The lily-white world of magazines
CVK
Great analysis on Gawker today by special correspondent The Assimilated Negro. He rips apart an article just published in the New York Observer about how absurdly white the magazine industry is. Here’s his take on the excuses given by the various editors quoted in the piece:
“Several industry professionals traced this silence to the fact that magazines are, in the end, just magazines: waxy-paged collections of ads and articles that may provide everything from political analysis to eyebrow-waxing advice, but are hardly essential guardians of the public interest,” Ratner writes. This, then, is the We Also Promote Eating Disorders And A Low Self-Esteem So Why Get Huffy Over Racial Discrimination defense.
“But, on the other hand, there is a diversity of magazines,” Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker tells Ratner. “So it’s just a different kind of diversity exists already.” This one is the Y’all Motherfuckers Got Vibe and Essence So Shut The Hell Up defense.
“There is definitely no sense of shame about not having a diverse staff the way there was 10 years ago,” an anonymous Asian-American glossy-mag editor said. Now we’re seeing the Y’all Not Wearing Chains No More, So We’re Not Going to Feel Shame No More defense.
And finally, “I think, in people’s minds, it’s not like, ‘Let’s not hire any black people,’” said Hung author Scott Poulson-Bryant, a founding editor of Vibe. “It’s just like, ‘I don’t really know any black people to hire, and I don’t really want to do the work to find out who they are.’” Which is the beloved Where the Hell Are All the Black People When You Need One? defense.
It’s unfortunate that the Observer piece barely acknowledged the class issue, which is a major driver behind the lack of diversity at magazines. So many of these magazine jobs are never publicly advertised - they just get filled based on word of mouth and referrals. And since magazines pay so little (average starting salaries range from the low $20s to the low $30s) many people simply can’t afford to take up this kind of work. So it’s a vicious cycle: jobs get filled by people who know people already working at these magazines, most likely these people are from the same socio-economic background, so people outside of this tight-knit circle have a really hard time breaking in.
Mixed Media Watch - tracking media representations of mixed people on 07 Jul 2006 at 3:08 pm
[…] Of course, a lot of that has to do with the lack of diversity within the fashion industry. It’s still a white, white, white world. Yes, the last few years have seen a surge of Asian design talent (Derek Lam, doo.ri, Peter Som) and there are a handful of African-Americans who have cemented their positions on the scene (Patrick Robinson, Tracey Reese). But they’re the exception to the rule. And don’t get me started on the lack of diversity within the magazine industry. For more on that, click here. […]