"Pilots 2015:The Year of Ethnic Castings -
About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"
Cutesy but Serious Format - Bart & Fleming, the apologizers, must have these little discussions online much like Siskel and Ebert used to quasi-competitively review movies on television.
This would be Mistake Number 1
Two thumbs down
The Apology is just one thing in a list of things to discuss
Here we have Mistake Number 2
"nothing special happening here" conveyed instantly
The apology consisted of apologizing for specific word choices and word arrangement while never, Ever, EVER EVAH discussing what those words ("Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?") meant collectively... ala the Levi Petty Pettit apology (#100,816,019). As long as they cyber-droned on, they only discussed how things sounded
This isn't just mistake number 3,
this is mistakes numbers 1 through 100,816,021
How is it everybody above the age of 12 understands that beliefs are connected to thoughts are connected to the words that come out of your mouth...until race is the subject. When race enters the picture, white fragility, being what it is, white folk and Bobby Jindal seem to suffer this pinpoint amnesia and forget there is a link between belief, thought, and words (and sometimes actions too). Yes, sometimes you say "math" when you meant to say "bath." But really cannot explain away an entire sentence or paragraph this way.
But this isn't about that.
This is about how most of us understand that putting individual words together give them a separate meaning that's more than the sum of their...parts(?) And a lot of the time we mean those meanings, regardless of what we want to believe about the purity of our own motivations.
The words that form the question, "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?" have a meaning collectively.
And most people of color who heard these words, understood their meaning, collectively. That's why, "HELL NO" was the answer cyber-shouted by Shonda Rhimes and a host of entertainment news reading others.
We, the "ethnic," were not confused. We were especially not-confused about the "too much of a good thing" part
And it's very rare we all get confused and lean in the same direction, all at the same time, for the record. I'm not even sure this kind of unified confusion is possible when a thing as complicated as the social construction of race is at the center.
But the thing that really killed me about the 100,816,024th white racial "apology"was this: Bart and Fleming? These two chuckle-heads discussed the true and offensive meaning of the headline without even noticing that they had done so.
Before they started riffing on forever about the offensive uses of the word "ethnic"(???) which led to a discussion of the how boring the word "diversity"(???) is, they actually give us an interpretation of "Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"
FLEMING:
....My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,
Yeah, we know that's what you meant. We KNOOOW. And we knew when we first read that "unfortunate headline" that "too much of a good thing" was expressing worry over "it pinched white actors"
THE HEART OF THE APOLOGY
FLEMING: I agree with all this, but after our turn in the barrel, I wanted to say a few things to our core readers who felt betrayed. That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."
But problem is that THIS
"Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?"
DOESN'T GET CLOSE TO MEANING
"The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color."
BUT IT DOES MEAN
...My co-editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva’s goal was to convey that there was such an uptick
of TV pilot casting of people of color
that it pinched white actors
who’ve historically gotten most of the jobs,
ESPECIALLY WHEN FOLLOWED BY
and to question if this could last
if it was being treated as a fad.
which could mean in this particular collection of words
that this is uptick for "ethnics"
is temporary anyway
so why worry about it?
Nellie may not have intended to convey the same ole, same ole 'What about US? Why isn't there a WHITE HISTORY MONTH! I'm complaining because 95% of grade school, junior high school, and high school history class being about white wasn't enough.'
Honestly, she may not have meant to express "What about us?" Again. But the headline, the explanation, and the apology aren't slips of the tongue. This isn't like saying "math" for "bath." Hard core, card-carrying, overt racists express the very same things in harsher language. How many "bad word choice" coincidences in a row are we "ethnics" supposed to swallow?
