Tag: Diversity

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Miss Universe Zozibini Tunzi Is Not a ‘Diversity Win’


In the pageant community, many fans have been at odds with the Miss Universe Organization’s direction since WME/IMG bought the pageant from Donald Trump is 2015. The pageant is “no longer about beauty” is a common refrain when a Black woman wins.

“MUO is going through an identity crisis. When Gretchen Carlson [former Miss America and Fox News host] turned last year’s Miss America pageant into a platform speaking tournament, MUO had a great opportunity to serve as a foil,” another disgruntled fan responded. “Instead, they bowed to the whim of the ultra left and are now pandering to snowflakes by promoting victim culture every chance they can get.”

Miss America, which is not affiliated with Miss Universe, has long been seen as the more conservative of the major pageants, putting a higher emphasis on education and platform. Miss Universe has historically been the more glamorous competition.

But in recent years, the pageant has shifted focus from a pure emphasis on beauty and glitz and widened its lens; contestants speak vocally and candidly about issues like race, LGBTQ issues, abortion, and climate change.

Progress is slow, but Miss USA and Miss Universe are now more than glamazons; they’re spokespeople for critical issues. But for some fans, this shift is unwelcome. In competition parlance, it has meant that a woman who is “not pageant pretty” can win if she’s a good public speaker and has the right “credentials.” It’s no surprise that Black women face the brunt of this backlash.

Racism wrapped up in critique still permeates the pageant industry. A Black woman’s win is never just her own personal accomplishment and triumph. It is at worst a “political statement,” or otherwise framed in coded language. She’s a “diverse winner” or a “sign of the times.” Tunzi’s hard work, beauty, and grace is disappointedly — but unsurprisingly — being reduced to a marketing ploy. And that is the conundrum Black women not just in pageants but in most other industries face: Why can’t we ever just win?



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Sephora to Shut Down Every U.S. Store For Diversity Training


If you try to swing by your local Sephora on Wednesday, June 5, you’ll be out of luck. The beauty chain announced that they plan to close all of its U.S. stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices for company-wide diversity training. The move comes after R&B singer SZA—a former Sephora employee—tweeted in April that she was racially profiled while shopping in the store’s Calabasas, California, location.

“Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing . We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy,” she tweeted. Sephora’s official Twitter handle responded with an apology: “You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores.”

Along with the diversity training, Sephora has also launched a “Belong” initiative with a new tagline, “We Belong To Something Beautiful.”

Courtesy of Sephora

In its new manifesto, Sephora declares that the company “believes in championing all beauty, living with courage, and standing fearlessly together to celebrate our differences.”

Sephora manifesto
Courtesy of Sephora

In a statement, CEO Deborah Yeh says that the company is committed to “continued innovation and action for the benefit of our clients, our communities, and our industry.” The diversity training is their first step toward honoring that commitment. “Through this, we’ll look to begin a dialogue with our 16K+ US employees about what inclusivity and values mean to Sephora,” Yeh said. “And we’ll plan to sustain this dialogue with future training moments for our fleet.”

pSZA at the 2018 Met Gala in New Yorkp

SZA at the 2018 Met Gala in New York

Dia Dipasupil/WireImage

Sephora isn’t the first major U.S. company to take these sorts of measures after a racial incident. Last year, Starbucks closed all of its American stores for a day of racial bias education after a video of two black men being arrested at a Philadelphia location went viral and drew criticism and accusations of racism.

“I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a statement at the time. “While this is not limited to Starbucks, we’re committed to being a part of the solution. Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities.”



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Emmys 2018 Intro: 'We Solved It' Calls Out Hollywood for Thinking It Fixed Diversity Issues


The nominees for the 2018 Emmys are more diverse than ever, with shows like Atlanta, Insecure, and The Handmaid’s Tale racking up multiple categories. Sandra Oh is the first Asian woman to be nominated for a lead actress award for Killing Eve (which you absolutely should check out if you haven’t already). That being said, the industry still has a long way to go. While the nominations this year show we’re heading in a better direction, Hollywood is still by and large dominated by white men, both in front of and behind the camera. It’s important not to lose sight of that.

Don’t worry, though: Kristen Bell, Keenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Ricky Martin, Sterling K. Brown, and Tituss Burgess are here to make sure showbiz titans don’t pat themselves on the back too hard. These performers and more appeared in a musical intro at the beginning of tonight’s show that relayed an important message: Just because we’ve made progress in one or two areas doesn’t mean diversity is “fixed.”

Watch the first 30 seconds of the performance for yourself, below:

One of the highlights of the musical number was when RuPaul came on stage to hammer home the fact that a few LGBTQ+ people or actors of color appearing on hit TV shows isn’t the cure for Hollywood’s diversity problem.

Other memorable moments included when Thompson and McKinnon gave a hat-tip to Sandra Oh’s historic nomination and Oh just said, “It’s an honor just to be Asian,” in response. And at one point, Andy Samberg descended from the stage and asked if there was room for a straight white man in this song—and I think you can deduce how that (hilariously) panned out.

For more of our Emmys coverage, click here.

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Warner Bros. and HBO Just Announced a Major Step Forward for Diversity in Hollywood


Back in March, at the Oscars, Frances McDormand introduced the “inclusion rider” to non-Hollywood types during her Best Actress acceptance speech when she said, “I have two words for you: inclusion rider.” It became a much-discussed term as people learned that it’s essentially a contract clause, used by those both in front of and behind the camera, that stipulates there should be a certain amount of diversity in the film or project for which the contract has been created.

Since then, though, the amount of big companies adopting these inclusion riders has been limited. But now, in a big move that could have far-reaching implications, Warner Media (the parent company to Warner Bros. and HBO, among other media entities) is instituting a company-wide diversity policy.

“It is essential that our content and creative partners reflect the diversity of our society and the world around us,” the company said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “Together with other production companies, networks, guilds, unions, talent agencies and others in the industry, we all must ensure there is greater inclusion of women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities and other underrepresented groups in greater numbers both in front of and behind the camera.”

Their partner in bringing this vision to light? Actor Michael B. Jordan. His next film (about to start production), Just Mercy, will be the first made under the new guidelines.

“Inclusivity has always been a no-brainer for me, especially as a black man in this business,” Jordan said. “[But] it wasn’t until Frances McDormand spoke the two words that set the industry on fire — inclusion rider — that I realized we could standardize this practice. It allowed me to formally pledge my production company, Outlier Society, to a way of doing business.”

While there are not super-specific steps laid out in the Warner Media policy, the company says that it will work with writers, directors, and producers it the early stages of the process to “to create a plan for implementing this commitment to diversity and inclusion on our projects, with the goal of providing opportunities for individuals from under-represented groups at all levels.”

Diversity is something that the Hollywood powers-that-be have long struggled with, despite the public’s obvious hunger for more. Just look at the blockbuster success of films like Girls’ Trip, Black Panther, and Crazy Rich Asians and television shows like Orange Is the New Black, Insecure, and Atlanta.

But the concept of an inclusion rider certainly isn’t foreign to all creatives. As Glamour highlighted in a recent story, many female-led sets work hard to include a diversity of voices. Still, it can’t be left to women and people of color alone to carry the weight, which is why it’s good to see a giant corporation stepping up. After all, more voices always make for better stories.





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In 2017, Size Diversity Became a Phrase That Mattered


This time last year, we reported that fashion seemed to be on its way to genuine size inclusion. Looking back on 2017, the industry has shown that it’s still committed to progress. (Praise hands emoji!) In fact, it felt like media outlets, fashion brands, and models made even greater efforts this year than they did the last. Just when we thought Ashley Graham’s 2016 Sports Illustrated spread couldn’t be topped, she was on the cover of Vogue. Sure, Christian Siriano launched plus-sizes with Lane Bryant in 2016, but he now makes them as part of his main line, too. We were excited about the handful of plus-size model appearances during New York Fashion Week last year; in 2017, we couldn’t stop cheering for the hundreds we counted in 2017. The point: This year was a damn good one for size inclusivity in fashion. And if things keep going the way they’re going, the result will be complete integration. Here’s to hoping that in next year’s “year in size diversity” post, we can say exactly that.



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Trump Reportedly Banned the Words ‘Transgender’ and ‘Diversity’ in CDC Documents


Thee Trump administration has reportedly directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—America’s public health agency—to omit seven words from its 2018 budget documents. According to a report from the Washington Post, the news was announced Thursday and promptly enraged those in the public health sector. The thing is, the seven words happen to be pretty key terms for a public health agency to use.

Two of the phrases gone are “transgender” and “diversity”—and in an Orwellian move, alternative phrasings for some of the terms were offered.

Here are the seven banned words:

  1. Science-based

  2. Evidence-based

  3. Fetus

  4. Transgender

  5. Vulnerable

  6. Entitlement

  7. Diversity

This is pretty problematic, considering the CDC—as a public health agency—must necessarily make science- and evidence-based decisions in order to protect the nation’s diverse population, which often includes vulnerable groups in health care, such as fetuses requiring adequate prenatal care and people who are transgender and seeking safe medical care. (See what we did there?)

The ban is troubling in a way that goes beyond semantics, too: for example, in its erasure of the transgender population and its implicit denial of health issues faced by people of color who disproportionally live in at-risk communities: “You cannot fight against the Zika virus, or improve women’s and fetal health, if you are unable to use the word ‘fetus.’ You must be able to talk about science and evidence if you are to research cures for infectious diseases such as Ebola,” Dana Singiser, vice president of public policy and government affairs for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told CNN. “You must be able to acknowledge the humanity of transgender people in order to address their health care needs. You cannot erase health inequities faced by people of color simply by forbidding the use of the words ‘vulnerable’ or ‘diversity’.”

The source who informed the Post—apparently a longtime CDC analyst—told the paper that instead of using “science-based” or “evidence-based” in wording, the following was offered: “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

The Health and Human Services department is pushing back and calling the Post‘s report fake news.

“The assertion that HHS has ‘banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process,” a HHS spokesman told The Hill on Saturday. “HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions.”

Meanwhile, we’re suddenly feeling a strong urge to re-read 1984 over the holidays.

Related Stories:
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–Donald Trump’s Child Care Plan Fails Working Families, and a New Report Proves It
–Donald Trump Just Expanded a Decades-Old Anti-Abortion Policy to Apply to All Global Health Initiatives



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