That Smell

Of incompetence dressed as our talking heads in our media that's really just driven by the algorithms trying to maximize clicks and scrolls and what have you. So I see this article rolling about the stream. Seems good most people say (I wonder if it's just the headline that attracts them, because that's really the only thing going for it), so I check it out. 
I mean, I too like the headline, and I'm thinking that I've seen some examples of "increasing diversity" that seemed like an old (older than me) person's view of simply following a rule rather than adhering to the spirit of the law [1] which is basically try to get more diversity (which they aren't). 
And so the article starts on a horrible note by linking this article. Thing is, it claims the article is a "more and more minorities being published" article. And while that is true only in the most basic sense of the idea, the article is actually a breakdown of how superficial that increase is (no where near reflecting the actual diversity of the country or authors in general, and mainly coming from a very very low start) and how many publishing houses have their upper echelons (and thus decision-makers) as not diverse, to say nothing of what the $ divvying looks like. 
Which is a shame because it does start with a good example of what isn't "diversity" in terms of reviews (only a certain person of a certain minority group can review a book about said minority group... and hopefully by said minority group). 
But basically the OP goes on to say that the little increase that has happened should be applauded and that minorities should be happy with this. 

This shift should be regarded with a generosity of spirit: editors trying to bring new voices into the field, as authors and reviewers. It wasn’t so long ago, after all, that new books by nonwhite authors were hard to find. The few that did make it through to the mass market were covered, oftentimes in a clumsy, patronizing manner, by white male reviewers.

Why applaud the less than good outcomes? Not even worrying about the $? Seems like an absolute pointless thing for an essay that has an otherwise good thrust:

For the first 10 or so years of my career, I was asked to review only Asian books. I would usually agree, even though I assumed that my identity was why I had been chosen. After a while, I stopped taking those assignments because I felt as if I had been pigeonholed and also because I didn’t think my personal background really brought any particular insight to the book. When I would pitch reviews of books by non-Asian authors, I would usually be ignored.

Yeah, I agree, that "review segregation", again, needs to stop not because it's some woke thing but because it's an odd manifestation of it by someone who doesn't exactly know what they're doing and is actually acting out in racist ways (and how much are now simply institutional ruts so not sure what to label those). So I do disagree with the author that there's any or much good faith or that the decision is solely being made for fear of the woke twitter mob. [2]
That being said the author has a good gist. There has to be a certain universality to writing and reading that needs to be taken into account and if we don't (I can only imagine this exists on the internet, who in real life thinks this way?), we lose a lot. 

In the weeks since my book came out, I’ve received quite a bit of feedback, both good and bad, from readers of all backgrounds. I do feel a great intimacy with many of the Asian readers, but they certainly aren’t the only people who have responded and whom I’ve connected with. Some of the most illuminating conversations I’ve had have been with Black, South Asian, Latino and Jewish readers who take the book for what it is and then forcefully argue their own reads. These talks have been about a wide variety of subjects and even include some pointed disagreements, but the baseline has been the understanding that there is a universality to the immigrant experience, whether your people came to the United States last year or three generations ago.

Yeah, that's some good truths there. But my point is work on the increase in diversity of all sorts of voices (reviews and authors) then also work on mixing experiences when it comes to reviews.... make sense? Thoughts?
[1] There are a million examples of this. Basically old white men who are out of touch and come up with follow the "woke" rules, but that don't actually deal with what the undercurrents mean. FA had a race commission that ended up fining Baloteli for a comment (about his own race, and adopted mother, btw) while they allowed other actual forms of racism to go untouched (and there's plenty in Soccer). 
[2] I'm not saying that's not nothing as many, a diverse set I would say, online think that is fine. But we do lose out when such segregation happens and I do think it's bad faith for the most part. 
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