Barry's Blog: More On the Cultural Equity Discussion

It isn't helpful to characterize this in any pejorative sense as evil or conspiratorial — rather it is really just the natural tendency to support one's “own” — the familiar, that with which one grew up. And that legacy of how things are done favors what it has always favor — the larger Euro-centric cultural institutions. The bottom line is this: we are not likely to change private decision-making as the same governs equity considerations until we change the culture of leadership currently (still) existent in the Board rooms where the decisions about who-gets-how-much-are made.

This is a Board of Directors issue. I believe virtually all the capable and qualified foundation arts program officers know fully well that they manage programs are that are not really equitable (with some obvious exceptions here and there), and that these people know how to, and would very much like to, move towards that more equitable balance, but ultimately the final decisions rest not with them, but with Board members. And the direct network crossover by and between those Board members with those very major cultural organizations that disproportionately benefit the most is the one thing that is very transparent. It is still “who you know.”

Given that the composition of these Boards is not likely to convert to a truly demographic representation of the populace or the field in any overnight epiphany, how then do we move to address cultural inequity in as meaningful and rapid a way as possible?