Exhibit B: 'Censorship, Racism And Power'

Intro:

The confrontation activists had with the powers that be has opened up many debates, not least around who holds power and how they use it. Writing for OBV for the first time- we hope it's not the last - Jenny Williams unpicks where the real censorship debate should lie. Black artists, Black groups, she argues are censored on a daily basis often by all white institutions. Who gets funded, who doesn't. Her arguments are enlightening and compelling which help communities and activists better understand the challenges we face. Simon Woolley.

The cultural sector has been censoring the Black and minority ethnic community for decades, through an insidious and aggressive process of disinvestment, under-representation, and structural inequality.

The recent efforts by the Barbican to pursue Exhibit B in the face of so much outrage, illustrates the extent of elitism in cultural leadership. Here is a sector that is owned by an elite few who through controlling public investment, define what ‘great art’ is, who produces it, how we receive it and from what cultural perspective.

Barbican’s response can only be viewed in context of a historical and widespread pattern of behavior in the cultural sector. Over the years, cultural engagement with Black and minority ethnic communities has come to mean delivering outdated and frankly, unwanted education programmes to us – and preferably to our young.

This has been a financially, and artistically beneficial approach for institutions. We have proved to be lucrative in levering funds – because if you’re black, you’re assumed to be uncultured or something that requires them to help us, and most certainly to educate us as what great art is. The ingenuity of this approach, is that whilst the cultural elite are spending all this time educating us, they can get on with the real job of creating great work and leading on culture; and all the while conveniently detracting focus away from the lack of ethnic minorities involved in the creative process or in their workforce or in their buildings.

For us, our position is clear - we are passive in this relationship, we simply receive their great works, and ours is not to question. Or create. Or lead. Our narrative remains unseen and unheard unless it happens to ‘fit in’ with the elite’s requirements that enable this cycle of cultural oppression to continue.

I refuse to be complicit in this cultural hegenomy. I no longer wish to pay the wages of a sector that excludes me from the creative process, that negates my stories, refuses to employ me, and then tries to ‘educate’ my children to hear their version of culture and heritage to the exclusion of my own.

I refuse to invest in a sector with disinterested modes of engagement that do not work. According to statistics, and despite all the millions of pounds worth of investment, there has not been an increase in ethnic minority communities attending cultural events; there has not been an increase in non-white artists or arts organisations platformed, profiled or invested in; there has not been an increase in Black and minority arts leaders. In fact, in the last 3 years, it has gone down on every count.

This injustice has not escaped ministers, and earlier this year, Culture Secretary Sajid Javid MP challenged the publicly funded cultural sector to reflect better the 14% of black and minority ethnic communities who support them. He questioned why a £70m publicly funded open arts funding scheme only distributed £3.8m to Black and minority ethnic artists. Is this due to a whole scale lack of talent from a group of people who share one common characteristic – the colour of their skin? Or something else perhaps?

That policy makers have enabled this structural inequality to thrive is at best incompetence and at worse, willful misuse of public subsidy. The public must now have a mechanism to call funded culture into account for decades of failure to fairly represent the tax paying public who fund it. We must demand answers as to why if you are Black and minority ethnic you are more likely to receive 9 times less subsidy than non-Black and minority ethnic-led work. We must know why if you are Black and minority ethnic, you have a 52% likelihood of a grant over £100K being rendered ineligible compared to 17% if you are white. We must demand an independent inquiry into a structure where

Black and minority ethnic organisations receive £4.8m of public

investment compared to £375m generously thrown at non-Black and

minority organisations. And we must call a halt to programmes of work that benefit institutions rather than the communities they are meant to serve.

The JustCulture Campaign looks to Central Government to address these issues of structural inequality and lack of transparency in culture as an urgent priority. The 10-point manifesto sets out what needs to be done in order to achieve a fair and just cultural future. We hope that you lend your support to helping us achieve it.

We must tell our stories, we must be seen and we must be heard.

#justculture

http://justculture.tumblr.com

Jenny Williams, Producer, Take the Space