Jann Wenner embodies the DEI pushback phase we're in

He's just saying the quiet part out loud

The “sacrificing quality for diversity” myth is nothing new

In case you missed it, Jann Wenner, founding publisher of Rolling Stone magazine, gave an interview to the New York Times about his new book, Masters of Rock. (I’m not linking to the book, sorry.)

It went all kinds of sideways, and he has no one to blame but himself. And presumably a slew of agents, publishers, editors, and marketers who didn’t address the true cause of his troubles (his own assumptions and preferences born of being one of the lifetime beneficiaries of the white supremacist patriarchy in which we are all soaking) nor see fit to prepare him to answer questions about those assumptions and preferences.

At issue: Every single “master of rock” he interviews and profiles in the book is a white man. Every single one. And when the Times journalist asked him about it, his response was to double down.

Let’s see if I’ve got it straight:

Those white men were the only people who were “articulate” on the topic of rock music. The only ones who were “philosophers.” He talked about Blacks and Women like those were two mutually exclusive categories, and indeed only mentioned Black men and White women in his “defense(?)” of his choices.

He got specific and personal, implying one couldn’t have a conversation with a Grace Slick. That Joni Mitchell was not a philosopher. That maybe there were a couple of good dead Black men who might have fit the bill, but not anyone alive, like, say, Stevie Wonder.

He further supposed that he could have anticipated the complaint and brought in one Black person and one woman (because those are always separate entities) but he would have been sacrificing quality for diversity, and maybe he thought he’d get rebel points for saying he didn’t give a fuck.

Part of his public attempt at an apology was to admit that really white dudes were the people he personally interviewed during his career. And he’s sorry if anyone got offended. Apparently, his private apology to the Rock and Rall Hall of Fame Foundation was just as bad because it pissed them off , and they booted him from the board.

So, I mean, it goes without saying I disagree with his most basic premise. I’ll give just a brief rundown as to why. As countless other musical scholars will tell you, rock music has its roots in the blues, and the seeds of rock music were frequently planted by White men co-opting the work of Black musicians. Sometimes with credit and attribution, often not. The categorization of music has been used for decades to segregate people based not so much on the music, but based on the performer and the audience. Hence categories like R&B, Pop, Folk, Urban, Alternative, and Disco being used to create siloes that preserved rock music as a domain dominated by White men.

Jann Wenner left Rolling Stone in 2019, a scant 4 years ago. Did no one else tell him at any point along the way that he should be open to interviewing more than the white dude rock gods he clearly admired and wanted to interview because he wanted to befriend? This book was just published. Did no one along the way share the opinion that maybe he could find a few more people to interview? Or that maybe his title, “The Masters,” hits a little different given the homogeneity of his subjects? Did no one media train the dude? Did no one suggest he could use the opportunity to examine the ways that radio and publishing segmented artists and audiences to the detriment of music lovers everywhere?

Anything????

And I have another question: How did he avoid listening to music that started breaking boundaries as it took over the airwaves?

Apparently, he has never heard Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar smash out Freedom. Apparently, he never even heard Aerosmith and RUN DMC duet on "Walk This Way,” let alone the searing message behind, well The Message.

Is he truly unaware that Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for his articulate philosophizing?

Perhaps he cares not that Elvis was influenced by Black blues and Rockabilly artists and that the Beatles were influenced by the stylings of artists from Check Berry to The Supremes. That Kate Bush (being inducted this year into the R&R Hall of Fame) is cited as an influence on countless artists across musical genres.

Maybe he wants his philosophizing to be only about certain topics and doesn’t want to hear incisive critiques of the music industry itself. Maybe he never took the time to listen closely enough to hear this Joni Mitchell lyric about legendary producer David Geffen:

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive

There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on

Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

While he clearly has his own racial and gender biases, musical and otherwise, Wenner does not exist in a vacuum when it comes to this book and its promotion. And he does not represent some dinosaur perspective that is mostly eradicated. His assumptions and preferences are at the heart of the current pushback on and undermining of DEI efforts we see going on right now.

I hear some form of “sacrifice quality for diversity” myth on the regular…every time a conference gets called out for a homogenous speaking roster, every time a tech company is called out for their stagnant DEI numbers and their homogenous leadership team. What’s worse, this argument is almost always articulated in a way that implies that proponents of DEI are asking for that sacrifice in service of some kind of vision of a greater good, vs. the true argument.

What’s that true argument? That pattern matching is real, but if you can recognize it, you can counteract it. That there is unrecognized and unsung talent to be scouted across every discipline. That it’s part of the job to find that talent. That the market is diverse, hence it brings tangible benefits when the people trying to build for, design for, market to, sell to, and support that market reflect the market. That DEI efforts are not only smart and profit-increasing, they are the right thing to do. That when criteria are set and controlled by a homogenous group, they tend to cement criteria that favor their group…without, often, a second thought.

Classic example: CES used to say their keynotes were always just men, mostly White, because their criteria was they had to be CEO of a Fortune 500 tech company, and we all know how few women CEOs led F500 companies, let alone F500 tech companies. But no higher power handed down those criteria on a set of stone tablets that they were required to uphold with religious fervor. The org. itself set those criteria, and they could change those criteria to recognize there were other criteria, metrics and measurements that would ensure their keynote speakers were inspiring, accomplished, relevant, fascinating, and diverse.

It’s not rocket science, but it also doesn’t happen by wishing. The intention must be set. The intention must be supported, and it must be measured.

Jann Wenner didn’t even dream of setting such an intention for the past 50 years. And he had no one internally calling him in and giving him a chance to try to counteract his biases. No one with any real power to do so, I suspect. So here he is today. Paying the price for 50 years of unchecked power and prejudice. No one else has to pay this price…the time for change can always be now. Before one makes an ass of one’s self in the New York Times!

Obviously, I only named a very few artists above. Who are your examples of articulate philosophers of rock and roll???

What else is going on?

The Op-Ed Page podcast

The Op-Ed Page Podcast is back after a summer hiatus. Episode 95 was inspired by reading The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas. The book asked me to listen more deeply to some people I had a gut "they're not my favorite" reaction to, and that was good for me. (Remember my previous contention that sometimes "listening to our gut" is really "listening to implicit bias" after all.) It also made me think about the 2016 election, which was not on my must-do list.

But the author's citation of and then immediate pushback on one of the most commonly cited stats from '16 was very much food for thought about the core topic of this book: How to persuade.

I thought about this stat and how those on the left could have framed it to better persuade. I don't think that was done; I think the opposite was done. I experiment with some language...which it is not too late to use, really.

I guess the age-old question is whether it's true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. How do we hold it to be conventional wisdom that fear and anger sell, but so do hope and optimism? Can these two things be true, and can they be wielded wisely?

TikToks this month

It was a slow couple of weeks on TikTok, but I did review two books, the gorgeous The Covenant of Water and the classic, Frankenstein. Perhaps you will be intrigued when I tell you that my hashtag for the latter is #FraneknsteinIsAWhinyBitch (and yes the positioning of the GIF I did is unfortunate in retrospect):

@elisacp @elisacp ♬ original sound - ElisaCP

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Out in the world

Sharing another plug for my Buffy talk in action via the Professional Business Women of California. Register here.

Until next time, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on any or all of the above. This is basically my blog now! And as always, I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast.

If I can help you break through the things that keep you stuck (or if you are intrigued by the idea of securing my fractional leadership for your initiative), set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly. And you can always check out my new LinkedIn Learning Course, Telling Stories That Stick, a 57-minute course on crafting your stories for different audiences (media, investors, prospects, hiring managers) and ensuring those stories stick…and convey exactly what you hope to convey.