Title: Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning? - The New York Times
Headings: Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?
Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?
Content: Diversity,’’ Chang says, ‘‘has become a code word for ‘all those other folks.’ ’’ The problem with code words is that they’re lazy: They’re broad rather than specific, and can provide cover for inaction — the ‘‘I don’t know how to do this or what it means, so can someone else please do the work for me?’’ maneuver. Talk is cheap, of course, and sometimes you get the sense that the people talking the most about diversity are the people doing the least effective work on it. In the season premiere of his HBO reality series ‘‘Project Greenlight,’’ Matt Damon explained — to a veteran African-American producer, Effie Brown — that focusing on diversity in the casting of a film was more important than promoting diversity among those working behind the camera. It was a striking example not just of mansplaining but also of whitesplaining. His implication — roundly criticized on social media and in industry publications — is that on-screen visibility is everything, when what Hollywood needs just as much, if not more, are black studio executives, writers, directors and producers: the people who decide what stories are told in the first place. Maybe it’s not surprising that just a month later, the African-American director Ava DuVernay made the opposite argument of Damon’s at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards.