Arts Omaha + The White Supremacy Culture of Omaha’s Cultural Sector
By: Brigitte Mcqueen
Tags: Arts Omaha, Omaha, Arts Culture, Bipoc, Discrimination

Arts Omaha + The White Supremacy Culture of Omaha’s Cultural Sector

image by Sarah Hummel Jones

It feels like this quote by James Baldwin holds more truth these days than it ever has before. As a nation, we have been moved by the murder of George Floyd and other atrocities to look within ourselves, our systems of government, corporate structures — and our non-profit sectors — to search out, acknowledge and work to correct our shortcomings in addressing inclusivity and equity.

As a Black executive director of an arts non-profit in Omaha, I have been doing my own soul searching — looking for oppression within my organization and moving to address it with the assistance of my team. No institution is perfect, and anti-oppression work is a process. Each of us, but more importantly those of us in positions of privilege and leadership, has a responsibility to take a stand and work for greater equity and justice. Taking a stand requires that we be attuned to the ways that white supremacy has evolved enough to know how to manipulate the optics of DEI while maintaining the status quo.

The Omaha World Herald recently ran an article highlighting the DEI work being done within Omaha’s cultural sector, and while I recognize that effort is being made, I feel that I need to raise my voice and speak on the discrimination and culture of white supremacy that has long existed within my city’s cultural sector.

Each of the organizations mentioned in that article are a part of a consortium of cultural sector executive directors and CEOs, called Arts Omaha. Many people, even in Omaha’s cultural community, don’t know about this group, which has existed for decades. Its members run the largest cultural institutions in Omaha and over the past year it has evolved from being a “wine and cheese” social group, to moving politically to create opportunities for its members’ organizations.

Until recently, the eligibility requirement to be a member of Arts Omaha was running an organization with a budget of at least $1 million. I say recently, because I believe that the requirement was raised to $2 million to hide the fact that its members were discriminating against myself and the organization I founded, The Union for Contemporary Art.

>> Arts Omaha is a segregated collective of white executives, perpetuating a culture of white supremacy — who decided against diversifying their ranks by adding eligible BIPOC leadership and working towards equity in our cultural sector — choosing, instead, to change the rules so that they could maintain the group’s segregation. <<

Despite meeting the eligibility requirement of the group for years, The Union was never invited to participate, while smaller organizations with white leadership were invited to join. There have been other instances of bias, including a BIPOC interim director being turned away from meetings, while a white interim director of another organization was welcomed by the group. Over the past nine months, I have approached several of its members to question the group’s segregation and ask why I, in my role of director of The Union, was never approached about membership, despite my organization meeting their one known requirement to join. My questions have been met with silence, as the group moved to make sure it could deflect any accusation of discrimination I brought against them.

Over the past year, Arts Omaha has moved to secure substantial financial support for its member’s organizations, while not moving to secure equitable support for the greater sector, which includes any organization run by a BIPOC leader, staffed by a significant number of BIPOC employees or serving its mission in a BIPOC community. Last fall, the members of Arts Omaha, through the Omaha Community Foundation, petitioned the Douglas County Commissioners for CARES Act funds to cover COVID related expenses for the cultural sector. No other cultural institution was engaged in the development of this request — no other director was informed of the petition, or subsequently, informed of the public hearing regarding it.

The agenda they presented requested nearly $6 million for their members — and $750,000 to be divided amongst the other 30+ cultural organizations in the county. The approved petition actually secured $7 million for their organizations and $3 million for the other organizations, with any fees owed to OCF for facilitating the grant process to disburse the funds coming from the $3 million portion. The terms of that grant, as dictated by the state, were so restrictive that the majority of Omaha’s small/mid-sized organizations, including The Union, were unable to receive even one dollar of the $3 million designated to help sustain our organizations during the pandemic.

It is important to recognize that the majority of the Arts Omaha organizations have endowments. They have reserve funds for the worst-case scenarios. While the impact of the pandemic has taken a toll on every organization in our cultural sector, regardless of size, it’s safe to say that COVID wasn’t going to bankrupt Omaha Performing Arts. We weren’t going to lose the Joslyn Art Museum. Not one Arts Omaha executive director needed to pick up a second (or third) job to make ends meet because they took a pay cut to keep their organization afloat last year… but that is exactly what was happening at many of Omaha’s cultural institutions. The amount of CARES Act support that could have financed entire 2020 budgets for some organizations, Omaha Children’s Museum requested for marketing and programs.

Realizing the gravity of the pandemic on our sector, a separate group of directors made a second appeal to the Douglas County Commissioners for support. It wasn’t until this appeal was made, explaining that their approved measure was deeply flawed, and that Omaha was at risk of losing many of its cultural institutions without equitable emergency funding, that additional funds were released to support the sector as a whole.

Following this incident, I approached members of Arts Omaha to express my dismay and anger regarding their movements. I questioned how they could have brokered a deal that would impact the entire cultural sector without engaging any organization outside their group. I pointed out that no BIPOC leadership participated in the process, which resulted in no BIPOC-focused organization receiving support through their effort. And I pointed out the obvious — that Arts Omaha was essentially a secretive, segregated group of white directors, that failed to act when they had an opportunity to diversify their membership by adding a Black director to their ranks, one whose organization had been eligible for membership for nearly four years.

When confronted with their group’s segregation and the fact that their actions had caused harm, I was told by members that no discrimination had taken place, and no apology or move to right the wrongs I brought to their attention was made. I was told that there had to be another reason why I was excluded — yet, several months later, no member has been able to explain what that reason might be.

An attempt to address these issues from within the group failed — with members deeming that no harm had occurred, no action was required, no apology needed. While claiming that they had done nothing wrong, they moved to cover their actions in case someone from the outside should call them out on their lack of BIPOC members. The group suddenly increased the eligibility requirement from $1 million to $2 million and then revoked the membership of the smallest organization at the table. I believe, without reservation, that this was an attempt to justify their maintaining the segregation of their group, allowing them to state that The Union was never actually eligible to join. This is untrue, and I hold that it shows the group’s intent to remain segregated, even if it requires losing members to do so. Can’t explain your group’s segregation away? Just change the rules and pretend that the Black person was never actually eligible to join in the first place. Problem solved.

Just as I believe the recent article in the OWH was an attempt by Arts Omaha to preemptively say, “We can’t be discriminating against a Black person — look at all this DEI work, our BIPOC staff, the Black-focused programs we’re doing!” Essentially: pay no mind to the moves we make privately because, publicly, we’re out here empowering Black folks all day, every day. Don’t look at what we do in private — just listen to what we say publicly.

The timing of the Omaha World Herald article is of issue to me, because it directly follows my expressing to a now former member that my organization would no longer be collaborating with or supporting the work of organizations sitting at Arts Omaha’s segregated table. It feels more like a calculated PR move than a coincidence. Again, I acknowledge the efforts being made… the BIPOC employees mentioned in the article are incredible individuals, working diligently to improve accessibility and equity in our cultural sector — but I have to wonder if they were made aware of their organizations involvement in Arts Omaha or the actions their directors have participated in, to mask and maintain its segregation.

Recently, two of the executives involved in Arts Omaha have removed their organizations from the group, acknowledging its issues and impact. While I hold no gratitude towards them for taking this action several months after I pointed out the harm being done by the group — I do appreciate their listening to their staffs, who had been telling them all along that their participation in the group was problematic, and a direct affront to the anti-oppression work their organizations are engaged in.

I have stood in this situation, holding the truth of it silently, because I have a deep love for my community’s cultural sector. I have dedicated the past 10 years of my life to strengthening it. I worried that exposing Arts Omaha for what it is might negatively impact the important work being done to unify our cultural institutions so that we could collectively enact change in support of the arts. Today, I am putting words to the truth because my silence was wrong. I was not supporting my community by swallowing the actions and harm done by my “peers” — I was now enabling them to appear to support equity for BIPOCs out of one side of their mouths, while they used the other side to keep us in our place.

Why does this matter? It matters because these organizations are using the BIPOC members of their staffs and boards to shine a light on all the ways they’re working towards creating more equity in the arts — while moving in a much different way behind the scenes. They are booking BIPOC artists and performers as fast as they can find them to keep us from looking behind the curtain. How can an executive director truly be working towards equity and inclusivity within their organization, while moving with intent to dismiss an accusation of discrimination they’ve been confronted with? How can someone sit, willingly, at a segregated table and truly support an organizational culture based on diversity, equity and inclusion within their institution? How can a leader who can so easily dismiss a claim of discrimination from a peer be expected to treat one from an employee, artist or community member differently?

We should be holding our cultural institutions accountable for their actions — we should not settle for lip service about equity when BIPOC arts administrators continue to struggle to work in an organizational culture of white supremacy. We should not be okay with an organization that has historically failed to uplift BIPOC artists, suddenly placing them front and center on every PR piece, without actually addressing the institution’s history of neglect and harm in dealing with those same artists. We should not simply listen to what they say while turning a blind eye to what they do. If we are going to fight for equity throughout the systems that negate it, we must fight for it fully… you cannot move to empower BIPOCs with one hand, while pushing them down with the other.

And the truth matters to me — I cannot work for equity and social justice in my community, while sitting in silence about the harm and injustice I’ve experienced through the actions of this group. If I’m going to stand for others, I must be willing to stand for myself. I cannot continue to advocate for my city’s cultural sector if some of its leadership feels justified in discriminating against others — whether that’s an artist, an employee, a patron… or myself.

So. What am I asking of you? Question authority. Please, ask the hard questions of those charged to lead our cultural institutions forward. It is not enough to post a statement about equity, to curate an exhibition featuring BIPOC artists, to hire a BIPOC person to advance DEI initiatives in their organization . . . it’s a start, but it’s not enough. Unfortunately — unless we as a community hold organizational leadership accountable for their actions (including those done privately) they will view these first steps forward as being enough. It’s not.

Whether or not you donate to the organizations listed below, or attend their programs, if you live in Omaha, a portion of your tax dollars is being used to support some of them. I believe that this gives you the right to ask them to do better. To be better. This is about holding our leaders accountable — if they’re going to celebrate their DEI efforts and publicly claim to be creating change — I’m asking you to make sure they do it in all of their professional interactions, in all the ways, for all BIPOC individuals. All the time.

The leadership of these cultural institutions are currently members of Arts Omaha: Film Streams, Joslyn Art Museum, Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha Children’s Museum, Omaha Performing Arts, Omaha Symphony, The Community Playhouse, The Durham Museum, The Rose Theater