Our Stories
Real stories from real people of color about working in public media.
“As a joke about my hair, white staff often wore afro wigs and dreadlock wigs to work. Not for Halloween or costume party, just sporadically as a joke.”
— instagram.com/blackatpublicmedia“My organization made D&I a key platform in its 2019 strategic plan. BIPOC were asked to meetings to discuss diversity. Consultants were hired. This fall, management chose two older white leaders as the only top hires this year. We got this response verbatim when we raised the discrepancy: "diversity, yes, we need to continue to push that."
— Anonymous
“At @mygpb a team of producers all women of color worked on a talk show segment, the white male politics reporter added one suggestion and decided he should get a byline for the story. He got the lead byline. When we complained, we were told it's not a big deal. His ego is consistently more important than the hard work of BIPOC in the newsroom.”
— twitter.com/freepublicradio
“As a ‘team building’ exercise, a white male manager asked the all female staff (both black and white) to insert dental impression trays into their mouths. The women had to keep the trays in their mouths while trying to speak, slobbering on themselves all the while. As black women, this reminded us of the images of slaves who were punished with iron bits in their mouths. This was a deeply traumatic experience while working in public media.”
— Anonymous
“Many white people in professional settings have referred to me by ethnic-sounding names that aren’t mine, or gave me an English one to avoid pronouncing the one I have. Each person will tell you they are nice and not racist. They fail to see how their forgetfulness and lack of care are racist and demeaning attributes, and how they damage our credibility.”
— Anonymous
“I was excited to share the work I had accomplished with our D&I council with my station's leadership. The council has very little guidance so I took it upon myself to set the direction of the council.
I met with the GM beforehand to share a mission statement the council prepared, which was meant to guide the council and its work, and the internal areas we wanted to focus on (such as improving the diversity of recruiting pools and show guest sourcing). When the time came for me to present the council's updates to our leadership group, the GM became upset and said the organization already had a mission statement. Then, several men in the room agreed with him, saying we already have a lot of diversity.
To make matters worse, I received text messages from a couple of white women during the meeting to tell me that they supported me and the work I was doing. I always wondered, why didn't they say anything out loud to support me?”
— Anonymous
“A group of colleagues were discussing famous stars who had classical training. Uzo Aduba's (from Orange is the New Black) name came up. I wasn't sure how to pronounce her name, so I looked up the pronunciation, and shared it with the group. A colleague said,"I don't know why it is that I can say [insert name of random Russian composer] but can't say or remember Uzo Aduba. Instead I'll just remember 'Crazy eyes'."
— Anonymous
“In a planning meeting, the white radio director told several Black staff to use "jungle sounds" if they wanted to use a music bed for on air spots. The Black staff expressed how offended they were. None of other white staff in the room helped to defend them or tell the radio director that he was wrong or out of line.”
— Anonymous
“I was training the white woman who got a job that I was up for. This would have been fine. She had more experience. I didn’t feel salty until she confused the two Asian reporters in the first meeting and then said we needed more stories about “illegals.”
Later, after I had spent the ENTIRE MORNING training her, she confused the other biracial reporter for me.”
— Anonymous
“White male staff who are less experienced than their colleagues are consistently hand-picked for promotions to higher level roles and with higher salaries. The jobs are not posted publicly, these jobs are just appointed to white men. Other staff (black, people of color, LGBTQIA) are not even invited to apply for the jobs.”
— Anonymous
“During the holiday season we send out treats to our major donors. One year we decided to give out chocolates. I had an assistant help with the packaging and gave her a couple of treats to take with her as a reward for her work.
The next day my assistant contacted me to let me know that there was mold inside the chocolate. I quickly alerted the colleague (a white male) who worked with the chocolate vendor. We opened a few other boxes and I discovered another set of chocolates that appeared to have mold on the outside. Another female colleague agreed that it looked like mold to her. He still challenged it, saying,"I can't tell whether it is or isn't."
It wasn't until we cut several of them open and there was undeniable green mold on the inside that he finally agreed that something was wrong. We later confirmed with the vendor that there was a problem with their refrigeration system and the whole batch of chocolates had mold.
Rather than believe me and three other women, the colleague was not convinced until he confirmed it with the vendor. He was willing to risk the health of our major donors for his ego and a new vendor relationship.”
— Anonymous
Tell Your Story
Only share as much as you are comfortable sharing. Name and organization are optional. Please leave blank, if you wish to remain anonymous.