The Arts section of the Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 New York Times has a half-page spread about the head of an art museum resigning over the apparently ill-advised use of a single word: "white." That was after an equally lengthy article three days earlier about an apology by the museum for the misstep, evidently deemed inadequate.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields was founded in 1883 and boasts over 50,000 objects in its collection, but not enough, it appears, by American Blacks and perhaps other minorities.
At least in part to address such concerns, the museum recently posted a job offer notice saying it was seeking a director who would work to build a more diverse audience while at the same time maintain "it's traditional, core, white audience." Indianapolis is approximately 62% white, 28% Black and the remainder of the population Hispanic and other identities.
Charles L. Venable, who resigned following a letter of protest from the museum's staff and a host of members of the local art community, told the NYT that the use of the word "white" was deliberate and meant to assure people the museum wasn't going to abandon it's existing audience in the process of moving toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion. In the wake of the furor, the word "white" was deleted from the posting,which apparently otherwise remained the same.
Let's pause for a moment and think about why Mr. Venable undoubtedly thought it was important to explicitly reference the museum's traditional base of "white" support. In his position, he was in charge of finances and there, the museum is overwhelmingly dependent upon donations. Direct government support in 2019, the latest year for which figures are available, accounted for only $336,000 of revenues totaling $48.7 million. Since the museum is organized as a private non-profit (a 501(c)(3) corporation), contributors may be able to get a tax break for their donations -- just as they may be able to get a tax break by donating to Black Lives Matter -- so one can argue there is some indirect public support.
But, essentially, this is a private sector entity dependent upon voluntary contributions. If they back away, the museum could be in significant trouble very quickly. Neither of the two articles in the NYT mentioned this possibility nor did they discuss the museum's financial situation.
For most of its history, entry into the museum was free of charge, but Mr. Venable changed that policy in 2014 in the interest of long-term financial stability. In other words, to hedge against a possible decline in donations. In 2019, "admissions, fees and sales (there is a gift shop) accounted for $5 million of the $48.7 million of total revenues so there is a ways to go.
If you are interested, there is an extensive list of donors at the end of the annual report and my guess is that the vast majority are white. So what's the problem with explicitly referencing them and what may be their concerns -- that in working towards inclusion and diversity, the museum doesn't intend to compromise the aesthetic and cultural values the donors have poured millions of dollars into over the years?
The problem is this: in the current culture wars, "whites" are by definition the universally privileged beneficiaries of a society constructed on systemic racism from it's very origins -- the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. When whites are so privileged, the notion that their concerns should be catered to is in itself racist. But reality is reality so it's best just not to be so explicit.
Perhaps the donors will be just as reassured by the vague wording as they would be by the more explicit reassurance. Time will tell.
This all occurred, by the way, at a time when the museum was, with the assistance of two guest curators, mounting a street mural created by 18 Black artists about Black Lives Matter.
But when the wording of the job posting became widely known, the two guest curators said they could not continue working with the museum unless the museum apologized to the 18 artists, offered them an opportunity to have their other works displayed with appropriate compensation and agreed to display more works from Black artists "in perpetuity," the New York Times reported.
These events also occurred at a time when the museum's website contained a prominent guide to a host of sites in the area connected with Black history.
But there is apparently another side to the story. The museum has been accused of, among other things, promoting the work of Black artists without substantially supporting them. And a Black woman named Kelli Morgan, who was hired in 2018 to diversity the museum's galleries, resigned last July, calling the museum's culture "toxic" and "discriminatory" in a letter she made public.
"Newfields is a very visible, very bad symptom of a much larger cancer," the Times quoted her as saying -- a reference, apparently, to the aforementioned systemic racism that is now seen as the appropriate way to describe the U.S.
That being the case, at its core, the culture war is a power struggle and the unfortunate use of the word "white" turned out to be a critical chink in the armor of one set of the powers that be.
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