We made it through the racial Oscars without too many bumps in the road. Of course one of the big stories was the whole twitter / Oscar speech mess between Sam Smith (who didn't sing too well) and Dustin Lance Black (I'm only still in the news because of my hot fiance). And of course we found out that all of this shouldn't have been a story. With all of the other minority issues, it seemed that everyone was over the Smith / Black cat fight before it even got started. Why is this? It may be explained in this story from the New York Post.
Without doubt, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people face a gauntlet of legally and socially sanctioned discrimination throughout America. There are no national laws protecting LGBTs in the workplace, for instance, while local-level ordinances vary from state to state, even city to city.
But as the recent #oscarsowhite and #filmherstory brouhahas suggest, diversity in Hollywood (and Silicon Valley) isn’t an LGBT problem — it’s a race and gender problem. The Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism reported that Caucasians make up more than 73 percent of the characters in the top 100 films; a similar number of speaking roles were male.
Off-screen, the situation is even more weighted toward white men: Just 12 percent of Hollywood’s film directors are minorities, while male directors outnumber their female counterparts by 12 to 1 — even though films with minority and female characters perform better at the box office.
Not much is different up in Silicon Valley. Leading tech firms there report that, on average, its employees are 71 percent men, 29 percent women, 60 percent white, 23 percent Asian, 8 percent Latino, and 7 percent black.
LGBTs, however, are well represented in both the tech and entertainment industries. Apple is led by a gay CEO; every top tech firm has robust LGBT affinity groups, and media companies have some of the most progressive pro-LGBT policies in America. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are also based in the most tolerant sections of the most tolerant state in the nation. It’s not that LGBTs don’t face real and often violent discrimination. They do. But diversity and inclusiveness policies must address the needs of those who’ve been excluded most — and regardless of sexual orientation, they’re not white men.
Such sentiments may sound extreme, but it’s no more extreme than the white male culture that exists at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s leading LGBT rights organization. Last year HRC was blasted for cultivating a corporate environment as white and male as Hollywood and Silicon Valley. In an internal survey, HRC staffers called it a “White Men’s Club,” where underqualified gay white men are promoted at the expense of women, minorities and transgender people.
Like Hollywood, HRC has embarked on a major “diversity” initiative. But the question remains, if gay white men can’t even be counted on to promote inclusiveness within their own activist organizations, why should anyone expect them to do so in billion-dollar industries like tech and media? Nonprofits like HRC are at least expected to “do good.” But that kind of “good” is quickly glossed over in Hollywood and Silicon Valley for the sake of soaring stocks and record profits.
Only a cast-iron cynic would wholly dismiss diversity efforts like Ryan Murphy’s. But in bundling sexuality with race and gender, Murphy has displayed a level of tone-deafness that no longer works in this post-#oscarsowhite era. Men like Murphy and Twitter’s Siminoff may have once viewed themselves as minorities. But in the cushy corridors they inhabit, they’re vital parts of the power structure that keeps actual minorities from reaching their full potential. – nypost.com
Do you agree that gay white males are no longer worthy of minority status?
When it comes to diversity hiring, are gay white males overlooked, out of the running?
Are GWM so much a majority in our minority of the LGBT that our input is seen as controlling and from the establishment?
What are your thoughts, Instincters?
h/t : New York Post.
The truly frustrating thing
The truly frustrating thing is that these people seem to believe what is representative of LGBT acceptance on the coasts (and let's be clear, the liberal metropolises located along the coasts, not the entirety of the coastal regions) is somehow representative of acceptance everywhere in the country. It is not. Deep-seated prejudices still exist across a large swath of the country as evidenced by the numerous 'Religious freedom' that continue to be passed. I'm not familiar with Kaufman's other writings, but I think it's a safe assumption that someone who writes for the NY Post has little real-world experience with what it's like to be gay in middle America, white or not.
Wait, is being called a
Wait, is being called a minority some sort of coveted status? Who cares really?
"Caucasians make up more than 73 percent of the characters in the top 100 films…"
"Silicon Valley… 60 percent white, 23 percent Asian, 8 percent Latino, and 7 percent black"
I fail to see the issue with any of this. Like it or not, Caucasians still make up the majority, and are more-or-less represented proportionately in most major industries.
While white men are without a
While white men are without a doubt a majority; gay men are without a doubt a minority. As a gay white male, I can tell you that I have had a great deal of discrimination and it is much harder being openly gay versus closeted.
I also, will not live my life as a closed man and tell people that they should live their lives openly. How can I advocate for LGBTQIPA issues as well as HIV/AIDS issues and continue in the closet. I cannot closet myself do this type of advocacy while expecting a level of respect that should go along with this type of work.
Harvey Milk thought that we needed to come out of the closet in order to accomplish the work that needed done. I happen to agree with him.
All of this said, this causes some circumstances that leaves a person at risk for discrimination be it purposeful or not it happens. People are at their root prejudice to the things that they have been taught to not like or understand (all of us have a group or thing that we are prejudice against). While I believe that we can be prejudice we do not have to be bigots. I can know and accept my prejudices and that is a step in working through said issues.
I will say that while we are working on this issue we are not there as s society by any means yet. We still have states that people can and are fired everyday because they are gay. People are kicked out of their homes because they are gay. People are refused service because they are gay while heterosexuals are given all of the rights I have mentioned without an issue. Anyone that is perceived as heterosexual is given the right without an issues as well.
Other groups may not have come as far but men always have a bit better than other do. Men are a bit more vocal and more aggressive in the manner that they get their rights. We do get to talk to other men and it is okay to tell them what we think of them where as women are in the minds of men of power are supposed to "know their place." Such stereotypes! Women more times than not can take most men to the carpet where as most men it is about mine is bigger than yours game (no matter what it is).