Washington Post Should Seek Real Diversity
Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell yearns for more women and minorities columnists. She puts it under the rubric of “diversity.” But for Howell that only means having different skin color or two X chromosomes. The title of her piece is “A Diversity of Opinion” but she only mentions race and sex. La Shawn Barber calls her out on that:
More women and minorities… that’s noble but very predictable. Might I add a third category? Why not add more conservative writers to the roster? If you want diversity of opinion, as your column title indicates, it will require the paper to publish pieces written from a non-liberal worldview, one that differs from the view of the current editorial board and stable of writers.
La Shawn’s right. “I care more about reading articles written by someone whose opinions and values — not race or sex — are similar to my own.” This superficial concept of diversity has bothered me since I ran into it in college. Those in favor of more diversity and affirmative action assume being black or a woman means you have a unique opinion that’s not being represented. Such an assumption is literally skin deep. All of us come from varied backgrounds and have varied experiences. Different people, books, ideas, movies, and music have affected us in different ways. Assuming someone adds to diversity of opinion just because they’re not white or male is as shallow as believing “all blacks think alike”.
I’m not calling for affirmative action for conservatives. Columnists should be judged by the ability to craft words, generate insightful ideas, and garner readership. The Washington Post can publish whoever they want and propagate whatever opinion they want. It’s their paper; they can do what they want. Conservative writers like La Shawn and myself have found a way (however limited) to go around those gatekeepers. In the blogosphere many times we don’t know the skin color of the writer (we can discern the sex from the writer’s name), and we don’t care. The blogosphere isn’t the be-all end-all of media, but for real diversity of opinion that doesn’t put people into racial and sexual boxes I can’t think of a better place.
“Three Diversity Birds, One Stone”
