The New York Times Magazine asked, “Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?” The author focused mostly on Silicon Valley and Hollywood to make her points. If she had considered the question in relation to Madison Avenue, the story would have made the magazine thicker than The New York Times Sunday edition.
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Yes, diversity has lost its meaning at American ad agencies.
For instance, in our city we're lorded over by holding companies. To make us FEEL like there's diversity, they've taken to holding up international offices as proof of diversity.
I mean, honest to god they're foreign themselves, so I just don't think the get the nuances. They don't know or care that there's a huge difference in opportunities and meaning between someone who's black and working in South Africa, compared to African-American and working in Chicago or Detroit.
So out of blindness they're holding up South African offices as examples of diversity during Black History Month, and ones in Argentina with these whiter than white people during Hispanic Heritage Month. There's no actual talk of diversity beyond that. No discussion of why the only brown people you see here in our American agencies are interns or holding cleaning supplies.
Then don't get me started on the 3% Conference. Moving white women up the agency ladder does not equal diversity, since most of them were already there to start with. But again, holding companies and our "diversity officers" are pushing that, hard, as proof of diversity.
It's frustrating, especially watching more and more awesome and creative minority friends and colleagues leave the industry. That's exclusion, not diversity.
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