Diversity in Art

Art, in all its forms, is a way for us to understand our world and share that interpretation with others. If we’re to understand the variety and richness of the human experience, we need diverse voices. Diversity matters among artists and among the gatekeepers who decide what gets put forth for public consumption.

I’ve noticed that many author bios now include gender identity, sexual orientation, and race or ethnicity. It makes sense because, for gatekeepers that are consciously focused on creating more opportunities for traditionally marginalized voices, it’s a way to help them promote the work of those overlooked artists.

On January 14, 2020, Stephen King tweeted that he “would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.” The Twitter-verse rushed to comment. Some took offense by interpreting his tweet to mean that King doesn’t support diversity in the arts. Others interpreted the tweet as meaning that the quality of the work should be the defining factor not the background of the artist.

I haven’t been able to find any follow-up comment from King clarifying what he meant. I kind of get what I hope was his point, although Twitter wasn’t the best platform. It’s an old, complicated issue that we’ve seen played out for decades. Should an applicant’s demographics be a factor in deciding who gets the job or the scholarship or whatever?

There’s a difference between equity and equality (here’s a cute video explaining the difference). Equality means that resources are distributed equally among everyone. Equity means that resources are distributed according to need in a way that gives everyone access to the same opportunities. We don’t all start from the same point.

All of this should go without saying, but it continues to amaze me how people don’t get these concepts. One of the best examples I’ve ever come across was a former student who was a counselor in an obesity program geared toward minority populations. She was white, had never been poor, and didn’t know any poor people. I’ll never forget the look on her face when it dawned on her that her clients’ refusal to join a gym had nothing to do with intransigence about changing their lifestyle and everything to do with the economic realities of their lives. They couldn’t afford to join a gym. As an educator, I celebrated the ‘aha’ moment. As a human, I mourned that someone going into a field focused on serving others could be so obtuse and insular.   

How do you create diversity without discounting the quality of the work? How do you overcome the perception that gender identity or sexual orientation or race or ethnicity were bigger factors in accepting the work than the quality of the work itself? Do our efforts to be more diverse mean that the very people such efforts are meant to help end up having to work twice as hard to prove that the quality of work they produce is sufficient in and of itself to merit the attention it’s received?

I suppose we could ‘blind’ the vetting process like some orchestras started doing in the 1970’s. The idea was to conduct auditions with the musician behind a screen where the judges couldn’t see them. One study found an increase in the number of female musicians hired. Reviews of that study and other studies say the evidence isn’t so clear cut. Besides, blinding submissions in the publishing world doesn’t seem feasible. You’d still struggle with the implicit bias associated with female versus male author names or ethnic-sounding names. If you want to see how ubiquitous implicit bias is, Harvard has a test you can take as part of an ongoing study. You might be surprised at your results.

As a consumer of art, the artist’s background does make a difference to me. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye or Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred are compelling because I know they were written by black women descended from slaves. For me, those novels resonate in part because I know the women writing them have first-hand experience with the racial themes covered in the books.

Having been on the receiving end of sexism and ageism and heteronormative stereotypes, I’m an advocate for equity. I’ve also been on the receiving end of criticism that my accomplishments were the result of favoritism and were therefore somehow less valuable. I have more questions than answers but I do think this is a dialogue worth having.