OPINION
It's the constant emotional toll people of colour experience existing in white-dominated spaces.
It is the cost of blinking and bearing the everyday . The barriers to advancement. The media narratives that exclude your experiences, histories and perspectives.
Then there are the all-white executive boards and bosses. The gender . Women seeing their male colleagues with the same job earn more, and for - the doubly bitter pill - with that paycheck likely .
So why take on the stress of disrupting the self-satisfied majority, as well as doing your usual job?
These are important to note because they are crucial ingredients in the cocktail of silence. The last flammable ingredient? The Cautionary Tale.
With depressing predictability, this usually involves a young woman of colour sacrificed on the bloodlust of Australia's flammable racial politics.
With depressing predictability, this usually involves a young woman of colour sacrificed on the bloodlust of Australia's flammable racial politics.
Stynes was and stalked outside her home by paparazzi. For what? For having the temerity to suggest her Channel Ten co-panelist Kerri-Anne Kennerley was "sounding quite racist", which Kennerley denied, for making the statement that sexual abuse was rife in Indigenous communities in debating Australia Day protesters. Stynes' suggestion Kennerley was sounding racist, seemed to melt the collective Australian mind.
It turns out Stynes' contribution to the morning show saved Channel Ten's bacon. Complaints made to about the segment were dismissed but the media authority did say Kennerley’s comments were capable of “provoking strong negative feelings” about Indigenous communities.
"The emphatic and sweeping suggestion by Ms Kennerley of endemic sexual abuse in Indigenous communities could be capable of provoking strong negative feelings in a reasonable person," the report read.
It ends by clearing the broadcaster, interestingly because of Stynes' contribution, saying the 'counter' offered by Stynes, softened the views aired by Kennerley.
"The segment included material which offered counterpoints to Ms Kennerley’s views and thereby contextualised them as only one of a number of views on the issue."
We can't hypocritically call for 'diverse' voices, but then cut those very voices down.
So Stynes who was hounded and harassed, actually offered a network-saving counterpoint to Kennerley's inflammatory comments.
It no secret that Australia desperately needs more diversity across all spheres, most particularly its media class. A report recently found 95 per cent of leading arts and culture organisations in Australia feature zero culturally and linguistically diverse leadership. It's a view echoed by who has said "much of the media is white and we are not all white".
The desperate scramble for diverse talent is deafening and has fast become a commercial and cultural
But what are these diverse voices being received into? As the Yumi/Kerri-Anne saga shows, we can't really talk about the challenges of addressing the lack of diversity without understanding the structural impediment of racism that creates the conditions for it.
We can't hypocritically call for 'diverse' voices, but then cut those very voices down when they no longer speak from a script that fits the guest slot they've been offered in a sea of white faces.
It's a problem echoed in other parts of the world. In the UK, a erupted after BBC's Naga Munchetty was reprimanded by the broadcaster after it upheld a viewer complaint made against her for breaching ‘impartiality’, a with the finding the complaint process flawed and asserting they were not ‘impartial’ when it comes to racism.
Unless we talk about creating real power shifts to create job security and advancement for minority voices, we can't bleat on about diversity.
Her crime? Responding to being asked what she thought of US President about American congresswomen of colour.
"Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came," Trump .
When Munchetty was asked about her opinion of the comments by her co-host responded: "Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism.
"Now I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but you know what certain phrases mean."
Her co-host further probed asking: "…how do you feel when you hear that from him?" with Munchetty replying she was "… furious that a man in that positions feels it’s okay to skirt the lines with using language like that". When she was queried again on whether such comments legitimised other people using such language, she said, "Yes, yes".
It seems when diverse voices say things that are actually well...diverse, they are censored and reprimanded.
We eat up the ratings caused by 'racial controversies' but offer little support for those decimated by their participation in these controversies.
Until we can make the public and digital sphere a safer space for minority voices, and understand the double standard they are subject to in environments still deeply unused to those voices and buttressed by Anglo gatekeepers, there is no point talking about 'diversity'.
Unless we talk about creating real power shifts at board, executive and decision making levels to create job security and advancement for minority voices, we can't bleat on about diversity.
Until the Yumis and Yassmins can be treated like the Alans and Kerri-Annes of Australia - powerful figures who seem to continue their upward trajectories and keep their high-paying establishment jobs - the double-standard remains stark and clear to us - be yourself and challenge racism and you will be the one to lose.
Sarah Malik is SBS Voices Deputy Editor and a Walkley-award winning investigative journalist. She is also a commentator and public speaker on anti-racism, representation and intersectional feminism. You can follow Sarah on Twitter or her website .
