Abstract
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and emerging BIPOC demands for equity, American museums and arts organizations newly sought out Native American artists and curators as commentators and lecturers. The pervasive desire for difference in the Covid-19 era of ubiquitous Zoom conversations resulted in live, unscripted, and recorded interactions that provide useful data for researchers interested in the ways structural racism is enacted in public discourse. In particular, the question and answer component of recorded discussions expose how audience members exercise willful ignorance, power and control, while appearing as innocuous and eager learners. Casual racism, (as expressed in the audience’s right to know, regardless of the content of the inquiry) emerged in institutional settings characterized as educational and inclusive. These demands for knowing include inquiries unrelated to the arts such as audience members’ questionable claims to Native ancestry. Simplistic inquiries taken seriously by institutional hosts have the effect of diminishing the intellectual worth of artists and curators who are thrust into the role of primary school teachers. In addition, audience retaliation and anger during these exchanges present real safety concerns for Native women speakers who are already statistically prone to becoming victims of violence. The author examines taped Zoom examples of museums and arts institutions engaged in Native arts discourses post-Covid in an effort to locate trends and expose patterns of abuse. Techniques for strategic interventions are identified including speaker contracts, institutional protocols, and key terms for identifying and exposing abuses of power masked as educational exercises.
Presenters
Nancy Marie MithloProfessor, Gender Studies and the American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program, Univertsity of California Los Angeles, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Native, Audience, Racism, Equity
