When we talk about the role diversity, or lack thereof, has in the arts we tend to use a common image, the locked door.
The door represents the barriers, intentional and otherwise, that keep people of color from reaching their full potential in the field.
But I want to talk about the people on the other side of that locked door.
This link will lead you to a presentation done by author Chimamanda Adichie. It's called "The Danger of a Single Story."
About halfway into her presentation Adichie, who was born and raised in Nigeria, talks about an encounter she had with a white roommate when she came to America for school.
Her roommate told her something along the lines of "I've read stories about Africa and I'm sorry all the men there are rapists, bad guys, etc."
Adichie's response: "I just saw the movie American Psycho. I'm sorry that all American men are serial killers."
The audience laughs. It's a great story with a great point. It's also a good example of how someone like Adichie can be harmed when there is only one narrative about her people.
But my thoughts tend to turn to that white roommate. She's the punchline of the joke.
In a very real way, however, she has been harmed too.
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It's easy to speculate how she may have gotten to that point. For most of her life she has been exposed to art and entertainment, both non-commercial and commercial, that often presents the "other" in the most one dimensional way possible.
Sometimes they didn't even bother to present "the other" at all.
And all that was fine.
Until "the other" walked into that woman's dorm room.
When faced with a new situation she did what most of us do, she relied on what she had been told in the past as a way of dealing with the present.
The problem is her previous experience was so flat and stereotypical that it left her totally unprepared to deal with someone in the real world.
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Age that young woman by 50 years or so and now I see the type of person that populated those health care town halls.
Can you see her? Clutching the microphone and demanding that she get "her" country back?
Of course we know what she means. She wants the world that exists in her head.
A world reinforced by what she sees and hears.
A world where the only viewpoint that matters is hers.
A world where she used to be able to go her entire life without having to consider a black person, or a lesbian.
Her ignorance is stunning and in a way it pisses me off to no end.
But I can't help but feel a little sorry for her as well.
The world, in a way, has failed her. It kept pumping her the same messages, the same images over and over again.
Then, the world flipped on her. And she is completely unprepared for what it is becoming.
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Whenever I see an arts organization that doesn't embrace diversity in a meaningful way I also see an audience that is being harmed.
I see an audience that isn't being prepared for the world as it is.
When we talk about diversity in the arts, we have to discuss the impact (and the harm) on both sides.
When we create an artistic world that is as rich, complex and different as the real world, everybody benefits.
When we don't, everybody suffers.
Great post!
I often wonder why diversification in portfolios is often so easy for people to understand, and that logic is completely disconnected from every other part of most orgs.
The more diverse monetary investments an org makes the stronger it is--that part's easy to wrap our brains around.
The more diverse investments in people and their stories an org makes, the stronger it is--this one baffles a lot of folks for some reason.
Posted by: Tony Adams | December 07, 2009 at 09:56 AM
This is great! I admit, I may have just laughed along with that story, but you're so right, and we'll never get to where we want/need to be, in terms of social justice and inclusion, by demonizing ANY other, as tempting as that may be. Thank you for these thoughts.
Posted by: Melinda Lewis | December 13, 2009 at 07:55 PM