The work to deprogram cultish minds is dangerous. Get help. Lots of it.
In the new/old world order of Trumpian policy, your arts organization faces the real possibility that, in the face of anti-arts, anti-education, and anti-truth political muckraking euphemistically calling itself “populism,” it will be shut down. To combat that, we’ve talked about:
- Utilizing your workforce as a team instead of contestants in The Hunger Games;
- Not arrogantly showing off your intellect in a world that is anti-intellect by pandering or by “dumbing down” your approach;
- Eliminating individual displays of symbolism or protest that are only seen or heard by those who already believe the way you believe; and
- Not calling people rhinoceroses when they do something that they believe is in their best interest, regardless of what it is, how you feel about it, or how gray and wrinkly they may be.
The most intelligent thing your nonprofit arts organization can do right now is concentrate on your community. Act hyper-local. No local nonprofit arts organization can win the day by taking on the national fascist zeitgeist, especially on its own.
You need help, allies, colleagues, and discipline. Currently, the nonprofit arts industry has a lot of out-for-themselves, don’t-tell-us-what-to-do, lone wolves trying to make a name for themselves.
The path forward cannot be about:
- the work of your organization;
- the title or subject matter of your plays or concerts or exhibits;
- your “vision,” whatever that is;
- your definition of “excellence,” whatever that is; and,
- you.
You cannot silo yourself off, nor can you let others sit on the sidelines in an escapist mode, waiting for all of this to blow over. It will blow over, or it might blow up. Hard to tell right now, nor do you have the power to change that. What you do have the power to do is to recognize the 3-dimensional chess game the other side has been playing while you’ve been playing solitaire.
Go ahead and apply for federal grants from the NEA, even if you’re sticking to your DEI guns or producing work that may offend the potentate.
You won’t get the grants. That’s not the point.
If you’re the only one applying, then you’ll be dismissed by this administration as irrelevant to the discussion. A single bee, easy to swat away.
However, when thousands of arts organizations apply, using the same proud language (and showing actual results), the administration may still deny funding, but instead of one bee, you’ll be a swarm. The data coming from that process (assuming everyone makes their grant applications and denial letters public), used hyper-locally, should help build the case that it is the administration doesn’t care about your community (not just your arts organization).
You make an easy target. The whole community is a different story.
If you choose not to apply at all, for whatever reason, valid or not, the message sent is harmful on two fronts. First, if no one were to apply for funding, the NEA will certainly disappear with the explanation that the funding is unnecessary. After all, no one applied; therefore, no one needed the money.
The second problem with not applying (or changing the fiber of your organization to be anti-DEI or pro-fascist) is that when you do, you act as a Chamberlain-esque appeaser. In doing so, you’d be proving to your community that your organization is unnecessary. In addition, the administration to which you believe you have to be sycophantic will not care one whit. Your organization reverts to being a bee, one that has already lost its stinger.
Network and strategize.
Running an organization can be lonely. According to studies done at Harvard, half of CEOs in America report experienced loneliness in that role. Of this group, 61% believed it hinders their performance. 70% percent of first-time CEOs who reported loneliness conveyed that the feelings negatively affect their performance. Fight that urge to accept the “lonely at the top” syndrome. Network without shame or superiority. Share both your failures and your successes. If you try to do it all yourself, you will fail at the pragmatic goal of regaining society through the arts. And if you only produce escapist art to try and stay clear of controversy, you’re burying your head in the sand of the current climate.
Today, the portion of the society that holds sway is the same group that, not all that long ago, had been buried in obscurity. Parsed into small societies of White supremacists, chauvinists, and reactionary evangelical Christians, they had little power. However, beginning with the Reagan administration defanging the FCC’s equal-time rule — a decision that allowed cynical, obscenely wealthy powermongers to purchase and control almost everything that Americans read, hear, and see — the weapon of fear successfully clotted and coagulated these folks into legitimate sources of power. Their power as individual groups was limited; together, they’ve insurrected their way into leadership.
Instead of decrying those that disagreed with them on single issues, they gained strength by ceding power to their leaders. In essence, they’ve become the Thought Police of today, merely enforcing atrocities without believing they had any responsibility in creating them. That’s why they have no problem with the presumed Nazi Elon Musk and his information-gathering thuggery. “Jews will not replace us” is acceptable, not because most of the people on the right believe it, but because it serves them to stay quiet. As the father of a transgender child, I have my own anger issues regarding a group of people that choose not to understand what they went through, but instead want to force-feed the same kind of quasi-religion followed by the Nazis, by stoning them and those like them in the public square. Some on the right agree with me, but they are more popular when they say nothing, so that’s what they do.
“People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”— George Orwell, 1984
The scales have a giant, money-grubbing, 1% thumb on them. It’s going to take a lot of us to rebalance them. Remember what the goal is and don’t get in the weeds of individual non-support. It doesn’t work and it takes valuable leaders out of play. And the every-five-minute scream isn’t going to get the scales fixed.
It’s your turn.
Get your allies together to solve big issues. And please, don’t decry any single transgression you believe an ally has committed (unless it’s abuse or a crime, of course). No one is pure. Leadership does not come from unanimity; it comes from rabid consensus. All this is going to take time to succeed, just like the right-wing insurrectionism did.
Your single act of protest will be dismissed quickly (see Kendrick Lamar). Your continued acts showing your commitment to your own community will mean more to local support of your own organization. Find ways to help other companies in your area to do the same; it will cause your art to become a movement instead of a one-off. Network nationally — not to solve national problems, but to gain support and build numbers on your side. Even if you have to network with an individual you don’t like.
Go public.
Finally, as my algebra teacher forced us to do, show your work. You may feel vulnerable when you show your numbers, your data, your charitable impact on the local community, and the results of your grant requests (and their subsequent acceptances or denials), but in order to have a real movement for good, your organization and its allies across the country have to be strategic, forthright, and transparent. Don’t hide your mistakes; highlight them and the goals they were to achieve. Don’t believe your good press; just do the work. Make sure your organization is diverse, equitable, and inclusive; and by inclusive, I mean race, gender, age (old and young), and everything else. Fire leaders guilty of abuse, criminality, or other fireable offenses; make your board deal with it quickly and publicly so as not to slow the pro-arts movement in any way.
Leadership in a movement is far less lonely than leadership of a single organization. Take advantage of that and create some positive momentum with lots of leaders. It’s worth it.
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