This Is Not In My Job Description

On December 17, NPR posted their new research on newsroom diversity: the percentage of on-air sources has only become whiter since the last examination four years ago. Along with this decline in voices of color, in perfect, ironic harmony, NPR accidentally omitted Native American sources from the diversity data graphics. 

I laughed when I saw the initial tweet because, well, this isn’t “new” or even remotely surprising. Not to me, at least.

This is not surprising considering publications like the New York Times are publishing articles written by eugenicists or “love stories” about murdering your disabled and/or terminally ill loved ones. This is not surprising considering that when I interviewed for a company, I was asked why I’m not writing for our university’s predominantly white flagship campus newspaper. This is not surprising because these companies don’t actually care about diversity.

If they did, those statistics and consequently, those newsrooms would look much different — and not just at NPR, but everywhere.

To them, diversity is merely a buzzword, a trend, and/or a business tactic, albeit an essential one. Without diversity, you miss out on talented people from all walks of life who possess the ability to increase readership and reach broader audiences that said company was glazing over. It’s one of the many reasons why the mantra of the Carolina Association of Black Journalists is, “Without diversity, there is no excellence.”

However, the issue with these companies, publications, organizations, etc. is that our talent, the talent of journalists and creatives of color, is viewed in proximity to whiteness and white circles. For some arbitrary, most likely elitist reason that has yet to be addressed, their publications are perceived as the end-all be-all. 

In addition to The Bridge’s presence on UNC’s campus, there are organizations such as the Black Student Movement’s 50-year-old publication Black Ink Magazine, South Asian magazine and social justice group Monsoon (est. 2014), and Limeaid, a publication created this year by and for women, nonbinary, queer, and trans folks. Despite the time and effort we pour into organizations that we have created in response to lack of diversity and gatekeeping in other spaces, our work is not heralded with the same importance or value. 

It’s not that we are less talented; no, that’s not it at all. The issue is that to so many of these companies, if we’re not working within the white network they’re familiar with — regardless of however violent, oppressive, or toxic the environment may be —  our work doesn’t matter.

A recent article published in the Daily Tar Heel highlighting student theater’s transformation throughout the decade failed to mention the founding of the first Black theater organization on campus, the Black Arts Theatre Company, which they have reported on before. In our conversation following the blunder, BATC’s founder Elizabeth Howard said, “Our work is never acknowledged unless we are doing something ‘groundbreaking’ in a white space.” 

But how can organizations continue to fish in the same pond with the same species and claim to prioritize diversity? How can you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome? That is the definition of insanity, according to Albert Einstein, probably every athletic coach you’ve ever had, and anyone with common sense.

Simply put, y’all only care about clout. 

You only care about being able to gloat and brandish these numbers and statistics about how many women (who more often than not, are white and/or white-passing) are in the office. You don’t support the people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, employees with disabilities, and other minorities in the workplace when issues arise. 

The statistics on how many of those individuals serve in leadership roles, in executive roles, in editor roles, overseeing the production of horrendous articles such as the ones aforementioned, are a mystery — because chances are, they are not in positions of power.

Your form of diversity support is wearing an allyship pin or hosting occasional in-office parties for various affinity groups, which, although appreciated, is merely scratching the surface. Somehow, the grunt of the real work falls upon me, the Black woman in the office, whether I asked for it or not. 

To me, diversity is about lifting as I climb, which is something I do not take lightly. I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am without the Black women who paved the way for me. It’s why I do what I do, working to preserve The Bridge as a space for uplifting woman-identifying creatives of color and changing how the application and editing processes are conducted over at Coulture. 

However, the motivation for why I do what I do is not up for institutions and those working within them to dictate or impress upon me. It’s not because I care about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and its longevity, because UNC has proven over 2.5 million times that it does not care about me, my safety, or anyone who looks like me. I do this work because I care about myself, my community, and anyone who has ever felt as though they are always on the outside looking in.

No matter how fun it is or how supportive people are, it is labor. It is time and energy I am expending as a Black female student on things that other students do not have to worry about. It’s unpaid labor, but it is labor that I am choosing to take on. A labor of love, if you will.

Yet from one space to the next, I inadvertently become the secondary diversity & inclusion/HR director because of the incompetence and laziness of publications and companies that mistake after mistake, make half-hearted attempts and pleas for Black & brown people to come work for them. 

The sad part is that because of how the journalism industry is set up, we frequently have no choice but to. Too many of us from underrepresented backgrounds walk around with this weight that if we don’t do this work, then no one else will, as if that was included in the job description. 

But it’s not.

That is the purpose of diversity, equity, and inclusion officers within companies, the purpose of anti-discrimination policies, and equitable hiring practices. That is the purpose of people who are quite literally paid to do DEI work.

My purpose is not to be hired to clean the mess that publications and companies leave in lieu of refusing to change workplace culture, spearhead actual DEI recruitment initiatives, and look beyond and outside of their networks for talent. 

As long as I’m in this industry, I will always try to be there for journalists from marginalized backgrounds, especially Black women, but I will not be your maid. I will not be the company pet and attempt to coerce minority journalists into unsafe environments. I will do my share when and where I can, whether it be through my writing, through mentorship, or whatever else, but it will be on my time and consistent with my paycheck.

If your company, publication, organization, etc. claims to truly care about diversity, they have to do the hard work instead of resorting to the easy route: tokenism. In the words of the ‘18-’19 editor-in-chief of The Bridge Nya Anthony, “The warm-up is over.”