I was thinking about that Bill Simmons response. And other responses like it.

So much of the discussion around workplace diversity is ‘countered’ by the idea that the job should go to ‘the most qualified person.’ A few thoughts on that:

1. Such responses often suppose that Black people (along with other PoC) are not qualified for the job, when many a Black person who makes it ‘through the door’ is often overqualified to begin with.

2. The ‘most qualified person for the job’ itself is a statement that needs qualification because what is being measured here?

Example: There are a ton of excellent white writers + editors in media who could not and do not do a great job of complex race-centered pieces...

...In the multicultural society that we live in, what does it say that many white writers + editors alike don’t have some of the most basic skills required to approach this? Esp. when race infiltrates every aspect of American life.

Reads like a lack of qualification to me.

3. The idea Black people in historically white professional spaces are tokens remains amusing to me because it doesn’t occur to white people that their overrepresentation in the workplace is a function of white privilege; that they are tokens in a white supremacist labor market.

4. Tokenization is a Black/PoC experience because structures in the workplace are not neutral, they are often white. Even when black people lead.

Neutrality of course, isn’t even always desirable, but I need white people to understand they are not the standard.

Fin, for now.