Wit & Attitude Quote by Walter Annenberg

A blunt, almost exasperated line like this is doing two jobs at once: it normalizes merit as the default, and it shames prejudice by treating it as not just immoral but stupid. Annenberg doesn’t dress the point up in lofty principle. He reaches for the language of the deal table - “good,” “hire,” “sense” - and that’s the tell. This is a businessman’s anti-racism, grounded in practicality and status incentives: talent is scarce, competition is real, and turning away a proven performer because of skin color is self-sabotage.

The profanity (“what the hell”) matters. It’s not performative virtue; it’s irritation, a refusal to dignify discrimination with debate. By framing racism as illogical, Annenberg sidesteps the moral sermon and hits the audience he likely knew best: peers who might rationalize exclusion as “tradition,” “fit,” or “what clients want.” He collapses those euphemisms into an accounting error.

Context sharpens the subtext. Annenberg rose in a 20th-century corporate and media landscape where informal gatekeeping was often as powerful as formal policy, and where hiring - especially into visible roles - was a proxy for belonging. The line hints at a moment when someone “good” was already circulating by reputation, yet the barrier remained color. He positions himself as the guy willing to be modern, efficient, and unembarrassed about it - a small sentence that doubles as a statement of managerial authority: I’m not letting your bias cost me excellence.