Politics & The Arts: More On the Money Crunch

Here's a good article in TIME on the money crunch arts & cultural organizations are facing. This really says it all:

The Great Recession has struck museums and performing-arts groups with a vengeance. No one expects the Federal Government to bail them out.

Well, if there were more well-paying (or just paying) jobs in the arts, maybe more young graduates would apply their creativity to artistic endeavors rather than the arcane investment schemes that nearly brought the entire world's economy to its knees.

In Honor of We Shall Remain: A History of White Folks Telling Indian Stories

Of all the things we lost after contact, one of the most important and overlooked was our loss of agency; the ability to speak for ourselves, to say, "This is who we are. This is what we believe."

-Kevin Gover, Pawnee/Comanche
Former Assistant Secretary BIA; current Director NMAI
Quoted in Indian Country Today
April 1,2009

In his address at the RES09 Economic Conference, Gover was referring to history, but the same could be said for fiction. With a few well-known exceptions like Sherman Alexie and Louise Erdrich––two Native American authors who have appeared mulitiple times in The New Yorker and been chosen for Best American Shorts––and older writers like Leslie Marmon Silko and N. Scott Momaday––who, for all I know, may not be read anymore outside of college lit classes––the majority of Native authors listed at the Internet Public Library site are hardly household names to most readers.

Yet stories about Indians by non-Indians have been popular since first contact. There is, of course, the legend of Pocahontas as originally told by her supposed lover, John Smith, and re-told most recently in a Disney version and the epic box office failure, The New World. James Fennimore Cooper initiated the idea of "the noble savage" in The Last of the Mohicans a great adventure story, I'll admit, but a little confused on the facts, most significantly the title, since the Mohican tribe is still with us. Ironically, around the time of the campaign to finally corral the remaining "hostile" Indians onto reservations that would end at the Little Big Horn, a play about Tecumseh as a tragic hero was all the rage.

Even among Native writers, the publishing industry acts as gatekeepers in deciding what is authentic. Alexie, and Erdrich to an extent, pulled off a major coup by portraying Indians with a sense of humor. There's a lot of humor in much of the NA literature I've read, but most of what is more widely read are the tragedies, albeit well-written, that usually end with the main character's death––often suicide. In 2001 the late James Welch had a bestseller with The Heartsong of Charging Elk. He was essentially commissioned to write this story based loosely on the life of Black Elk, and it turned out to be a pretty cliche story about an Indian overwhelmed by the big city. There's a reason imposters like Nasdijj make it through that gate. They write the way white America thinks Indians should write.

I remember a very heated discussion in the Poets & Writers forum a few years ago, about "appropriation" in writing. I took the stance––for which I was roundly criticized by many––that I was dead set against white writers taking on the POV of American Indians or African Americans. I do, in fact, believe that writers should be extremely careful about any ethnic POV outside their own unless they have some "standing"––such as marriage or immersion in the culture––that would allow them to know it well. However, African Americans and American Indians are two groups that have historically been denied a voice. Until recently the literary world looked at African Americans much as they do Indian writers now. They oozed over a couple accepted names like James Baldwin and Richard Wright, while little other writing about African Americans was by African Americans. In the field of history, even today, the majority of African American history, like Indian history, is written by whites.

There is no doubt that taking on different persona is the art of great writing. Women take on the POV of men and vice versa. Hemingway won his Nobel for taking on the persona of the aged Cuban fisherman, Santiago. I've complained here more than once about the tendency in contemporary literary short ficton for the main characters to be loosely disguised versions of the author. I'm all for authors stretching themselves a bit, but not to the extent that we drown out the quieter voices.

Right now African Americans have gained a stronger voice, though they still have a ways to go. American Indians have barely begun to be heard. Until these voices become common, I believe we have moral obligation to step aside and allow them to speak for themselves.

Newspapers: Do They Deserve to Be Where They Are?

According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press fewer than half (43%) of Americans "say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community 'a lot'." I've posted here before about why I feel newspapers are important, but I'm beginning to think it's the "ideal" of what newspapers could be that I really want to save, an ideal that most papers, including the venerable New York Times or my local paper, the former Pulitzer-winning Inquirer, now struggling through Chapter 11, aren't living up to.

I could be spoiled having grown up in what may well be remembered as a "golden age" for news reporting. It started with the broadcast of the Army-McCarthy hearings and the brazen TV reporter Edward R. Murrow (Good Night and Good Luck) ready to to take on the Senator from Wisconsin, and ended at Watergate, with the Kennedy Assassination, Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement and more, falling in between. Back then reporters, whether on TV or in print, were celebrities. At George Washington U, my alma mater, admiring whispers followed the fellow student who interned for columnist Jack Anderson, the way students today might point out America's Next Top Model. When the White House press corps gathered on the lawn for breaking news (as when Nixon chose Gerald Ford to replace Spiro Agnew) groupies lined the fence hoping for a wave from a young Dan Rather. Anchor Walter Cronkite was once considered "the most trusted man in America." And then there were––drum roll please––Woodward & Bernstein, two young Washington Post reporters who famously brought down a president.

TV was the Internet of its day and yet, it did not destroy newspapers. Instead, print journalism found its niche complementing TV. While our sets brought Vietnam into our living rooms each evening and allowed us to watch politicians and their henchmen squirm under the lights, it was most often newspapers that brought us the breaking news, usually after long and careful investigation, dotting every i; crossing every t. Papers were the deliberative Senate to TV's faster moving House. TV showed us; newspapers told us, in the inverted pyarmid style, that provided much more depth and detail.

Struggling newspapers would have you believe the problem is one of medium––print v screen––and advertising dollars. I believe it's more than that. After all, online publishing may not bring in as much revenue, but it is also cheaper to produce, and with a little creativity newspapers could come up with ways to remain viable. The real question is whether newspapers, online or in print, still fill a need.

For one brief moment, when an older Dan Rather claimed to have documentation regarding W's shirking of his National Guard duty, some tried to claim that the blogosphere was the real venue for unbiased reporting. The idea being that, in the manner of Wikipedia, bloggers would fact-check each other and truth would out. In reality the blogosphere is a lot of biased people yelling at each and readers choosing the blogs that most match their own bias with little interest in any vetting process.

Newspapers can be the antidote to all that. They can, but sadly most are not. Not currently, anyway. In a desperate effort to gain readers, instead of providing an alternative to blogs, many newspapers ended up mirroring them, and worse, using blogs as (inaccurate) news sources as with the Martin Eisenstadt hoax.

We don't need newspapers to pick up on the trends and parrot them as they did in the build up to Iraq when no major newspaper questioned the evidence on WMD. (And immediately offered mea culpas when the president's approval rating began to plummet). The lowest point was when the Bush White House Press Corps participated in the charade of a scripted press conference without once acknowledging it resulting in the mildest questions I've ever heard. Then, suddenly, in Bush's last press conference, asking the tough questions when it no longer mattered, because the president wasn't popular anymore.

There is a need for a press that asks the tough questions the public can't or may not know to ask. This need is all the more important when the entire nation appears to be marching in the same direction, because the press could save us, as with Iraq, from marching off a cliff. There is a need for a press with the access and time to dig deeper. There is a place for a press that provides stories we know have been vetted and fact-checked, that haven't come from some blog posted that morning, but are based on reliable sources.

Right now most newspapers aren't filling that need. Part of me hates to see so many newspapers die, but the other part feels they deserve it.

The Writing Life: Doing Double Duty

As writers we know how time away from our desks can provide better stories and make us better writers. It also works the other way. Being a writer can make us better at what we do when we aren't writing.

The reason I haven't posted in several days is that this weekend I was volunteering at the county Youth Center––as in adjudicated youth. I'm working with a program called Thresholds originally created to teach adult inmates decision making skills but modified by some volunteers in our area so that it can be taught to younger people as well. Since joining the program I have worked with several adult inmates over an eight-week period and this is my first weekend program with youth.

I joined the program because I wanted to do my small part to fight the 60-70 percent recidivism rates most states are reporting. I joined because locking up more individuals than any other industrialized nation in what amounts to criminal holding tanks doesn't appear to be having a major beneficial effect on our crime rates. I joined because I believe too many young people are being hardened rather than rehabilitated. I also joined because I know the playing field we call life was heavily tilted in my favor and I want to do something for those for whom life has been an uphill struggle.

While I make a point of not writing anything recognizable about a client I've worked with, seeing another side of life can't help but inform my writing. What I realize now is that being a writer has helped me in my work with inmates.

It is far easier to teach skills when you've gained someone's trust and part of gaining that trust involves listening––really listening––not just taking down the facts. I find that good writers are also good listeners, because we try to hear not just the words but the meaning behind them. We take note of expressions and body language that might say "I am uncomfortable with this" even when the words say, "no, I'm cool with it."

In the program we are encouraged to empathize even when we cannot sympathize. This again is something writers do well. Like actors we try on different skins. We need to understand why a person would take a certain action even if that action is totally antithetical to what we believe.

Finally, the same approach doesn't work with all individuals. One inmate may do all his homework between sessions and be very motivated to learn new skills, so all I need to do is act as a guide. Another might have requested the program just to ease the boredom. In that case I need to be encouraging and motivating. Still another may be trying to scam me––it happens––taking the program to get out of her cell or her prison job, with no real motivation to turn her life around. In that case I need to take a harder line and sometimes lay down some ground rules to stay with the program.

I find that as a writer, I know that each story, like each person, requires a different approach. One may work better in the first person present another in third omniscient. Some stories just flow without much work. Some need to be coaxed out. Some just won't cooperate at all and we have to let them go.

All these writing skills have helped me as I try to help others find ways to turn their lives around. As with writing a story, sometimes I'm successful. When I am, I can just feel it. Sometimes I have trouble in the beginning, but I persist and it turns out well. Sometimes it just isn't working and I have to give up, and sometimes––maybe more often than I like––I send my work out there and it doesn't do as well as expected. But I keep trying, because I can't not do it.

As a writer I know how not to let the "failures" bring me down.

NEA Funding Restored to Stimulus Bill

All Right! I just read that NEA funding was restored to the final version of the Stimulus Bill signed into law yesterday by President Obama.

Politics: NEA Funding Cut from Stimulus Bill

This is a writing blog, not a political blog, but sometimes the two intersect. The Economic Stimulus Bill passed by the House of Representatives included a meager $50 million out of $819 billion for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This amount was cut from the Senate version that, according to recent reports, passed this afternoon (Feb 10) by a vote of 61-37. For those of you needing a refresher course in Government 101, the bill will now go to conference where a compromise will need to be reached between the House and the Senate versions. However, I'm predicting that arts funding is not likely to end up in the final version.

Unfortunately, for far too many in this country, both in and out of government, arts funding is seen as "wasteful" spending. The stimulus package is supposed to get the economy back on track and put hundreds of thousands of unemployed back to work, and in the US we don't see art as employment worthy of income.

As a writer I've come to expect that I won't make a penny from what I do. I've come to terms with that and that even well-known writers are now teaching in writing programs across the country to make enough to live on. I expect that those creating visual art will also have to teach in schools or hold down second or third, non-creative jobs to get by, but the Act as passed by the senate stipulates that no amounts will be made available for, among other things, museums, theaters, or art centers.

I imagine there are not many, even among the low income, who don't frequent some of these places now and again. Schools take children on visits to natural history museums or interactive science museums. Many of us visit special exhibits at art museums. Tonight I am going to see a performance of my local theater company to which I have subscribed for 25 years and which provides outreach programs to local schools. We always expect that these things will be there when we want them. More important, many cities rely on their museums and theaters to attract tourists and bring people in from the suburbs to spend money. Yet we also expect that these institutions will be paid for, in the majority, by private funds––rich donors and foundations. We even grumble at those solicitations at dinner time or through the mail, always begging for a few more dollars, yet we never stop and think why these organizations need to do this. Certainly fundraising isn't what they do best or even what they want to do.

Some may have forgotten or may not know that it wasn't always like this. As First Lady Jackie Kennedy was a great supporter of the arts. More apropos, the highest point of spending on the arts was during The Great Depression. Not only do we need more art when our hearts and wallets are low, but the lack of disposable income shows up first in donations to nonprofits. There are people in the arts who have lost their jobs too, but I guess they don't count as "real" jobs since these folks accepted long ago that they would barely make a living wage.

This is not just a matter of immediate needs, it's a reflection of what we value as a culture. It is over the last 30 years that funding for the arts has dwindled so drastically. Art often holds a mirror to our society, and I can't help but wonder if we are just afraid to see what we have become.

If you want arts funding back in the stimulus bill, visit Americans for the Arts.