Color of Money

But the reality is that favoritism for Whites is so familiar that we just take it for granted. Doors are opened to the children of people in the business. And of course, there is the practice of legacy admission to Ivy League colleges, which confers even more advantages, mainly for White families. But there’s a price to pay when you are the socalled “Black” hire. People question your abilities from Day 1. They wonder whether you are truly competent.

This is the tough and unfair part of affirmative action — the constant questioning of your qualifications to your face or more often behind your back — or within earshot. The insinuations can be so unrelenting.

I once left my desk in a huff after a White male reporter remarked about the increasing number of Black hires at The Washington Post.

“No offense to you,” he said.

At the time, I was one of only two Blacks in the business section, but I listened as my co-worker, someone I liked and admired, complained that perhaps one day soon White men would be an endangered species in the newsroom.

“Stand up,” I told him. “Look around. Do you see a shortage of White men around here?”

In 1978, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, now called the News Leaders Association, put out a challenge to the industry: “The commitment to recruit, train and hire minorities needs urgently to be rekindled. This is simply the right thing to do. It is also in the newspaper industry’s economic self-interest.”

The organization began to survey diversity hires. By 2000, the goal was for newsroom personnel to represent the U.S. population.

Overall, people of color represent 21.9 percent of the salaried workforce among newsrooms, according to data collected for the 2019 Newsroom Diversity Survey. (Data collection has been hampered by lack of participation; only 17 percent of papers took part in the 2018 survey, a historical low.)

Racial and ethnic minorities made up 40 percent of the U.S. population in 2018, according to the Pew Research Center.

In a 2018 report, Pew found that “newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than U.S. workers overall.”

In that closed-door meeting 28 years ago, Vise said that I was an asset to The Post. I earned the position because of the totality of who I was — my race, gender, economic background, education and work experience. All of those aspects of my identity gave me a perspective on the news that Vise knew The Post needed.

I continued to weep, in part out of gratitude, in part from relief. Vise had validated what I knew to be true. I deserved to be here at least as much as anyone else.

Sincerely, Michelle

Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1301 K St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her email address is michelle.singletary@ washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter (@SingletaryM) or Facebook (www.facebook. com/MichelleSingletary). Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.