Explicit Push For Equality Leaves Racists Angry
Tags: Race, Equality, Culture, Media, Racism

Explicit Push For Equality Leaves Racists Angry

“What If I Said I Want A White Editor?”

Photo by Steven Van on Unsplash

It repeatedly comes up: find out someone is racist, they are removed/fired from their position. However, racism is more than just slurs and police brutality, it’s the constant underlying preferential treatment and deference given to white people. It’s the fact that proving discrimination is damn near impossible because this society needs the white hoods and the slurs to actually say, “that was racist” with their whole chest.

Without that, there is ambiguity (at least on the part of white people) and they will focus on the “intention” of the white individual rather than the demonstrable impact that their actions create. The most recent case was the instance shared by Nicole French on Twitter showcases this perfectly.

A Black editor, Rikarlo Handy, was looking for other Black editors and white editors decided to lose their collective white shit.

The issue is that white people understand the game of racism. They know that implicit racism is rarely effectively challenged because they’ve been doing it, and thriving, for decades. Impact is rarely the focus of any argument regarding racism — it is always about intent because that leaves them protected. When a field is largely white, that is all the proof needed to demonstrate racism at play. Racism is multifaceted (bias, discrimination, prejudice) and this all snowballs into white people rationalizing hiring white people for a job over their Black and people of color counterparts while claiming there is no racism.

These white editors cried anti-racism (a myth) and made it seem like they’re being hunted and driven out because someone was looking specifically for Black ediotrs who are not given the access granted to white people. They all said “imagine if we said we only wanted to hire white editors”. White people, we don’t have to imagine what a world of mostly white editors look like — we’re in it.

Nathan Lee Bush, a white editor, went on a rant that by asking specifically to hire Black editors, who are underrepresented, is discriminatory against him and all white people, despite the inequalities. Nathan Lee Bush has worked with countless businesses (Nike, Capital One, Youtube, Old Navy, Morgan Stanley, to name a few) and his mindset is that of a racist scared that they will actually have to earn solely on their skill and character rather than implicit racism lining their pockets.

There is a difference between equality and equity. Equality means henceforth all will be fair and ignores the generational racism that curtailed wealth and advancement for those who were not white. You can’t be 5 feet ahead in every race while putting ankle weights on the other runners behind you, then say “to make it fair we will take of your weights” while still leaving them 5 feet behind you. Everyone must start at the same line, with no biases holding them back. That is equity and it’s precisely why white people like Nathan Lee Bush, Russ Blaise, Jared Tarlow (worked with Shondaland, Greys Anatomy, Scandal, ABC), Jonathan Launer, Jon Budd, Simon Hutchins, David Beerman, Antonio CT, Jeff Samet, and Marc Fisher (MTV) are scared, because if everyone starts at the same line, the game is no longer fixed. So how will they win?