece about The New Republic that ran on The Atlantic this week. (If you were not terribly familiar with The New Republic before last week’s dustup, don’t be too hard on yourself; no one can read everything.) He does such a careful, lovely, incisive job dismantling the “oh how could this possibly have happened, in an ideal world of course we’d love to have a more diverse workplace, diversity is very important to us, it’s a complete mystery to me how we ended up almost-exclusively-white” attitude so common among white employers and event-creators and conference-founders.
If you are white, and you own or manage a mostly-white workplace, diversity is not something that will happen to you by accident. Workplace diversity is not a nice thing to have if you find the time and energy but something you can easily do without. Overwhelming whiteness is the enemy of creativity and truth; it must be actively resisted on every level, from hiring to editing.
“For most of its modern history, TNR has been an entirely white publication, which published stories confirming white people’s worst instincts.”
Tags: news, overwhelming whiteness, racism, ta-nehisi coates, the new republic, white people like nutmeg are best in small doses
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Thanks. That was an excellent read.
“A writer for TNR told me how, in the mid-’90s, Peretz would come down to the office from Cambridge and lobby young writers to write what turned out to be the fictional “Taxi Cabs and the Meaning of Work.” The writer told me that the young interns and fact-checkers would squirm in their seats. But no one took a stand. And perhaps it is too much to expect writers in their mid 20s, with editors in their late 20s, to say to Peretz, “Please stop shopping this racist bullshit.” But the task was made infinitely easier by a monochrome staff that could view Peretz’s racism as an abstraction, and not something that directly injured their families.”
Shani Hilton is amazing and I really love the shout out to her in this piece even if she isn’t named. She is the reason Buzzfeed has become a go to source of great reporting for me.
I don’t work in journalism, but it’s hard to imagine Shani Hilton is unique in her abilities. A black woman who is excellent at hiring great people is something all newsrooms should want (and well every workplace in the US).
I have this problem with hiring. I’ve been in the position to hire some people into my overwhelmingly-white workplace recently, and have ended up hiring white people every time. I promise I was conscious of diversity and looked for non-white candidates, but I’m in a white town in a white field and needed people with previous experience, and didn’t even get applicants with similar-but-not-exact experience, who I could have sold my boss on. It’s really upsetting! I don’t want to be part of the problem! But am not sure what else I could have done, save leaving the positions vacant for longer, which was its own kind of problem, so I could look more for the right person.
I’m not looking for absolution, just venting. I know I am part of the problem.
I had this issue (only getting white candidates) and what we changed was our staffing agency/head hunter. We found a minority woman-owned agency and started seeing qualified diverse candidates. If y’all are willing to pay recruitment fees that might be an option for you.
This is a really good point. I am going to see if I can make my workplace do something like this. Thank you!
I agree with the other commentators below. Where are you recruiting people? If your recruiting in predominantly white spaces your going to get white candidates. There are job posting sites and career fairs that are aimed at people of color/other marginalized groups. Once you start looking in these communities you’re going to find the diverse candidates.
So I am not sure what field you are in, but even in the most white dominated fields there’s probably at least one minority association in that field, and I would recommend getting in contact with whoever in charge of that organization. Even if you might not get candidates for this position, it might get non-white candidates interested and reach out to you (speaking as a woman of color in a fairly white dominated field, it is always so much easier for me to reach out to firms that are at least willing to reach out to minority associations).
Thanks — that’s a great suggestion. I will definitely be more proactive next time.
I should say, my organization overall is doing a pretty good job at getting more diverse, but we’re each kind of on our own in hiring for our own teams, and I was kind of at a loss.
“Oh I read New Republic and Nation,
I’ve learned to take every view”
While I’m widely a fan of Coates, the irony of the publication that gave Dinesh D’Souza an air of credibility criticizing the publication that gave Charles Murray an air of credibility isn’t lost on me.
Back in the day, I worked for a medical publisher in Chicago. The editorial staff was almost all white despite Chicago’s diversity. When HR said we needed to interview some non-white candidates for each opening, it wasn’t hard to find solid applicants who weren’t white. And once they got their foot in the door for an interview, they impressed the hell out of us, got the job, and excelled. They were no more or less qualified than the white editorial assistant candidates who we interviewed (there were always a zillion “no” applicants and a handful of “ooh, yes” applicants offered interviews–the criteria were same for all). Without HR’s mandate, it would have been perilously easy for a bunch of white women to seek out candidates who were just like them (the whole unintentional bias thing, feeling entirely nonracist and yet making the same choices a racist would). I’m glad we were pushed to do better. It is the easiest thing in the world, but if you rely on the old-boy network or simply don’t try for diversity, you can end up like TNR.
I was watching Shattered Glass recently, and I was struck by how all the actors playing New Republic staff were white – even just background faces. Is that an accurate reflection of the publication’s real situation in the mid 1990’s (and maybe today)? I feel like it wasn’t just lazy white filmmaking, because the Forbes office was depicted as pretty diverse, with people of colour in prominent senior roles.
yes. my Christmas present to myself.
If you are white, and you own or manage a mostly-white workplace, diversity is not something that will happen to you by accident. Workplace diversity is not a nice thing to have if you find the time and energy but something you can easily do without. Overwhelming whiteness is the enemy of creativity and truth; it must be actively resisted on every level, from hiring to editing.
Thank you for saying this, and saying it so well. btw, I’m very glad I work here.
Every time this issue comes up now I think of this quote from David Plotz at Slate (in this article):
In the struggle to stay afloat, worrying about diversity came to be seen as quaint. “Up until 2008, newsrooms—especially large ones—were really really conscious about diversity,” says Slate editor David Plotz, whose publication’s staff composition of 75 is about 6.7 percent minority. “The recession made newsrooms very miserly thinking about issues like that. The thinking was, ‘We are in survival mode, we are about saving our jobs. This is not an issue we care about.'”
Riiiight, because diversity is a LUXURY for better times. Which I’ll never understand, no matter how many times I read it. Because if you’re worried about competing in a crowded field and continually proving why you deserve to exist as a publication, you NEED more diverse writers and editors on staff to STAY RELEVANT. Having those voices in the room, making decisions and hiring MORE people, is not only necessary to speak to a diverse readership/community, it could also help prevent embarrassing and totally avoidable mistakes (hi, NYT profile of Shonda Rhimes). If it’s harder for media outlets to succeed, I can’t see how diverse staff is anything less than an imperative — from a business standpoint and not just a moral one.
The lack of diversity being bad from a business standpoint makes you realize how dumb these ingrained ideas are, that they come only from a lack of self-awareness, ignorance, and, basically, laziness. I’m also reminded of how stories for women are treated as niche in the film and book industries, when women are actually the ones watching/buying more of these products.
(PS I am glad you work here too xx)
If you are white, and you own or manage a mostly-white workplace, diversity is not something that will happen to you by accident. Workplace diversity is not a nice thing to have if you find the time and energy but something you can easily do without. Overwhelming whiteness is the enemy of creativity and truth; it must be actively resisted on every level, from hiring to editing.
Thank you for saying this, and saying it so well. btw, I'm very glad I work here.
Every time this issue comes up now I think of this quote from David Plotz at Slate (in this article):
Riiiight, because diversity is a LUXURY for better times. Which I'll never understand, no matter how many times I read it. Because if you're worried about competing in a crowded field and continually proving why you deserve to exist as a publication, you NEED more diverse writers and editors on staff to STAY RELEVANT. Having those voices in the room, making decisions and hiring MORE people, is not only necessary to speak to a diverse readership/community, it could also help prevent embarrassing and totally avoidable mistakes (hi, NYT profile of Shonda Rhimes). If it's harder for media outlets to succeed, I can't see how diverse staff is anything less than an imperative — from a business standpoint and not just a moral one.
This is probably the most pretentious comment ever, but TNR and its readers remind me of a passage in Anna Karenina:
“Oblonsky took and read a liberal paper, not an extreme liberal paper, but one that expressed the views of most people, and although he was not really interested either in science, art, or politics, his views on all these matters were strictly in conformance with the views of the majority and those of his paper, and he changed them only when the majority changed theirs; or rather he did not change them, but they changed imperceptibly of their own accord… just as he did not change the style of his hat or coat, but always wore those that were in fashion.”
And that was your daily dose of literary pretension with middlemarch.
Hey, thanks for that idea! He's in my feedly must-reads now. 🙂
The lack of diversity being bad from a business standpoint makes you realize how dumb these ingrained ideas are, that they come only from a lack of self-awareness, ignorance, and, basically, laziness. I'm also reminded of how stories for women are treated as niche in the film and book industries, when women are actually the ones watching/buying more of these products.
(PS I am glad you work here too xx)
I do the hiring at my nonprofit workplace. With the exception of one person who was recommended to me by a former coworker, I went by cover letters and resumes. With the exception of people who have a picture of themselves attached to their gmail accounts, names were the only things I would have had to go on for any sort of demographic guesses (and this is in the NYC metro area, so names are particularly useless here if you’re trying to figure out a person’s background). Based on their communication, resumes, short phone conversations, and then in-person interviews, I have hired five people: three white women and two women of color (I would have been pretty happy to hire a guy, but didn’t get any qualified male applicants; I am a black woman, btw). Although some have been average and some above-average, I have been more satisfied than not with all of my hires.
I also coordinate all volunteers. One woman, who taught our ESL classes for a miserable month and a half, turned out to be a total racist who also only liked other people from her country. After the first week, where I observed her class, she didn’t even pretend to want to teach people from other countries (and I really question how she behaved at the other organizations that gave her a positive reference). She had a huge problem with the black woman I hired (but never let on in front of me), and took any opportunity possible to be rude, mean, or both. My black employee and other employees informed me of the ESL teacher’s awfulness. I asked the ESL teacher to be mindful of how she spoke to my employee, and the teacher replied that the problem was all my employee’s, but she (the teacher) hadn’t complained to me because: “I thought that she must be your cousin.” What. The. Hell?? For that and many other reasons, I asked the teacher to wrap up her session and she left after not quite two months.
It annoys me that any other black person I hire is automatically assumed to have some personal or familial connection to me (I met this employee in the course of this job, and I’m very glad I did). It can’t that I hired her because I suspected that she’d be good at her job. Nope. Even though we look nothing alike, both of us being black is enough. We have to be related.
Why worry about that? Its what they do, so what’s the problem? White people hire their friends, friends of friends or someone they have a connection, no matter how tenuous, all the time. That power, to hire someone who looks like you, is powerful and is used all the time. Do not ever let someone diminsh your power. Do you think they care what you think when they hire their brother-in-law’s nephew for a job?
It’s not going to stop me from hiring who best fits the position, but I find it annoying and insulting that some people think the only reason I’d hire another black person is because we’re related or because they’re black. Seriously? Those were the only two options you could come up with?