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As the head of the outfit co-sponsoring this event (The Atavist), I gotta say... Cord is right. It was a serious oversight to not have ensured some diversity on this panel (it would be a serious oversight on any panel, but on this particular topic it's egregious). Not for any PC reasons or sensitivity reasons, but because an issue like this is more intelligently discussed when a range of racial perspectives are included. We did reach out to a wide group of potential participants, but when we ended up with an all-white panel it should've been rethought, or postponed. We've been working to try and expand the panel, and we have some people we hope can join who are both extremely qualified to speak on this topic and can add a different perspective as well.
That doesn't excuse the original failure. And I should add that it was not the fault of any of the participants—some of whom have spent large parts of their careers shining a light on the human costs and skewed racial consequences of our incarceration policies. None of them could've known about the lack of diversity until the posting went up. It's on us, the organizers.
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Thanks for commenting, Evan.
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Not for any PC reasons or sensitivity reasons...
1) Define "PC". I'll help: it's code for "we shouldn't have to be fair to people".
2) Congratulations on eschewing codewords and outright stating that you believe "sensitivity" is a bad thing. Because who would want a panel discussing the mass-incarceration of Americans to be sensitive?
3) How is not being fair and sensitive going to help this panel reach the correct conclusions?
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Seems like you're missing the point of a very thorough and sincere apology. He's saying that not only is it necessary to have minorities on that panel, but that it's necessary for real reasons not just appearances. He's saying the exact right thing and apologizing with hat fully in hand. Don't be a dick.
Don't be a dick.
You first.
You're welcome to your interpretation of his apology even if you don't "allow" me mine, but you are interpreting what you think he said whereas I'm interpreting what he actually said. If that's not what he meant, he shouldn't have said it.
Unless you have mind-reading skills in addition to being a dick, I'm going with what he wrote instead of what you think he meant.
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It appears Myisha Cherry is black.
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Myisha Cherry was not included in the original panel lineup. It appears as if they've thrown her in at the last minute to quiet the critics.
Oh. Carry on, then.
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Well, Cord, looking at the work experience of the panelists, here's your conundrum:
You can argue that there should be people of color (any color?) on the panel, but then you're making a decision to do that based solely off race. Which you are.
Or you can accept that these people (have you even read Rivlin's work? Or Gonnerman's?) are uniquely qualified to hold this panel and move on to real issues.
While we're on the topic, and since you seem to enjoy playing the role of the contrarian, feel free to break down Gawker Media's racial breakdown. I'd be surprised to see it matching the proportion values that you expect from others.
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What do these people's qualifications have to do with the fact that this panel should probably include a broader range of racial perspectives? I'm quite sure that everyone on this panel deserves to be on it. I'm also quite sure that this panel should include a broader range of racial perspectives. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Regarding the racial breakdown of Gawker Media as a whole: I'm not sure. But I can tell you that Gawker the website includes these people of color on its masthead: Cord Jefferson, Caity Weaver, Adrian Chen, Nitasha Tiku, and Kiese Laymon. There is also a good amount of gender diversity.
Excellent, I'm glad to see the diversity you mentioned though it's unfortunate that you don't know the breakdown of the Gawker media empire. Might be good to scrutinize it; and, after doing so, may be worth celebrating. I don't know, we don't know the breakdown. However, returning to the original point: why does racial diversity matter? Is your reasoning that any black or Hispanic academe is going to have more insight than Sabine Heinlein because she's from Germany? Does her work count for nothing in your estimation? And if so, why? Why is a "person of color" (God, I loathe that phrase but it's an AA fave) automatically more qualified than Rivlin? Because you assume they have had relatives in prison? Little racist, no?
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I work in the NGO world in DC and go to tons of these panels and discussions. They are overwhelmingly white and often male, even when the topics are issues that most touch the lives of women. Sometimes this is not a problem, but I think that it increasingly is a huge issue. I recently attended a panel on single mothers and the white male reporter from the NYT adamantly insisted that Americans are totally accepting of single mothers — there is no cultural backlash against them! He continued to insist even after a single mother on the panel tried to share her experiences proving the opposite.
I think this is a problem that plagues the larger nonprofits and foundations. IMO, the smaller, direct service organizations do a much better job of bringing voices to the table that actually represent the people most affected by the topics up for discussion.
