[Ads-l] Diverse = black

Wed Feb 28 21:32:07 UTC 2018

Obviously not, but "diversity" is not commonly used in contexts involving
hair color, even secondarily.

OTOH, it is *very* commonly used in contexts involving race and "culture"
(which often implies race as well).

I'm inclined to agree that the Up First usage meant "nonwhite." More
specifically, "laudably nonwhite."

JL

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 11:48 AM, Dave Hause <dwhause at cablemo.net> wrote:

> I have to wonder if those same broadcasters would also call "diverse" a
> movie with all-blond/blonde cast but they come from England, France,
> Germany, and Spain?
> Dave Hause
>
> -----Original Message----- From: David Wilton
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 7:36 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Diverse = black
>
>
> While the conversation was indeed about women and POC in Hollywood
> overall, the phrases "huge critical success, totally diverse cast" refer
> solely to Black Panther. And in the context of Black Panther,
> "non-white/POC" and "black" are pretty much synonymous. There aren't any
> LatinX or Asians (aside from extras in the Korea scenes) in the movie.
>
> I guess "diverse" could refer to the inclusion of women in the cast. Of
> the fifteen actors IMDB classifies as "top-billed," six are women--and some
> of these are really compelling and memorable roles--but given that the
> overall conversation is about the movie's overwhelmingly black cast, it
> doesn't seem likely that most people would hear it that way. I certainly
> didn't.
>
> I've heard others use "diverse" and "diversity" to specifically refer to
> POC, but always with a racist taint to it (Ex. "we don't want any diversity
> coming around here"). That's why it surprised me to hear it from an NPR
> correspondent. It made me wonder if this particular usage was becoming more
> normalized, making its way into non-racist contexts.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Chris Waigl
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 4:07 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Diverse = black
>
> 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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