You’re pretty pale yourself, Ryerson
This is a column on “diversity,” a laudable quality in any workplace, beerfest or indeed public washroom. It always has been admirable, but it took Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to actually start doing something about it. He’s all action, that man. The rest of us, not so much.
Yesterday, sick with fever and doing that fatal thing, noodling around weird bits of the Internet — I diagnosed myself as having lung Glanders with aspects of asbestosis, but the doctor says no — and came across a photo of myself on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s website. To my surprise, it was under the headline “The Unbearable Whiteness of Canadian Columnists.”
I am so steamed at you, Ryerson. What a travesty, what a canard. It is perfectly bearable being Scottish, which I half am. In fact, that’s the essence of Scottishness, that it can be endured, no matter how painful, joyless, banal. Do your worst, I can take it, says the Scot.
Ryerson did its worst, as it also has in its spring 2016 magazine edition which contains the hypocritical headline “Because It’s 2016: An Unflinching Five-Part Look at Diversity.” The blog post had dozens of photos of grim-looking newspaper columnists, and almost all were white. To be honest, I was the palest person there, but maybe I was having a bad day that summer of 2010 when the photo was taken.
It then occurred to me that the Review had discovered, possibly by reading, that my late father was from India. So it was using my Anglo-Indian face to make a different point, equally repellent. Review editor Kat Eschner politely, indeed kindly, told me her team had made “a fair attempt” to “show a variety of Canadian columnists.” They didn’t say everyone in the 24 blog mug shots (about 35 in the GIF) was white and they were not, she said, “making any statement on (my) identity.”
But they were. They didn’t use words, just called us all bags of faulty skin and asked readers to pick favourites. (Note: I will not say “POC.”) So am I a splendidly colourful columnist, a sort of wee Toronto Star brooch, or the human equivalent of a kilt and bagpipes?
Why were there no captions? Or even catchphrases? Personally I think I deserved a “Just about right” under my photo. I see the Globe’s European analyst Eric “I’m almost Italian now” Reguly, my Toronto Sun pal Lorrie “What, not Jewish enough?” Goldstein, Globe analyst Barrie “I hate dairy supply management” McKenna, and of course, Margaret “You can say that again!” Wente.
I am diverse. I contain multitudes. In fact, I am diversity incarnate. When it comes to race, I’m practically transgender, which is cool right now. Wait, that’s close to a compliment and my mother trained me never to accept such trinkets. “We are not put on this earth for pleasure,” she would sigh. But my dear father disagreed.
I just bought a chair at Design Republic. You already have a chair, my mother says. Buy two, says my father’s ghost. You’re not paying $95 for delivery, my mother says, shocked. My brain makes grinding “hern hern” noises.
My dad was all about enjoying life, saying yes to everything. I love men like that. I understand that “stale, pale and male” is a problem for most institutions, including Ryerson’s journalism department, but I spent my career being hired by these good humans. Why didn’t the Review go after editors and their unbearable choices instead of the recipients of their largesse?
I love Ryerson, good old polytech that it was. It trained me, gave me a goal. But I could not make the Review understand that it had insulted/flattered me for something beyond my control. Here I sit inflattered, guilted, flinsulted.
Anti-racism can take strange turns. Witness the ongoing shaming of the dark actor Zoe Saldana for not being dark enough to play Nina Simone in a biopic. I don’t like commenting on “skin” as it always makes me think of Nazi lampshades. But what it really reminds me of is South African apartheid which so hideously rated “coloureds” and bloodlines.
But fair enough, Ryerson’s journalism department, lovely people all, posts photos online of its teaching staff, including faculty, adjuncts, contract lecturers, etc. There are 49. How many appear to be white? About 44.
The total includes six who have chosen not to be photographed, appearing instead as an area maple tree. It’s the same tree. Ryerson doesn’t even have deciduous diversity.
I asked the Review to check my math, which takes five minutes, but didn’t hear back.
All this is unfair to writers. What matters most is talent, and whether columnists nailed by the Review have it is beyond my remit. The blog post itself lacked the most necessary thing, a fresh angle on this ancient tangled problem, and that made me sad.
But I’m Indian. I can laugh. And I’m Scottish. I can take it. hmallick@thestar.ca
If the Ryerson Review is so concerned about diversity in Canadian media, it should take a look in the mirror