January 12, 2006

It's a white white white white world at the top

Awhile back I tried to explain to Jared Taylor that his white ethnocentrism wouldn't fly in the U.S. for the paradoxical reason that whites remain so dominant in many of the more desirable industries that no sense of white solidarity could emerge because the top people see themselves as engaged in clawing their way to the top over other whites, and they look upon minorities merely as tokens or as props they can use to engage in a little moral oneupmanship over their white rivals.

Steve Gilliard points us toward an article in the New York Observer by Lizzy Ratner called "Vanilla Ceiling" on the editorial and writing staffs of New York glossy magazines:

Still, the results of the survey revealed a world that looks little like the streets of New York, where nearly 65 percent of the population identified itself as nonwhite in the 2000 census.

Of the 203 staffers and contributors listed on the Vanity Fair masthead, six—or less than 3 percent—are people of color.

At Condé Nast Traveler, the swank travel monthly, 11 of the 85 staffers and contributors listed on the masthead are people of color. Of those 11 staffers, three hold editing positions and two are contributing editors, while six hold lower-masthead positions as researchers and assistant editors.

The New Yorker doesn’t publish a masthead, but based on conversations with sources and available published information, the magazine has a pool of some 130 editors, critics, copy editors, fact checkers, editorial assistants and outside contributors—of whom 11 are people of color.

At Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone, four members of the magazine’s 73-person editorial staff are people of color. Six members of New York magazine’s 90-person team of editors, writers, contributors and editorial assistants are not white. ... At Forbes, an estimated seven people out of a pool of 116 editors, writers, reporters, editorial assistants, copy editors and bureau correspondents are people of color.

And the non-glossy Nation lists eight people of color among its 99 writers, editors, editorial-board members and Nation Institute fellows.

You can see why immigration has been such a non-issue for most of the media. The concept that immigration could be lowering anybody's wages seems bizarre to them because in their professional worlds, nonwhites of any kind, much less immigrants, are basically a non-factor.

Of course, some media outlets, especially big city newspapers, have strict affirmative action plans. This means that their staffs instantly become hostage to the minority editors and reporters if they even dream about deviating from the line of political correctness.

It's a fascinating two-state system, both of them disastrous for having an honest discussion of immigration. Without a quota, most press organs will be almost all white, so immigration seems irrelevant and unimportant to the staff. Or, the ownership impose a quota which means the staff then can't say much that's critical about immigration because the Hispanics would threaten to quit, which would wreck the managers' performance ratings for meeting the quota.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

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