you joke but the literal minute my hire was announced there were people at other publications screaming on the internet that i was an unqualified diversity hire
The irony is you are qualified and many of your colleagues are not. I’m sorry, but it’s true. They never would have been considered but for their race and race related backgrounds. I know you may disagree or feel it inappropriate to diss your colleagues that way, but the work speaks for itself.
I remember this. It was right after the times hired Sarah Jeong and the online right mounted a full on harassment campaign against her in response. Ugly stuff.
You, personally, are about 40% of the reason my family still has a Times subscription. Literally, without your presence, I don’t think we would continue to subscribe.
And they just cannot be persuaded, no matter what.
[jbouie posts five dozen deep dives into the American revolution and the Civil War] all this guy does is race-bait!
When I got my first faculty position at an R1 institution my husband’s boss, who knew NOTHING about my qualifications, sniffed “It helps to be a woman”. To my face, a sign he thought this sentiment wasn’t even something he needed to hide.
I’ve never encountered a diversity hire but I’ve seen plenty of homogeneity hires. I had a boss who just wanted to hire young white guys who reminded him of himself (down to “played high school football”) and told me a woman with the same education & experience as the guy he liked was “pretty green”
Flabbergasted, even though I’ve observed multiple settings where the small population of Black talent are much, much more impressive than their white colleagues.
