[Ads-l] Diverse = black

[Chris Waigl]

Sortof. I went back and listened to the piece, and think context is
helpful here. The segment is the second part of a larger piece under the
headline "Can Hollywood fix its diversity problem". The diversity
problem in question is reformulated multiple times, more or less as "the
under-representation of women and people of color in front of and behind
the camera in [US] film and TV. In the first part the lead host is Steve
Inskeep. Then Rachel Martin interviews the NPR art correspondent
Mandalit del Barco about a report that looks at the 2015/16 output.
After del Barco summarizes the findings both for the "racial component"
and for representation of women (which both show continuing
under-representation and little progress), Martin takes over and says
the following (some dysfluencies filtered out):

> Right, because, you know I can hear someone listening to our
> conversation and citing me too thinking things have changed. Or even
> Black Panther, which is out now -- huge critical success, totally
> diverse cast -- Wonderwoman even, which was directed by a woman, Patti
> Jenkins. But I guess what you're saying [is] these are just
> high-profile examples, but on the whole it's still a big problem.
So the topic is the whole body of output over a period of time (a
season, say, or a year), and the way  "diverse cast" is used is that
when it comes to that body of work's cast diversity, Black Panther is
way over on the side of adding diversity. I would not conclude from this
that she would have spoken of a totally diverse cast (in this sense)
when, say, reviewing Black Panther standing on its own, or speaking one
film at a time. (In which case it would also be true that Black Panther
has a diverse cast, as Jim Parish pointed out here, and many have
elsewhere.)

I see no indication that she meant black as opposed to non-white/POC:
the whole exchange was structured in racial diversity on the one hand
and gender diversity on the other.

Chris Waigl

PS: It's  https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510318/up-first Tue Feb 27 -
starting at about 8:40 for the larger topic.


On 2/27/18 4:39 AM, David Wilton wrote:
> It was in the context of a story on the overwhelming domination of white men in Hollywood, both behind and in front of the camera. She clearly used it to mean "black" or at least "non-white." 
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jim Parish
> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 7:01 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Diverse = black
>
> David Wilton wrote:
>> Heard Rachel Martin say on NPR's Up First podcast this morning that the movie Black Panther had a "totally diverse cast."
> The cast came from several different black communities on four different continents. Some were African-American; one was of Kenyan ancestry, others from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Guyana, and South Africa. I'd call that pretty diverse.
>
> Jim Parish
>
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