Outrageous Fortune

I have nothing to say on the subject. I'm not part of the book club, but if you're not following them, go read up. Start here and read forward, and follow the links to the other bloggers, because some fine extended deep criticism is going on in the web this week.

Diversity XIII: Comments and Leadership, ctd.

Do you know why this doesn't matter? Because Rod Blagojevich is not the Senate Majority Leader.

Diversity XIII: Comments and Leadership Cont'd

I just saw a headline. Via ABC: Reid's Race Comments: Was There Truth In His Comments?

Thanks, Harry Reid, for leading ABC to speculate as to whether it's true that Obama is a "a 'light-skinned' black man 'with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.'"

Tyranny of the Tangible

ARTS North Carolina has an interesting and recurring question: If the Arts are such an economic driver, why is it so difficult to obtain support?

The three reasons they point to is:

• A difficulty in defining exactly what falls under the auspices of "creative industries"
• Lack of a single organization that speaks with a single voice
• No single plan for the industry

Of these three, the first one is the one that compels me the most, but I don't think any of these three get really at the heart of the problem.

Take point one: a difficulty in defining what exactly falls under the auspices of "creative industries." While this might be a difficulty for certain members of the creative industries, I don't think this is why the arts/creative industries/cultural organizations have trouble getting support. See, this is a good way to lop off the fringe organizations that might live in the gray area between arts and other things, but big central organizations like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or the Boston Philharmonic, etc. are clearly "creative industries." Public policy makers could definitely find artists that were clearly artists if they wanted to, if the desire was there -- even if maybe sometimes those big established "clearly artists" might not be the best investment.

Take point two: I'm not necessarily sure we don't have a big organization that speaks for us. If I had to point at one, it would be Americans for the Arts. After that come some more specific trade organizations like, I dunno, the Theatre Communications Group or the National Opera Association. I don't think we have a particular lack of trade organizations. Are they ineffective? Maybe, but I don't know if we can really put the blame (or at least the whole blame) at their feet. Some trade organizations are powerful (AFL-CIO) and others are not (NACTA?).

Point three is definitely out, in my book. What industry has a clear, unified plan? Does Wall Street have a clear, unified plan? Do the automakers? There are certain industries that appear to be running around with their heads cut off but are still strongly supported.

Okay, so I shut down a bunch of ideas to the question. Why do I think that the arts are hard to get support for?

I'd say it has to do with our intangible, indirect benefits. Even when we point to the money, people still ask, "well okay, it generates money, but what does it really do? What are we really supporting here?" If we made something 100%, people would judge us based on what we make.

I think, by the way, that this is part of the whole reason entitlements are resisted before they happen, and very difficult to take away once they exist. Take this email to Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Before this year I never gave much thought to social programs, frankly, I neither needed or qualified for them. However, when the time came that I needed assistance, the government was there to help. I am extremely grateful to our President and his allies in Congress, as their policies have had an immediate and direct impact on my family. Without the MHA and Cobra subsidy, it is likely that we would have lost our home and filed for bankruptcy.

A friend of mine who is an artist recently was told by another friend that, at her income levels, she qualified for food stamps. It was a rather shocking moment for her and for us, to realize that food stamps wasn't some abstraction -- it was a fact of life. A check you could hold, make decisions around. It was suddenly reified.

We're having a difficulty reifying the arts for our audiences. People who have had moving arts experiences know that we're worth supporting. People who have not don't know what the fuss is all about.

Diversity XIX: Paying The Rent

Don Hall steps into the diversity whirlpool with a proposal:

Conclusion: if you want more new, diverse theater, shaming people into diversity is going have less impact than providing cost-free space to perform the work currently being done.

Scott Walters is happy, and adds:

Arts funders take note: this could actually work. Diversity supporters take note: this could actually work. I think he's right about diversity in the small theatre scene being more diverse.

Scott does go on to note:

There is one fly in the ointment: the artists themselves. If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times during my couple days at the Arena: playwrights want to "make the jump" to the regional theatres. They don't seem to be content to stay put -- they've drunk the Kool-Aid and see the theatre world in terms of a pyramid, and they want to "get to the top."

I have to say that, in my personal experience, not all of that is from having "drunk the Kool-Aid" of wanting to "get to the top," so much as the fact as if they want to be part of that slim majority who can survive off of play-writing, it behooves them to get to the top.

I love the people I work with, the people who I employ at my new company. I love them so badly that I want to pay them money, in fact. At the moment, since we are literally three months into our existence as a company, I can't. A year out, hopefully, I'll be able to pay them money. Once we cross into the money-paying threshold, though, I can almost guarantee that the money I'll be paying is a pittance. I'd love to pay my playwrights what the regional theaters can pay them. One day, maybe, I will. I almost certainly will never be able to compensate them in the way that Broadway can compensate them.

Who can blame them? The reason everyone's clamoring toward the top is because we've heard there's money up there.

Don Hall is right that our budgets would be incredibly lighter with rent subsidy. (I feel like someone from either BAM or Lincoln Center or the Met once told me that one of those venerable institutions has their land leased from the city for $1 a year, which they count as one of their biggest donations -- don't quote me on it unless someone can confirm it for me) Right now, I'm in the middle of a show that has a budget of about $11,000, $7,500 of which is rehearsal and theater renting. And without paying anyone. If I could use that $7,500 on the rest of my company, I would 100% positive be paying that to people working for us.

Thank you, Don, for contributing another good idea!

Diversity XIII: Comments and Leadership

For the thirteenth, and thusly unlucky, part of the diversity discussion... I give you Harry Reid, ladies and gentlemen!

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

The internet is of divided opinion about whether, as Michael Steele demands, Reid should resign. For instance, Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is, not to mince words, an African-American himself and is probably better to judge the level of offensiveness/impact of Reids words -- TNC says this:

I think you can grant that, in this era, the term "Negro dialect" is racially insensitive and embarrassing. That said, the fair-mind listener understands the argument--Barack Obama's complexion and his ability to code-switch is an asset. You can quibble about the "light skin" part, but forget running for president, code-switching is the standard M.O. for any African American with middle class aspirations.

But there's no such defense for Trent Lott. Lott celebrated apartheid Mississippi's support of Strom Thurmond, and then said that had Thurmond won, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years.'' Strom Thurmond run for president, specifically because he opposed Harry Truman's efforts at integration. This is not mere conjecture--nearly half of Thurmond's platform was dedicated to preserving segregation. The Dixiecrat slogan was "Segregation Forever!" (Exclamation point, theirs.) Trent Lott's wasn't forced to resign because he said something "racially insensitive." He was forced to resign because he offered tacit endorsement of white supremacy--frequently.

The distinction TNC is making is one I made before in an old post called Hard Racism vs. Soft Racism; actual hate as compared with racial insensitivity:

"Hard" racism is an extreme form of racism. "Hard" racism is holding the belief that one or more races are inferior to one or more races. Adolf Hitler was a hard racist. Racial eugenicists are hard racists. Jim Crow Laws are hard racist laws. They codify the notion that one race of people is objectively (in their eyes) worse than another race of people. People who speak hard racism aloud are tagged, unequivocally, as bigots.

Today, we don't see nearly as much of that. But what we do see is a lot more of "soft" racism. "Soft" racism is hard to define. "Soft" racism is non-absolute; it does not hold that one race is absolutely worse than another. But it has a lot of negative connections with a race. One type of soft racism is ignorance. Another sort of soft racism is resentment.

(...)

[S]oft racism can usually be bridged by better communication, more cooperation, and more information.

TNC is right; what Trent Lott said was hard racism in gloves; the feeling that the Segregationalist candidate (who was definitely a hard racist) should have won is not the same as some outdated and insensitive language.

However.

I do not agree, as Isaac seems to be leaning, and as folks like TNC or Ezra Klein seem to be holding, that Reid shouldn't resign as Majority leader.

Now, let's make a quick distinction: Reid has three choices ahead of him: to step down as majority leader, to step down from the senate, or to apologize and move on. He appears to be taking option three.

Now, Trent Lott took option one. I think what was morally obligated of Trent Lott was to take option two, and resign from the senate completely. He was a bigot, and there should be no room in the Senate for bigots. Strom Thurmond should have been long gone too, but I guess bigots like Lott and Thurmond still represent their states adequately enough for their states' tastes.

I think Reid should take option one. I don't think he did something inexcusable. But when we look to our leadership, we demand something more than just actions that are "excusable." We demand leadership that is to be looked up to -- in fact, that leads.

If these comments reveal anything, it is that Harry Reid is behind the times. And we, as Democrats (if you are a Democrat, that is, o hypothetical reader) should push for a majority leader who best represents where we are now, where we are today.

Obama had a very stirring (for me at least) passage in his book Audacity of Hope where he describes going to meet Senator Robert Byrd who, many years ago, was a white supremacist. Many people told him to snub Byrd and skip the meeting. He went to the meeting, and he got some sort of a pseudo-apology, and Byrd basically acknowledged "I was wrong, I was behind the times." That's very laudable of Byrd to realize. But he's not the man I want leading our party.

Think of it from the perspective of a young, capable black man who might want to run for office. If the Democratic party is willing to tolerate leadership who are insensitive on the issue of race, who are clearly outdated, then we're going to lose some of those talented people, who don't want to be part of an organization that tolerates that. They're not going to feel represented.

And I don't want to hear the phrase "How could they think that -- we elected Barack Obama President." We don't just prove these things once. We have to prove them every day.

As a for instance, when Proposition 8 passed in California, the aftermath claimed the job of artistic director Scott Eckern who had donated to the pro-Prop 8 campaign in accordance with his Mormon faith. I think that was the right choice for the California Musical Theatre. As an organization, they have the choice of leaders to present to the community. They communicate their values as an organization through who they put forward as a "leader."

The word "leadership" means something.

Quality IV: Middle-World Cont'd

Gosh, before I sign off on that post, I want to science you up a little more. Here's Carl Sagan, showing how what seems unimportant in Middle-World is actually deeply fascinating and complex and beautiful in cellular-world (and of course it's auto-tuned):