human resources leader

At work yesterday I found a copy of the magazine-stroke-periodical humanresources leader (that is their use of lower case and the missing space between the n of human and r of resources. I think it is supposed to be hip. Or something.) When I say at work, I was actually in the bog and the mag was on the floor. Hardly worth a wank, but as I was going to be sitting there for a short while I decided to have a flick through anyway.

Now, let us bear in mind that politicians and quango-ees and celebs and all and sundry are often at pains to stress just what a triumph of multiculturalism modern day Australia is. With this in mind I flicked through, looking at the pictures, pictures that are, by and large, of office folks going about their daily business in the manner of those who have a camera shoved in their face.

The front page of the mag, the 21 July edition, had a cover picture of three smiling caucasians around an open folder on a table top. All very business. As I flicked through I found plenty more pictures of white folks, men and women. OK, some of the people - and very few - may have been Asian-lite, possibly a couple of Europeans. I assumed they were pictured because they would not cause the cameraman any exposure headaches from trying to snap pictures of white people along with brown and black people. Of course there could have been pictures of just brown and black people; I mean, surely there are some - how did Halle Berry put it - people of colour in the white collar workforce of this country of triumphant multiculturalism? Surely...Even the adverts and close-up-abstract shots were white; a close up of an open white hand, a clenched white fist and two white hands shaking. Very odd.

Inside the back cover of the mag was an ad for a workplace relations summit that, at last, contained an Indian lady. She was near the back, in a striped shirt and sort of sandwiched between a policeman and military man. Both white. Make up your own Christmas Island jokes. That is a little unfair; this ad did go some way to representing the current Australian demographic, so should be praised. There were a couple of Eurasian looking folks in the shot as well. Good work from Elite Media.

Back to the main mag. There were some happy snaps from an awards ceremony in which I managed to find an Asian face, and a slightly swarthy gent, but as this is a snap from an awards ceremony I am not going to give the editorial staff credit for this inclusion.

Actually, there was one black man in a picture in this magazine. Just one. The photo was used as part of a side-bar-in-brief-snippet piece. The man is seen shirtless and wearing boxing gloves and the title is 'boost productivity by reducing agression.' Top work from the leader in human resources. That's the leader in human resources.

To be fair, the white collar world of modern Australia remains overwhelmingly Angl-Euro with Asian incursions, as you'd expect. I mean, just take a look at a map and do the geography. So I am prepared to cut them some slack on their pics of typical office workers in Australia. What I am not prepared to let them off is the use of a single image of a black man used to ilustrate a piece on agression. I'd have expected maybe just a little more editorial savvy from the leader in human resources.

But there is a chance the problem is right there; with my expectations.

Maybe I'll email them...

For the record, a triumph of modern multiculturalism roughly translates to loads of top-notch restaurants and few barriers to becoming a taxi driver, regsardless of ethnicity.