Portland is nearly 80% white. I get the general message shes trying to convey, but she’s barking up the wrong tree. Blazers studio host is black. So are their co tv and radio guys. They may also employ the only Asian assistant coach in the league, and if he isn’t the only one, he’s definitely still in the minority. Next.
At my last job I'm sitting on an All-Hands meeting, and in my line of work it's largely white people. Lots of women (actually I think more women than men), but mostly white. Plus it's Portland, but the funny thing is that almost nobody is FROM Portland. They're all white people who moved here. Anyway, we're at this All Hands and someone stands up and says "when are we going to address the diversity of this program?" So I'm sitting there and I know that I am exactly the kind of person they're talking about. Straight white guy in his 30's. The director of the program says, "we're looking into addressing that." Less than a year later I'm laid off because they needed my salary to create a diversity, equity and inclusion position that they ultimately staffed with a non-straight white guy. So if you're me, how do you feel about that? I was good at my job. The position was still very necessary because they ended up heaping all my work on my colleague. I was eliminated in the name of diversity.
I wouldn't want to waste my prime earning years working for any place that would even consider laying me off for any reason....my view is you should always work in a place that would hate to lose you for any reason...all other jobs are just a treadmill...paycheck working. I'd consider myself lucky if I got laid off stuck in that only for a paycheck grind.
Just gonna say, this thread is basically a bunch of white guys complaining about calls for diversity. I'm also going to say that when it comes to the "messaging" coming out of an organization, it makes sense to have people from diverse backgrounds. The RipCityMornings guys put it this way (I'm paraphrasing): "Perhaps if they'd had a person of color on the staff, that person might have noticed that the video didn't show a single person of color on the staff. Different backgrounds generally means different viewpoints, different perspectives, and different interpretations of the same thing. Diversity helps avoid blind spots, and not realizing how this video would look to people of color is a pretty big blind spot."
Identity politics in any other context: “wow this is so progressive and awesome! why do republicans not like this?!” identity politics when you’re the target: “wow this is racist bullshit.”
This video is just a video...it's not the face of the franchise...Dame CJ and Nurk are the big 3.....we signed the first Spanish player in the NBA and have our introductions done in French, Bosnian, etc....I don't buy the lack of diversity view concerning the franchise....you don't gentrify a place that has always been pretty gentrified all along just because a segment of the franchise is easily sunburned. The stars of the Blazers have represented Oakland, Texas, Bosnia, France.....I think we're on top of the integration curve in Portland..and yeah....S2 is very male and white in membership ..what does that say about this place then?
As with any large business, it's not hard for one segment of a business to function in a completely different manner than others. The presence of diversity in the locker room doesn't obviate the need for it elsewhere.
I'm not opposed to hiring anyone to do the job that is talented....I just think this is a real stretch in the PC conversation. In a year of heart failure and hernia surgery I've yet to see a white doctor out of 7 different specialists...no complaints...they are talented doctors...but I think they were hired for their skills, not their ethnicity..being inclusive is something to do for all the right reasons but to be really inclusive, no ethnic characteristics should separate anyone from getting the job they're great at...none of this is an excuse for bad business ethics regarding racial profiling
Part of the need for a social media team for a large business is having an understanding of how the message is perceived by diverse audiences. In this case, ethnic characteristics legitimately impact the ability to be good at the job.
I don't agree with your assumption but that's just me rambling from the cheap seats as a Blazer fan...it's a sticking point with me...I put together a trio in Taiwan with 2 Taiwanese musicians and we were fairly successful....they had a nation wide competition for the best band in Taiwan and I wasn't allowed to compete....I've always felt that was wrong on many levels. They said there are already so many famous white musicians....if I were from Malaysia and looked Taiwanese...it wouldn't have been an issue. I'm at a point in human evolution where I think it's time to be just a member of the human race and go from there...across the board, from all camps...I'm game and I'll break bread with any decent person
People from any ethnicity can be amazing musicians. People from any ethnicity can be excellent doctors. People from any ethnicity can be great athletes. But white people can't simply see the world the way people of color do, no matter how much we might want to, because life in America is just different for us.
My only issue with that is no one noticed (if they did excuse me I wasn't aware and I will stand corrected) that the content itself lacked diversity until they saw the skin color of those behind it.
that's quite a blanket statement..anyone who has the experience of being immersed in another culture can see the way the locals do. Music is a perfect example...so is language...learning to speak Mandarin changed my patterns of communication a lot. Playing in a Cuban salsa band for 3 years immersed me into Cuban culture a lot..would have been more if I'd learned Spanish better. Same in Hawaii..had local friends and learned some pidgin English...gained some insight....Social media for me includes TV, internet, radio, print...etc...we have Michael Holton, Orlando Williams, Jordan Kent, Lamar Hurd, talking Blazers now....we've had Chris Haynes and other beat journalists....writers are anthropologists in the end...good ones cross over the boundaries of seperation
The Blazers will definitely have a staff meeting over this issue so in that context...it will probably factor into their hirings in the future
