How Diverse is Qr?
Towleroad was cool enough to give a shout-out to Qr Magazine (wow these blog things really might be hip!).
Overall reception has been awesome. It ranges from surprising approval to mastubatory. This wouldn’t be the internet wtihout detractors though, and so we’ve noticed a few people saying our magazine is TOO WHITE.
That’s fair enough, too white is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I believe you can never be TOO white as a quick scroll through a gallery of my exes would reveal all sorts of hideous shades of pale white and pale white-yellow. A close friend of mine, by turn, is fond of movies ending with the suffix -rican, so he won’t have ANY white really.
What bothers me is that after flipping through our sample issue a few people still maintain we are too white and that we will forever be too white, as if we somehow couldn’t get what it means to be non-white in the gay world.
One such comment, whose origin I won’t reveal, goes like this:
But after previewing your publication, I must stand by what I said. My eyes glazed over looking at White boy after White boy. I really don’t understand what your definition of diversity is. That you have a few Black (I counted 3), Asian (maybe 2?), & Latino (so white I could barely tell) faces scattered throughout 60 pages?
What offended me about this was the part after Latino, “so white I could barely tell,” as if a light-skinned latino was somehow “less latino” than someone mocha brown. I find this personally offensive because I wonder whether he counted me under Latino…you know…Mr. Editor-in-Chief Guatemalan here? The guy standing next to Condoleeza Rice (go on and try and find me!)
Did I make the Latino cut? And more importantly, should I be counting the number of boys that appear in the magazine by how closely they fall into racial paradigms? If I see “maybe 2?” Asians in the mag, should I go and find “definitely 2″ more Asians? How do I measure Asian? or Latino in that case?
Do we really still live in that world where we all think a race looks a specific set way? Where all light-skinned people are “white boys” and Latinos are only chocolate brown?
Ultimately Qr is MORE diverse than the mainstream gay mags and even MORE diverse than the ethnic gay mags. I could write you a list of all the different ethnicities in our sample issue and in our staff, but that would defeat the purpose of diversity.
However, I’m not one to shy away from controversy or disagreement, so you better believe I’ll be gathering material for our Militant Black Gay issue.
Arriba arriba! Andale! Andale!
Ed. in Chief.
Kevin J.
Tags: qr
January 12th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Well, I came to your mag’s website through Towleroad. You are right. Blogs ARE powerful. And the comment about the diversity of the men in your pages could have come out of the MOC blog. Blogging lets you know your audience and it lets you keep your hand on the pulse of ‘real’ people. But I agree with you: Towleroad and MOC are the two extremes that you talk about: one is kind of white, the other kind of brown. Hopefully, your magazine (and website) will let us see that diversity goes beyond black, red, yellow, brown and white. I am actually looking forward to your Militant Black Gay Issue. And opening up a space for the Militant Latino Gay Issue. But the white guys are always going to be there. And that’s o.k. by me. Even though I am Latino, I do have a weakness for white boys.
Hoping to see your mag in newsstands for a long time, and more of your handsome men. In any color!
January 15th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Well done! And congrats on the new mag.
Of course, I’m far too old to read it.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Hey,
I love what you’e doing!
Don’t ever change and best of luck.
Raymon W.