Diversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business

(Hardback)

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Description

In the near future, white Americans will no longer constitute a national majority. Despite this, elite institutions such as Hollywood, corporate America, and academia are disproportionately white. In an effort to "diversify," industry and foundation leaders have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to commission studies and training sessions; hire consultants and create diversity programs to address the glaring paucity of people of colour among their ranks. But is it working

In Diversity, Inc., award-winning journalist Pamela Newkirk explores these three industries, showing how the vast majority of their diversity efforts are all optics. For example, between 2014 and 2016, Google spent $265 million dollars on some of the most common tactics for diversifying the workforce but their percentage of black employees remains stubbornly at 2%. In showing why these efforts are failing, Newkirk more importantly shows us what we can do to actually better achieve these worthy goals.

Reviews

"a must-read.... a well-sourced and succinctly written report that addresses the overall lack of progress in three key sectors: academia, corporate America, and the Hollywood entertainment establishment...The book is valuable for many reasons, not the least of which is the context Newkirk provides."--Ellen McGirt, Fortune
"Newkirk asks compelling questions as she takes a hard look at the American mosaic."--BizEd
"Pamela Newkirk has written the far-reaching and crisply worded book I had been waiting to read. Cheap diversity statements and costly diversity consultants are not working and Newkirk explains precisely why. Institutions can do better and Diversity, Inc., explains precisely how."--Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist
"Pamela Newkirk's Diversity, Inc. is a necessary and clear-eyed assessment of how far we have to go to realize equity and inclusion in the American workplace."--Sherrilyn A. Ifill, President & Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
"Rejecting a 'we are the world' approach to diversity for an unflinching examination of the root causes of racial injustice, Pamela Newkirk has written a bold and fearless book about what needs to happen in this country for true diversity to flourish. We have to tell ourselves the truth about our history, our narrative of racial preeminence, and our current practices. Diversity, Inc. is written with the urgency of our times. A must read!" --Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul
"Simply by reminding readers of the stories of people like Ingram and Roberts, dedicated employees who endured unthinkable humiliation - the "uncivil" ways in which they were treated, simply because of their race - 'Diversity, Inc.' may do more to help advance the cause of workplace inclusion than any canned bias-training program ever could."--Stephanie Mehta, Washington Post
"With revealing statistics, a compelling narrative, and conclusions about our liberal institutions that will shock but perhaps not surprise, Pamela Newkirk's Diversity, Inc. is a must-read for our times."--PaulaJ. Giddings, EA Woodson Professor Emerita, Smith College

Author Bio

Pamela Newkirk is an award-winning journalist and a professor of journalism at New York University who has written extensively about diversity in the news media and art world. She is the author of Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, which won the NAACP Image Award, and Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media, which won the National Press Club Award for media criticism, as well as the editor of Letters from Black America. Newkirk's articles and reviews are regularly published in major media, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, and The Chroni