The white man has his privilege, to be sure.
What he does not have is a choice to be white or a man, which would deem hiring policy based on his race and gender, for example, to be discriminatory.
This, it seems, Buzzfeed Canada senior writer and part-time social justice warrior Scaachi Koul does not understand. Koul recently posted a call for freelance writers interested in contributing to Buzzfeed Canada to submit their pitches for Canada-centric essays and reporting. She wasn’t really clear about who should apply, but made it resoundingly obvious who should not…
Ok, where to start?
Well, judging evaluating talent based on sex and race over talent is just unwise business strategy, for one. Second, if her goal is to empower minorities and females, suggesting they aren’t good enough to earn the job without excluding whites or males from the process is an odd way to achieve it. Third, this is blatant sex- and racism.
Many people – see: white men – were understandably upset about the posts,
So, who is it about then? Aboriginal women? Tamil teenagers? Black single mothers? Who knows, really – Koul made it exactly about white men.
And that’s the troubling thing. Not once does the announcement mention why Buzzfeed is interested in publishing the voice of non-white men or any-coloured females. It only states who they don’t want, kind of like a job posting by PETA that vehemently discourages meat-eaters to apply without ever mentioning how great the position would be for vegetarians.
“Ugh, carnivores…”
Here’s a tweet she sent to justify her position:
Ah, yes, let’s cut down on white male writers at Buzzfeed and watch the history books re-write themselves. That bit of delusion aside, Koul’s rhetoric has very little to do with promoting ignored voices. Much like feminism is about empowering women as opposed to degrading men, you don’t level a playing field by tearing down the side you strive to be equal with. By all means, look for writers who’ve had their voice ignored throughout history – white men will read that and know they’re not suitable candidates. Calling to ban a specific race and gender, even when prefaced with a ‘HA HA’, is a borderline hate crime.
And if this were really about ignored voices, shouldn’t she be interested in the perspective of white male members of the homo- and transsexual communities? Probably not, because she just really, really hates men.
Ironically, any writer talented enough to write for Maclean’s would probably never respond to job posting on Twitter by a pouty twenty-something in Kanye West mode.
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