That’s kinda what I’m saying? I think?
I’m saying that the people like Charles Venable who entrench their white supremacy in the guise of diversity are just as bad as the Klan. But it’s “worse” because they might be more able to get away with it. And racists shouldn’t get away with it.
1 Like
Right? We’re all so trained to think of white men as the “default” for most things (especially, in this case, with regards to cultural consumption), that we have a hard time thinking out of it, even if we’re educated about this race in America, we still often replicate that in our own thinking… If that makes sense… 
11 Likes
It makes perfect sense.
Humans are creatures of habit, and society as we currently know it has long been structured for and around White males, above everyone else.
12 Likes
10 Likes
And it needs to be said that reprogramming oneself and restructuring how one thinks is hard work… which is likely why so many people are so ‘set in their ways’ and resistant to societal change.
11 Likes
11 Likes
Okay, it appears that my snark has been treated as ambiguous. I was aiming my barbs at the people who wrote the ad, and their lazy assumption that their current core audience was synonymous with all “white” people. and that all “non-white” people were therefore outsider their core audience.
It’s such a lazy, stereotypical line of thinking (and from an outside perspective, so characteristic of the USA in its current moment) to assume this, and it’s a huge sign that they haven’t really thought about what the problem really is. If they see the need to broaden their audience, but have reduced that problem solely to the skin colour of the current audience, then that’s a recipe for yet another one of these cringe-worthy campaigns where corporate or institutional entities play around with branding and talk down to their new target audience, rather than doing anything substantive to engage with the task of serving the whole community better.
13 Likes
Thanks @Purplecat!
3 Likes
Snark tags can help with ambiguity… thanks for clarifying your thoughts.
7 Likes
This was my assessment as well. I’ve never been to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, but I’m sure their core audience (in the sense of the people funding and patronizing it) is white, just as it will be for the local symphony orchestra, theater etc. This is a reflection of our racist society, plus the funding models of these institutions. It seems ridiculous to me that getting rid of the guy who said it is seen as a proper response.
1 Like
What makes you sure of this? Even if it’s true, why put it in a job ad? Noting the audience as white reinforces the assumption that it’s “white” culture, and that other culture is somehow lesser?
4 Likes
I mean, white colonizers named the state Indian Land even though they knew by then that India was a third of the planet away. 
2 Likes
What makes you sure of this?
Because we live in a racist society. One feature of such a society is that people of color are systematically excluded from ‘elite’ cultural spheres. And old-money elites, the kind of tend to fund museums, will be even whiter, because of when/how they got their money.
1 Like
True that!
I was so far through “To Kill a Mockingbird” before I realized that Scout was a girl…because at that time I just couldn’t imagine someone like me being the main character. 
4 Likes
In fact Ohio just had an even more toxic statement result in controversy at one of our museums. 2 former Akron Art Museum employees speak out about controversy there - cleveland.com
But I’ve been looking for work and my degree/ location means that I apply for a lot of nonprofits, particularly legacy arts nonprofits. If you remove one word from his statement, you get about half of the job listings in those positions. The problem extends well beyond the use of the word white and into the rest of the sentence. It may be necessary to risk part of that core audience, to expand the reach of the institution to the broader community. There is a segment of the white arts community that will see any change towards a more inclusive institution as a attack and we need to be okay with throwing them overboard.
7 Likes
I think you’re assuming that because of that, there is no Black audience for the arts, when there is.
5 Likes
The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler takes that to it’s extreme
The book is written like many adventure books where the protagonist is a boy, and Tyke (Theodora) isn’t gendered until the last chapter while other characters are.
6 Likes
The ad states the core audience is white, so it’s probably safe to assume it is. Additionally, every art museum in the US that isn’t tied to another culture as part of its mission is practically guaranteed to have a core white audience.
Putting it in a job ad was a mistake they shouldn’t have allowed. And yes, it does denote a lesserness of other cultures. “Broaden our audience, but don’t upset the white folk” implies the white folks are somehow more important.
Indeed, the key word is “core audience”. Any cultural institution is going to have minorities in their audience, it’s just that they tend to be woefully underrepresented. This is also true for collections holdings.
It’s still assuming that “white people” are default, which is the problem here.
Why do you think that is? It’s both from the history of systemic racism AND from minorities being made to feel unwelcome in such cultural spaces, because they are historically coded “white” and “European” by default. If they are underrepresented and still are despite more than 50 years since the major legal victories on civil rights, it’s because there is a continued effort, either purposefully or via ignorance, to maintain the whiteness of these institutions. There is most certainly no lack of BIPOC talent out there. It’s not like there was no Black painters and all of a sudden, there was Basquiat. This is how white supremacy continues to be maintained.
3 Likes
