The Mission Paradox Blog

Back and Ready to Rumble

I leave town for a week and all heck breaks loose.

The NEA drops a fascinating report on audience participation in the arts.

Issues of race/class/diversity in the arts are being discussed all over the blogosphere.

Good times.

Tomorrow I'll start tossing my two pennies back into the pond.

Winter Break #1

Time for me to head to Vegas.  It will be a week of splitting Aces and check raising fools with air.  You probably have no idea what any of that means, but trust me it's going to be exciting.

New posts return on Wednesday, Dec. 16th.

 

Ignoring the Obvious

There's one part of the whole diversity in the arts conversation that confuses me.

It's the part where somebody (normally a well meaning person) says something like:  "How do we help a theatre, for example, understand diversity is important?"

It's damn near 2010.

I have difficultly believing that anyone in a position of leadership in the arts doesn't know that:

1.  There are a lot of different people, cultures and points of view in the world

2.  Generally, an organization that brings these points of view, cultures, etc. into their world will be better off for it.

It's not like diversity is a new concept.  There has been a truckload of research establishing "best practices" in the field for decades.

For example, it's pretty well established that any successful effort to diversify an organization must include the following:

Support for the top levels of the company.

Money to invest in effort

Time

If an arts organization is talking about a diversity effort that doesn't include significant amounts of those three things, then you don't need to take the effort seriously. 

You can assume it's a token effort, designed to make themselves feel good, or impress funders, or whatever.

But again, it's not like that's news.  People have known that for years.

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When it comes to diversity in the arts, organizations now break down into four categories:

1.  The Sincere Effort Group - They have the support, the money and the time.  At most these groups will need help and guidance on the strategy side of the ledger.  They want to diversify, but they may not be sure how, or confident in their ability to do so.

This group deserves all the help, encouragement and guidance they can get.

2.  The Scared - These people have some sort of fear barrier stopping them from diversifying.  Fear of losing audience.  Fear of losing money.  Whatever.

This group should be supported and encouraged . . . to a point.  Some organizations spend their entire life cycle scared, that's just how it goes.

3.  The "Other Priority" Group - These organizations have decide, for whatever reasons, that other initiatives are more important then a diversity effort.

I think we, as an industry, should respect the decision this group makes.  Maybe it's a bad decision.  Hell, it is probably a bad decision.  But groups have the right to make bad decisions.

4.  The "No Desire" Group - This group has no desire to diversify.  Who really cares why they feel that way?  The only thing that matters is that they made that choice.  Again, that's a perfectly acceptable decision to make.

I think our job as a field is to look at each organization and figure out which "diversity category" they fit in.

Then we deal with them accordingly.

Our job is not to move people from one category to another.

That's a choice only they can make.

Embrace the ones that want change.  Support the ones that need help.  Wish the rest of them the best of luck and send them on their merry way.

 

Death by 1000 No's

It's not about the one big mistake.

Despite what you have been told it's rare that the career of an artist, or the legacy of an arts organization, is crushed by one big mistake.

It's all the little mistakes that do it.

It's all the times you said "No".

No to producing that creative, but risky piece of work because you were scared of the possible financial downside.

No to hiring that younger, but less experienced person as your new Director of Development.  Sure she could have bought in new ideas and strategies but the Board wanted someone more "stable."

No to giving your staff that pay raise they deserved.

No to getting rid of that toxic staff member that is killing morale.

No to actively seeking that artistic mentor that could help guide your career.

That's how things crumble, one fear based decision at a time.

The good news is that the opposite is true.

I have seen organizations saved, careers re-ignited because of a few good, brave, timely decisions.

There are a thousand variables that pave the road to artistic success, luck, timing, skill, connections, etc.

But mostly, all of us are nothing more then the sum total of our decisions.

 

Both Sides of the Door

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.

 

 

Defining Diversity Conference - Post 1

I'm in DC

Isaac is in DC

And thus the party that is the Defining Diversity Conference begins.

You can follow along in several ways:

1.  On this blog

2.  On Parabasis

3.  On Twitter.  #newplay

Entering the Arena

Starting on Friday, Arena Stage and Georgetown U are doing a conference on Diversity in Theatre.

Thanks to the generosity of Arena Stage, I am headed down to D.C. to cover the conference.  Blog posts on the conference will appear on the Arena Stage blog and will be crossposted here.  You can learn a little bit more about what's happening over the weekend here.

But I will not be the only blogger covering the weekend. Issac will be in the house as well. 

Plus, Prof. Scott will be participating in the conference and rumor is that 99 seats will remove himself from the Witness Protection Program and actually show his face.

It's going to be an interesting and lively discussion.  Be sure to check the blog late Friday afternoon and during the course of the day Saturday for updates.

In the meanwhile here are a few old blog posts where I talk about diversity and the arts:

Old + White = Problem?

Gravity

Amen

 

 

Assets and Liabilities

Art and accounting don't always mix.

This is one time that they do.

Almost anything can be judged by a simple equation:

Assets - Liabilites = Total Value.

When you think about, live artistic experiences have a lot of liabilities.  It's often the most expensive, least convenient option a consumer has at a given moment.

In a world that tends to want their entertainment options to be available quickly, customized to their tastes and relatively cheap, those are big liabilities.

Now we turn to the assets.  More specifically we turn to your assets.

What are they?

If your first response was something along the lines of "talent" or "artistic skill" then I suggest you keep thinking.  I'm not saying it isn't an asset, but you probably need more then that to overcome the big ol' liabilities.  Here are some other things that could be an asset

A good relationship to your community = Asset

A really effective direct mail or email list = Asset

Good relationships with fellow artists = Asset

Good relationship with the funding community = Asset

A reputation as being a great place to work = Asset

Put those together with your talent and now we may have something.

Measure your assets.  Consider your liabilities.  They both matter

 

 

 

 

No Trust

Your life as an artist will become easier when you embrace the following:

Nobody trusts you.

When you say your upcoming performance is exciting and innovative, people assume you are self-serving.

When you say that your are doing work for "the love", people assume you have an ulterior motive.

That's just how it is.

It's nothing personal.

It's what happens when you live in a world where somebody is trying to sell you something 24-7.

People get a little cynical.

People worry about being burned.

It's true for the guy selling cars at the dealership.

And it's true for you.

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This is actually great news because it provides you with an opportunity.

An opportunity to earn trust.

An opportunity to exceed expectations.

But it's going to take a while.  Maybe longer then you thought.

You are going to have to demonstrate your skill, your passion and your commitment more times then you expected before people begin to move you from "no trust" (the default category) to "trust".

It's a hard road to take.

But it's so worth it.

Because when people actually start to believe the promises you make via your marketing, magical things start to happen.

Word of mouth spreads.

Marketing becomes easier and more fun.

But it all starts with the long journey toward trust.

Make promises.  Deliver on those promises. 

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

That's how you get there.