Advancing Equity (Asynchronous Session)
Discussing the Gender Gap in the Venue Management Industry: It's an Interesting Idea But... View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jill Schinberg
Gender disparity is nothing new—not in the arts and culture sector nor the various administrative fields of arts and entertainment management. However, our willingness to bring gender representation issues and equal opportunity to light has changed over time. In 2017, the International Association of Venue Managers took the first steps toward a more inclusive industry. This paper examines the impetus for the first diversity survey of its kind in the public assembly sphere, discusses the data as they pertain to gender, assesses the association’s first conference session on the topic, contextualizes the results, and proposes directions for future research in the name of gender parity in the venue management industry.
Denials, Silence, and Apologies: How Mainstream News Organizations Have Responded to the Racial Reckoning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brad Clark
Over the course of the “racial reckoning” in 2020, racialized and Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada called out news organizations for the systemic racism reflected in news content that all too often lacks context, plays to stereotypes, and fails to grasp the lived experiences of non-white people in society. After the police murder of George Floyd, as Black Lives Matter grew from protests against lethal police brutality into a global movement, these journalists described their own frustrations with discrimination in scores of columns, social media posts, podcasts, and other published media accounts. In so doing, they forced pillars of the North American news industry – The New York Times, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, National Public Radio, The Globe and Mail, The Los Angeles Times – to “reckon” with a history of racist news coverage and hiring practices extending to the present. This paper examines the response of those organizations and others to the journalists’ calls for reform, ranging from the Los Angeles Times’ special edition detailing its own complicity in racism, to layoffs of racialized staff at Global News in Canada. It breaks down the reactions of specific news media in the context of previous research on diversity and inclusion in journalism. The author interprets the findings through the lens of colonialism and critical race theory, concluding that real change will only come when journalistic practice is uncoupled from the white dominance on which it was founded.
Race Talk In ‘Black, White, and Grey’: How an Impromptu and Random Social Gathering Turned into an Insightful Scenario that Planted Seeds for Authentic ‘Race Talk’ View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rachel Nir, Ketra Armstrong
Since the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement across the globe, the issues of race and racism have come to the fore again in Higher Education. This movement has spawned a global racial reckoning (of sorts) rife with problems and possibilities. Higher education professionals may witness racial discrimination or experience racism but somehow seem to have lost the confidence or commitment to openly discuss it. Moreover, questions abound regarding the who, what, why, when, and how of effectively conversing about race. Consequently, the rules of ‘race talk’ are often unclear, conversations about race are often avoided, and/or the ‘black, white, and grey’ areas of race are carefully and skilfully navigated. Ketra Armstrong, a Black university professor in the US and Rachel Nir, a White university reader in the UK met at this conference in Austin, Texas in 2018. What seemed like a random and impromptu social gathering turned into an insightful scenario that planted seeds for authentic ‘race talk’ that profoundly impacted them personally (with a rich interracial friendship) and professionally (in their advocacy for diversity, inclusion, and equity). This paper: (a) offers a critique of their experience through the discourse of their respective ‘raced’ lenses, and (b) illustrates the ‘black, white, and grey’ areas of ‘race talk’ in which they successfully engaged. In so doing, this study address concepts such as racial positionality, consciousness of racial privilege, racial access, and the need for cross-race conversations to promote deeper understanding and to facilitate meaningful change.
A Jamaican Theatre Practitioner in the United States: Sydney Hibbert in America View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas Arthur
This paper considers the accomplishments and of Jamaican-born actor/teacher practitioner Sydney Hibbert (died 1990) who spent most of his professional life in the United States. It uses the Caribbean “sound of many cultures” he talks about to illuminate his work. In the early 1960’s Hibbert trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Guildhall School of Music, afterwards receiving two British Council Drama Awards and an Arts Festival citation. Attracted to the US by the civil rights movement, Hibbert became Head of the Harlem School for the Arts Drama Workshop, returning to the Caribbean to lead “Theatre 77, the precursor of Jamaica’s (1966 to 2005) Barn Theatre. Back in the U.S. Hibbert worked in New York and Los Angeles, garnering Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards, teaching at the Harlem School, leading the Rutgers/Livingston campus dram program, teaching at the North Carolina School for the Arts. In the mid-1970’s Hibbert’s hopes for what a Caribbean might accomplish in the states began slipping. In performance, later a 1986 book, Anansi and Munti: A Caribbean Soul in Exile, he writes that “all men are not created equal” in the U.S. What were Hibbert’s accomplishments in his performance work and writing? He was an artist who embraced his Jamaican heritage, reflecting the color and imagery, the sound of that country in whatever he did. *Taken from the “Anansi and Munti: A Caribbean Soul in Exile” by Sidney Hibbert
'Karen’ the Prototyped Victim and an Expanded View of Gendered Racism Against Black Men, the Prototyped Perpetrator: 'Karen' and Gendered Racism View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bill Johnson, Jocelyn Markowicz
Despite international attempts to reduce the insidiousness of oppression, racism remains a seemingly immovable fixture in American society. Research has revealed that White Americans hold negative racial attitudes and often experience resistance against examining White privilege (Bowman, 2010). Missing is an analysis of gendered racism between White women and Black men. The authors use prototype victim and prototype perpetrator research to help broaden understanding of White female public displays of racism against Black men. The year 2020 presented global challenges with the interface of a pandemic alongside the resurgence of visual displays of historical racism. The differences in how White women publicly demonstrate their racism has surfaced frequently with the aid of technology. This new depiction of the White woman has been coined the ‘Karen.’ The term “Karen” is simply the label for adult White women who are perceived to behave in a racist way in public. Prototype research is used to expand the construct understanding of gendered racism between ‘Karen’ and Black men. This discussion is timely considering current spotlight on the BlackLivesMatter movement in response to the killing of Black men, Black women, and Black Trans and non-binary individuals. Such an analysis also has important clinical implications as the ethnic/racial diversity in the United States (U.S.) is increasing (Pew Research Center, 2016), thereby also increasing the cultural heterogeneity of those seeking counseling services. Thus we advance that understanding gendered racism is important in the provision of psychological services to diverse individuals.
