Why are people so dismissive of the arts? Why are some so quick to disregard artists’ role throughout history to effect change, to reflect the realities of our time, to amplify the dreams, aspirations, and possibilities of our collective and individual lives? How does one forget that art can be revolutionary, an act of defiance, just as it can be inspirational and aesthetically intriguing? This, I pondered all day yesterday, MLK Day, after a Facebook friend opined that Spike Lee’s and Jada Pinkett Smith’s call for a boycott of this year’s Oscars was not nearly as important as the state of emergency in Flint, MI, ongoing police violence, and un/underemployment amongst African Americans. He likened their proposed protest to little more than millionaires complaining that they (or their peers) weren’t being recognized for their work, suggesting that those who may have been actively discussing this bit of entertainment news needed to reassess their priorities. (It goes without saying that I countered with the suggestion that most of us can talk about the latest edition of #OscarsSoWhite and remain equally aware of and involved in #BlackLivesMatter and other front-burner issues.) The conversation continued, with some of us expressing our desire for intersectionality and others sharing my friend’s opinion. It was an intelligent, thoughtful, civil exchange, offering numerous variations on the theme.
It wasn’t until a friend of my friend chimed in, stating that she was more concerned about the “lack of black engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. than the lack of black actors and musicians” that I decided to leave the conversation. Everything in me wanted to retort, to question why it was so easy to shoot the finger at those of us involved in creative work while extolling the virtues of left-brain disciplines, but rather than inundate his thread with my personal observations (and biases) as a working artist I thought it may be more beneficial to use my own space to tackle this subject.
See, when we diminish one group’s work and contributions (artists/creatives, freelancers, baristas) to exalt another’s (doctors, lawyers, coders, entrepreneurs), we ultimately devalue both. Real talk, it doesn’t take a PhD (or an MBA) to recognize the multiple places in business and in culture where left- and right-brained disciplines intersect, where linear and non-linear thinking and analog and digital combine, where art and technology collide to do epic shit. And yet, folks are all too willing to openly, aggressively reduce writers, musicians, painters, thespians, dancers, filmmakers, and the like to little more than window dressing strictly on display for entertainment purposes, never mind the years of discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance (especially perseverance—it takes a special kind of stubbornness to do this work, which is probably why Aries make excellent artists. Ahem.) devoted to our craft. Perhaps that is why some can so gallantly declare that they don’t want to and shouldn’t have to pay for music because “it should be free,” or why, when members of black Hollywood elite use their platform to decry the insulting and woefully remedial dearth of representation not just at the Oscars but throughout the industry, folks can posit that it’s merely a distraction from “real” issues.
Every year, usually multiple times per year, something will happen in pop culture that causes certain groups of African Americans to pen all manner of think pieces about representation. We’ll engage in spirited conversations across social media about how black men and women are portrayed on TV and in movies—from the bitch-slaptastic foolishness of the various Housewives franchises, to how actors and actresses of color are largely overlooked during awards season unless they’re playing slaves, maids, or criminals (see Taraji P. Henson’s glorious acceptance speech at the 2016 Golden Globes). And somebody in that group will bellow from the recesses of cyber space, “That’s why we need our own!” And folks will pile on in agreement, imagining how much better things would be if black folks owned our own media companies and platforms and so forth (which, for the record, would neither be an absolute boon nor an absolute bust, but would hopefully offer the kind of variety in programming we rarely experience via mainstream media). But here’s the thing: even if every current black-targeted media outlet—radio stations, cable networks, record labels, websites/blogs, etc.—were wholly black-owned, someone would have to provide the content. And that, dear readers, is where the artists come in. That is the noble work we do.
Black artists and creatives are often the arbiters of representation, so when we complain about optics and imagery and how our people are presented and perceived, if we don’t also stop to consider how we continue to underestimate creative work as a viable, respectable, profitable career option it’s unlikely we’ll be able to effectively address this particular sticking point. We’ve seen the magic that emerges when black writers, producers, and show runners gather in the same room (with and without non-black colleagues): They create iconic television shows like A Different World, which notably wouldn’t have had nearly the impact it did had Debbie Allen not stepped in to transform the world of Hillman College into one that more authentically reflected HBCU life during the show’s first season; they bring to life all of the twisty, turn-y, complex, complicated aspects of every single character in Shondaland, and the real, modern family of Kenya Barris’ ABC hit, black-ish. We get to revel in the brilliance and relevance of films like Malcolm X, to laugh our faces off at Madea’s antics, and to lose ourselves in the eloquent beauty of Sanaa Hamri’s Something New and Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow.
Every genre in American music comes from the black artistic experience. From spirituals and field hollers, to gospel, black string bands, blues, jazz, soul, R&B, rock n roll, and hip-hop, some of the greatest, most poignant music in modern history came from black musicians, singers, songwriters, producers, and composers. Our music has told our stories, held our secrets, illuminated our fears, elucidated our hopes. Bessie Smith sang black women’s blues; Gil Scott-Heron captured black peoples’ pain and agony and served it over jazz-informed grooves; Minnie Riperton graced us with the fairest of lullabies while NWA wove caustic tales of inner-city blues. Fats Waller taught us how to misbehave and Duke Ellington gave us permission to swing in a sophisticated way; Aretha Franklin named us young, gifted, and black, and Kendrick Lamar told us we would, in fact, be alright. And what about Billie and Marvin and Stevie and Michael and Etta and Prince and Miles and Cannonball and Dizzy and Pac and Biggie and Latifah and Lauryn and Whitney and the countless others whose songs waft through the air, stirring something deep in our souls? Tell me their work is less valuable than Dr. Ben Carson’s (his political devolution aside) or Dr. Mae Jemison’s.
Prove to me that the cultural contributions that Judith Jamison and Alvin Ailey; Misty Copeland and Audra McDonald; Geoffrey Holder and Carmen de Lavallade; Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis and Harry Belafonte; Bernie Mac and Moms Mabley; Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Meshell Ndegeocello, Betty Davis; Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx; and Lee Daniels, Casi Lemmons, and Gina Prince-Bythewood bring to bear are meaningless compared to those of W.E.B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, even President Barack Obama.
Are we honestly to acquiesce to the notion that our lives would be the same had we never encountered Romare Bearden, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gordon Parks, Lois Mailou Jones, Annie Lee, Kara Walker, or Kehinde Wiley? What kind of world would this be without Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, or Toni Morrison? Dig, if you will, a world equally devoid of George Washington Carver, Madame C.J. Walker, or Neil deGrasse Tyson.
One of the greatest tragedies, I believe, is that more people do not encourage their children to pursue creative work in school and beyond. A couple summers ago, I was at a gathering and overheard a cluster of upwardly-mobile black women discussing their kids’ interests. One mentioned that her daughter had taken up singing and, while the girl was actually pretty good according to mom, mom had already begun to caution her about getting too serious about music, period. “These kids have to understand, there’s no money in that. They need to be able to earn a living.” I cringed. I wanted to say something. I should’ve said something. I didn’t say anything, though, because my quest to make music my full-time gig hasn’t panned out (yet) and my life as a freelance writer isn’t as lucrative I’d like. Still, I wish I’d spoken up and spoken out for the arts and the artists. Schools and other centers of learning have begun to implement rigorous STEM curricula to stimulate students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math—which is absolutely fantastic and necessary, but almost as an afterthought added an “A” for the arts, resulting in STEAM. How is it that the people in charge of our children’s education could miss something so essential to a well-rounded, balanced academic experience? At the end of the day, every artistic discipline benefits technology in some way, whether it’s the graphic designers whose visual iterations animate our favorite games, or the writers whose words entice us to click “add to cart” on our preferred e-commerce sites.
Without exposure to the arts in early education, students—and particularly those with a proclivity for creative work—may not endeavor to study artistic disciplines further into their educational careers, which eventually would mean fewer black artists working in any part of the creative world. This, naturally, would bring us right back to that sticking point about representation and optics, and the telling of our stories and truths…
All of this to say, the arts matter. Artists and creatives matter. And for some young people, the arts save—and radically change—their lives. The arts give voice and body to the dispossessed. The arts bring color, light, and beauty to the earth. The arts are intrinsically part of the human experience. In Humanity and the Importance of Jazz, Dr. King mused that jazz (and the blues before it) figured prominently in African Americans’ search for and discovery of self; Ellison and Fanon both spoke of the duality of black life, using their critical writing as a way to explain and define this phenomenon that touches every black person’s life at some point. Octavia Butler blessed us with Afro-futurism before the term became a 21st century catch-phrase, transporting our folklore into the stratosphere. And these creative works, and others ad infinitum, are as crucial as the air we breathe.
The arts are the thread the binds us to one another.
titsay
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
