Following the Thought Trail Whilst Wary of Drive Through Diversity
By: Dr. David Dunkley Gyimah
Tags: Stories And Culture, Diversity And Inclusion, Diversity, Journalism, Walking

The report Best Places… showed up, amongst other things, that black media employers are caught up in the the frozen middle of pay and promotion.

Alongside a list of damning reports this year, several too from the Sir Lenny Centre for Media Diversity, and given the extraordinary eventful tail wind of 2020, substantive change has not yet come to pass I find myself telling the UK’s Creative Industries Federation in an interview.

Is this down to too ambitious targets being set? Is it that whilst progressives seek change they hold themselves back by Kendi’s notion of assimilationists’ ideas and this positioning needs to be better understood? Or that in its overall framing the approach to diversity and inclusion requires a different tact?

Several parts of the media industry have responded to what might be called Drive-through Diversity — quick grabs from the counter. Take confirmation bias programmes as takeaways? That said, I recognise many great minds and activists who work tirelessly to find solutions.

One of the popular and much talked about features for direct action has been the Rooney rule, named after Dan Rooney the Pittsburg Steelers’ president. It was introduced in 2001 as a response to the paucity of Black NFL coaches.

Rooney’s rule has been well documented and several companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Uber have adopted its form to varying, if not weak, success. A close read as depicted in Pamela Newkirk’s Diversity Inc: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business provides some answers.

Rooney, initially a skeptic, is instrumental. It’s the respect he commands in the NFL that enables a proposition from two leading civil rights lawyers to take off: Cochran, OJ Simpson’s lawyer and Mehri who took on Coca Cola in one of the biggest discrimination law suits in the US.

The proposal of a diversity committee amongst leading NFL teams which regularly meet keeps the idea alive and then as if on a firm handshake Rooney divulges responsibility to assembled members to take action. The reading strikes me as one of those agreements that if it fails off the start line members will low sling their heads in shame.

There are set backs when the Detroit Lions violate the rule because they failed to include any black coaches in the interview process and are fined. But since that no other team has flouted the ruling. Success, though has ebbed and flowed from the number of Black coaches from seven in 2011 to only three today in Mike Tomlin of Pittsburgh, Brian Flores of Miami and David Culley of Houston. Belatedly, there’s been a revamp to shore up the process.

There’s something else about the ruling. The applicants being considered are Super Bowl winners or with pedigrees of success. Indeed Newkirk’s Diversity Inc cites economist Janice Madden research that shows Black coaches had taken their teams to 67% of playoffs compared to the 39% for white coaches. All this in a game where Black players constitute 70% of the NFL.

What could be an equivalent scheme in the UK media? Who could be the Rooney figure to command respect amongst his or her peers with coercive powers to bring about change amongst assembling media companies. The requirement, much the same as Rooney would be to short list Black and brown candidates with pedigrees for the job. It’s a will of politics and scruples.

The evidence from The TV Collective’s survey showing a number of Black talent frozen in middle career paths is evidence of the talent.

Then again, is the inertia because prospects for Black and Brown people is ill perceived, that conditions aren’t as bad as thought? That’s in spite of a litany of reports that show otherwise. Thoughts loom large in Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Wins and gain emerge from co-ordinated advocates joining forces and relentlessly pursuing a cause. Take this example.