Addressing the Elephant in the Room. (Or, I Dare you to Ignore this any Longer)

"It ain't easy being green," according to Kermit the Frog. It is never easy being "the other." Perhaps the biggest problem with being "the other" is convincing those in the mainstream to recognize that difference isn't wrong or inferior, and that the outlier, the oddball, the proverbial square-peg is just as important as those who conform.Convincing people like you. Yes, you.Because those who need to hear don't really listen. The minute somebody uses the F-word or the D-word these days, more than half the audience checks out. "Feminism" packs more heat today than that other F-word, the four-letter one. Start talking about "gender disparity" or "female representation," and at least half your audience (and roughly 97% of those under 25) runs for the hills. (That presumes they were even within earshot at the outset.)It's not much better when you say the Dword (sshhhh, "diversity"), unless the listener is some "other." Some people think we don't need to discuss this anymore - that we now live in a color-blind world. That because of affirmative action and legislation banning discrimination, the "D" issue is old news and the problem is solved. I'm guessing that's why only the usual suspects turned out for a 2015 panel about the state of diversity in advertising at the AAA (American Academy of Advertising) conference, and why the number in the audience exceeded the sum of esteemed panelists by exactly one (Grow & Mallia, 2015).Where were you?"Who Cares? I Don't Care. The Public Doesn't Care. Noooo-bod-y Cares."One summer decades ago, I heard that exhortation at BSSJ (Blair Summer School for Journalism) countless times from renowned Independence, Missouri journalism teacher Ron Clemons. He repeated it again and again, to drive home the importance of having a great lead in your news story to compel your audience to take heed and read. His refrain is every bit as relevant in persuasive communication, reminding us "nobody cares" unless we make them care about a topic.Nobody would actually admit to not caring about diversity. After all, few groups beat the academy in talking a good game about diversity and pledging allegiance to it. But unfortunately, we're human. So it takes an awful lot to make us stretch beyond our narrow scope of personal interest and truly embrace someone unlike ourselves, let alone her cause. As we advertising educators know from both theory and practice, it takes a powerful persuasive force to change strongly held opinions and attitudes, and to compel behavior change. Thus, despite the fact that we should know better, we selectively hear what reaffirms our existing notions and ignore the rest. We keep doing what we've always done. Years pass. And little ever changes. (Or if change does occur, its incremental pace makes a glacier's movement look like the Iditarod.)Of course, there are a few exceptions: 1) a handful of people who have a strong moral compass or ethical training; 2) those who are evaluated on improving diversity or compensated for it or 3) those who have been bypassed when less talented, white, younger, your-adjective-here men start zooming past them on the career ladder.Perhaps you think you're in the clear, because you've nurtured so many female students, perhaps even nominated some for BBDO's Allen Rosenshine Scholarship. Or because you have a decent track record in placing promising minority students with the AAF's MPMS program or in MAIP internships. Isn't that enough?Why should you devote any more time or thought to the advertising industry's persistent diversity problem? Who cares if young women exit in mid-career as fast as young graduates take their place, and female representation in creative is stalled - at best (Grow & Deng, 2014)? Who cares if too many of our best minority students walk away from advertising to do just about anything else? ("Survey contrasts perceptions ...," 2012) If our students aren't worried about work-life balance in advertising (Fullerton & Kendrick, 2015), and even young professionals are blase about diversity, why should we worry about it? …