Vox.com Editor Michelle Garcia shared lessons she has learned about diversity with Oswego State Students on Wednesday.
Oswego State alum Garcia spoke to students, faculty and members of the community about the knowledge she has gained throughout her journalism experiences since her graduation in 2006.
Garcia is currently the senior editor for Race & Identities at Vox.com, an American news website geared toward millennials. Previously, Garcia spent nine years in Southern California working in various positions with The Advocate. The Advocate is a magazine that focuses on news, culture, opinion and entertainment of interest to the LGBT community. Her work has been honored by the Western Publishers Association, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and the New York Press Association.
As keynote speaker for Voices of Diversity, Garcia discussed her experiences working as the Editor-in-Chief of The Oswegonian. She said that she found the reason she was here and why she was a journalist while she was at Oswego.
“I am using journalism as a tool to shed light on the fact that there are injustices and inequalities,” Garcia said. “Racism is not a thing of the past, sexism is not a thing of the past, homophobia and transphobia are very much a part of our world.”
Most of Garcia’s discussion was about diversity and her experiences of diversity in the workplace. She stressed that to her, it is not easy to create a diverse space where people can gather and feel safe. She also talked about how diversity has changed over the last ten years.
“Diversity doesn’t just mean get some black people in the room and add some ladies,” Garcia said. “Diversity is about how you treat others and how you respect others and how you navigate the world.”
Garcia talked about the choices that she made every day while working at The Advocate. She spoke about how she learned to be the person to notice and point out mistakes.
“When I started at The Advocate, I had to be the person who said, ‘Hey, this cover is irresponsible, this story is irresponsible, we need another viewpoint,’” Garcia said. “And it felt weird to be that person, but on the other side of it, it feels so much better. Even if they don’t do anything to change it, you did what you could do.”
Garcia said she learned how crucial it is to step back and let other people talk. She said The Advocate was known for not including transgender people and up until three or four years ago, transgender people did not have exposure because they were not taken seriously. She learned to validate the opinions of other people by letting them speak.
“Why don’t we say, ‘It’s time to pay transgender people to come into our news room and talk and write and validate their experiences’,” Garcia said. “We don’t have to be the ones to do that.”
Many students attended the discussion and enjoyed what Garcia had to say about diversity.
“Michelle Garcia’s depiction of events during her time at Oswego and in her first job was both informative and amusing,” said Nate Bates, a freshman. “The conversational way she spoke to everyone in the room really made her argument for diversity much more compelling.”
Alex Masterson also attended the event and enjoyed what Garcia had to say.
“Michelle Garcia had a lot of interesting things to say about diversity,” said Masterson, a freshman. “Her talk was eye-opening and made me think differently about the way I look at diversity.”
