6203: The Ignorance At Adweek, Part 2.

Just wanted to add a quick follow-up to the previous essay about Adweek’s rehash/report on Madison Avenue’s dearth of diversity.

First, let’s take a stroll back to Essay Fourteen, where MultiCultClassics noted that DiversityInc.com called out Adweek and Advertising Age for the publications’ lack of diverse content. The post is dated March 21, 2005. Since then, Advertising Age has made significant strides. In fact, Ad Age originally covered most of the highlights Adweek regurgitated in its story—plus, Ad Age reporters and editors physically attended meetings with attorney Cyrus Mehri and activist Sanford Moore. As for Adweek, well, the magazine “currently does not employ a single person of color among the 16 members of its editorial and design staffs.” It’s more than a little ironic for the diversity dilemma to suddenly be presented by an enterprise apparently intent on emulating the industry’s pathetic progress.

Second, Mehri said, “[Madison Avenue] has a history of purposeful discrimination. They’ve been on notice a long time, but they just go through the motions and allow a discriminatory climate to continue. They’re real laggards, and it’s hard to understand why.” If Mehri wants an explanation, he need only view the comments posted at Adweek.com in response to the report. He’ll find the stereotypical collection of remarks clearly shows our ranks are filled with plenty of culturally clueless and hardcore racist individuals.