Self righteous racism

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July 8, 2020

New head of news at NBC-Universal openly promises to discriminate against Caucasians

By Thomas Lifson

After just over a month in his new job as head of the newly formed NBC-Universal News Group, combining NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, and all streaming operations, Cesar Conde is making news himself.  In a video and memo to the approximately 3,000 employees he supervises, Conde announced a goal of 50% of employees being female and 50% "people of color," an expression commonly taken to mean non-Caucasians.  

Since Caucasians account for more than 76% of the United States population according to the Census Bureau, this amounts to a vow of racial discrimination.

Ben Smith of the New York Times tweets out the memo:

According to the Los Angeles Times, women already constitute about half of the workforce, so the goals outlined by Conde are exclusively aimed at reducing the employment opportunities for Caucasians:

Conde, who is the former chief of NBCUniversal's Spanish-language network Telemundo, said the current 27% diversity level is "better than most in our industry — but it is not good enough." The breakdown is 8% Black, 8% Latino, 8% Asian, 2% multiracial and less than 1% Native American. Women make up nearly 50% of the workforce in the news division.

There are plenty of Caucasians already working at the networks Conde supervises whose departures would not pain me: Joe Scarborough, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Rachel Maddow come to mind immediately.  But I am against racial discrimination in all its ugly manifestations, so I am not urging their firing on any grounds other than competence and ratings.

Conde is a corporate climber, sporting a Harvard B.A. and an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance, having been head of Univision before becoming chairman of Telemundo (owned by NBC-Universal) and then moving to his current job.  He has no background in the news business himself.