In her 2018 acceptance speech for Best New Artist at the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Phoebe Wang called out the overwhelming whiteness of the podcast industry. So she and four of her friends and colleagues decided to do something about it. This month Wang, along with Adizah Eghan, Zakiya Gibbons, Aliya Pabani, and Afi Yellow-Duke unveiled the POC In Audio directory. It's a database that includes over 500 engineers, editors, hosts, producers and content strategists of color.

Gibbons and Yellow-Duke told WNYC's cultural critic Rebecca Carroll that while the directory is meant to serve as a resource, it's also an attempt to get the industry to move beyond the status quo.

"I've worked in places where I'm like, why do we have to do it that way? And there's never a real answer, that's just the way it has been done," Gibbons said. "I'm a queer black Southern woman, so I experience things and think about things in a different way. There is room for me because I'm here, but is there room for me to be my authentic self?" 

But it's not just about making room, Yellow-Duke added. The directory requires users to certify that they will pay colleagues a living wage and they will support an inclusive and reflective workplace culture. "Really thinking as broadly as possible about what it means to have an inclusive industry," she said.

The five spent a year putting the directory together, and Yellow-Duke wants people to be mindful of that. "We took time out of our lives that we were not paid for. And now you have to use it, and use it thoughtfully."  

The hope, Gibbons and Yellow-Duke said, is that the directory will help to produce audio and podcasts that reflect the sounds they hear in their own worlds. "I want to hear people who sound like my neighbors," said Yellow-Duke, who lives in Crown Heights, a predominantly Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn. "I want to actually hear their sensibilities infused in the shows that are being put out." 

Gibbons noted that more diverse teams and ways of thinking should lead to more creativity, and that's what she's the most excited about. "I would love to hear more joy and silliness, more weird and experimental things, things that break format."  

The directory is online at www.pocinaudio.com.