On Donors and Board Members

I know, I know - more Honolulu posts promised, and I just haven't done it yet (haven't even gotten to the dark side, the real history). But my life is ridiculously busy right now, so I'm doing my best.

I'll take this moment to reference the sidebar - please read up on the AAYLC, any kind of help would be most appreciated.

In the meantime, I wanted to drop a quick post on an experience I had last night:

I don't know if I've mentioned it on this blog, but - on top of teaching - I work for a non-profit youth arts organization (primarily at the camp in the summer, but we run year-round programming in schools, mentoring kids and working with their families, etc.). So - last night - I found myself helping out at a fundraising event.

The event was - basically - a casual (but high-quality) hors d'ouvre-y kind of thing consisting of possible private donors (individuals with money, basically) and board members (also, coincidentally, individuals with money) shmoozing it up, watching a little video about the program, and listening to the founder (and one ex-camper) talk a bit. Relatively small (about 60 people).

So my job was managing the door. Since the event was held in a huge building (our offices are contained within a large advertising firm's building), we needed folks to help the donors and board members actually GET to the event upstairs. So my job was to greet folks as they came in, and send them to (and help them get on) the employee elevator (which needs an access key), where another staffer would be waiting, to accompany them to the event location.

Easy enough. Except the event, as I mentioned, was in a huge advertising agency building. At the tail end of work hours. So there was a constant flow of people coming and going - ad employees, visitors, etc. So I had to figure out which people were there for the fundraiser, and who weren't.

That should have made it difficult. Sadly, it wasn't.

I only asked one person who wasn't there for the event if they were there for the fundraiser. Every single other individual I was able to pinpoint the second they walked in the door, so I could go up to them and help them before they even asked for help. Every single one.

At this point, you may ask why (or you probably have it figured out)? Why was I able to do that? How? Do I have some incredible powers of intuition or ESP that others do not have?

Nope, I just leaned - heavily - on my own stereotypes of what a "private donor" or "board member" would look like and went with it. And it was 99% accurate, in this case. What was I looking for - more "fancily" dressed (perhaps "elegant" is more accurate - it wasn't a formal event at all, some people were in sweaters, but there was a particular price-threshold for what people were wearing, regardless of its formality, that I was able to see immediately). Then there was age - I assumed that they would be around 50 and older. I assumed race, as well - but that wasn't going to keep me from asking folks of color if they seemed to fit the other categories or looked lost.

But I didn't need to. Because not a single person at the event (with the exception of myself and a couple other staff members) wasn't white. Not one.

Not surprising, in the least, of course - but not exactly what I wanted to see. Considering the percentage (probably around half) of kids of color that are part of our program , it would have been nice to see a little bit of representation at the highest levels. It's harder to tell if anybody represented the kids' socioeconomic class (most from poverty) - I would assume no, but I can't say for sure that none of the folks that came hadn't "worked up from nothing." But knowing how often that actually happens, I have my guesses.

So - another stereotype that I didn't want reinforced held up to scientific rigour. 100% is pretty significant, statistically-speaking. It's a stereotype I know I hold - this one consciously - but I constantly hope to be proven an ass on this one; but it has yet to happen. It's the same with my school - the people that run things are white. Period. And so it's so hard for me to explain to any of them the importance of real diversity, as well as help them with some cultural competence in how they look at the program, and the changes they choose to make (or not).

Frustrating.

But I want to end on a positive note:

At first glance, the founder of the camp (and subsequent programming) would seem like the stereotype, as well. An older white guy with a TON of money (half the people that come to these events are just trying to get near him because he's so high on the social-status ladder). Further stereotypes would follow, regarding his intentions, what he thinks is important, how he uses his money, etc.

But I am happy to say that that is not the case. He has positive intentions, of course - but we all know how helpful intentions are when poorly carried out. No - importantly - he still has humility, in that, in spite of all these reasons he could feel like he's a god walking on dirt, he just treats people right. And, even more surprisingly - considering, he is constantly trying to learn and better himself. He's probably the only person of his status and position that could listen to me do some of my more race-and-class-conscious political poetry at camp (you should have seen some of the "lesser" board members cringe), and I know he's actually hearing it. He's come up and talked to me afterwards - not in the manner that uncomfortable white folks with money feel like they have to ("politically correct" and all that), but to delve deeper.

It's cool. He's let me and other staff push through changes and have conversations about working with our kids (about class or race) even while he admits that he doesn't fully understand/agree with it. And that's really an amazing thing - because, obviously, he has the power to veto everything (it also says a lot that he spends a large portion of the summer at camp with the kids, as opposed to being too "important" to mix it up a little). He's not perfect, of course - we have our points of contention - but he's actually trying; and that makes all the difference.

So. That kind of came off like an ass-kissing session there, but I just feel the need to point out the positive when I see it. The instances of hope. The breaking of a stereotype that all too often seems so true. It's not always about race. Or money. With a little humility and openness, people can transcend those boundaries.

I just wish it happened on a statistically-significant level.

On Sports as Art

Since my last post touched on the ugly side of competitive sports (giving folks all sorts of fodder for the "violence" of football, specifically), I figured it was long past due to finish this post on Sports as Art:

I know a lot of "artists." I'm friends with published poets and produced musicians. My roommate is a professional dance and drumming instructor. I work at a summer arts camp, and am subsequently friends with successful photographers, filmmakers, dance choreographers, and painters.

In my personal life, art plays a major (maybe the major) role: I write, I create original music, I draw and dabble with painting. I am interested in dance, and I try to learn about every genre of music. Art is very important.

And yet, somehow, in all of this, one major form of art remains unmentioned. In my many conversations with artist friends and the artistically-inclined, one huge section of artistic endeavor is not only unmentioned, but noted with contempt: athletics. Competitive sports.

At this point, my readers are probably feeling similar contempt - how are sports a part of the artistic family? Sports are overly-competitive, overly-macho, and violent. It is insulting to think of sports as the same as art -right?

Obviously, I disagree. So much so as to say that it's insulting and degrading for "artistic" people to so readily dismiss athletics, their value, and their aesthetic beauty.

For those who truly understand sports and immerse themselves in it, true grace on par with the most well-known dancer is seen every game. Athletes perfect their movements and body control just as much as dancers. In fact, athletes must be more perfect, due to the unpredictable nature of their art, and the need to constantly adjust and improvise based on the actions of the other artists on the field (or court, or rink, or whatever). Those who cannot see this are no different than folks who can't see anything more than a bunch of colored dots on a canvas by Matisse. It takes exposure and understanding to appreciate the subtle beauties that most people miss. Symmetry and synchronized movements can be derived from every play - just as with a dance troupe's performance.

On top of the physical beauty of the games is the mental aspect. Athletes hone their minds to be able to read the slight muscle twitches and movements of their opponents, so they can adjust accordingly. They must strategize and think steps ahead in the same way as a chess master. They do one thing at the beginning of a game to set up their opponent for a play or move not to be performed until an hour later. They see the way the person across from them orients their bodies, and they know what they are about to do next.

Participants in sports know that playing can put them in "the zone" (or a state of "flow" as eminent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it) - where focus is so perfect that time slows down, everything else disappears, and we achieve almost supernatural abilities to read other people. This is the exact same state achieved in the midst of intense artistic creation (I should know, as the only comparable state to how I feel when making music comes on the football field). Hunger, sadness, pain - all are swept aside during the minutes (or hours) of flow. It's a state of mental clarity that can only be equated with meditation - and its positive mental effects are the same.

And those who challenge the "overly-competitive" nature of sports are fooling themselves - do anybody but the most "competitive" artists succeed? Can anybody be a successful artist? Of course not. To reach mastery, you must be driven, and motivated, and work and practice all the time. And, in the end, the only way to achieve "greatness" is to be "better than" so many others. And art hardly teaches people to work well with others and recognize the inherent value of different skill sets and different levels of contribution to an overall goal.

Speaking of work, traditional art and sports echo each other in this way: innate artistic and athletic ability are often assumed of the most successful in either field. And yet, none of those people would ever claim that they didn't work their asses off, practicing constantly, to reach their goals. Those people know better than anybody else that you can always get better - they are the ones who didn't give up with recognition of that fact.

And violence? Have the sport-haters ever looked at, or listened to, the greatest works of art? Rembrandt's "Anatomical Lecture." Francisco de Goya's paintings ("Cronos Devouring his Children," for one). Symphonies based on battles and wars. East of Eden and a million other great literary works with violent depictions. The strongest emotions bring on the most beautiful art, and there is a definite beauty to the controlled physical aspects of many sports.

Folks will argue that the traditional arts use violent depictions to demonstrate their wrongness - but, as a football player, I was always taught proper technique so I didn't hurt myself or other people. When somebody gets hurt on the field, we take a knee out of respect, and we applaud their health when they get up. Never is it about hurting another person. People get physically hurt, of course, but it is just as accidental as the mental pain that graphic depictions in art can (and do) readily cause.

Creative expression? Ever know the feeling of pulling off the perfect play? Emotional expression? You should have been watching Bret Favre play the week his father died. Or teams dedicating a game to a teammate. Some of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

So why do I feel this need to defend competitive sports in comparison to "art"? And why am I even writing about it on a race-focused blog?

Because the disparate opinions on "the arts" and "sports" are absolutely based on social constructions of race and class.

Who are the most famous painters in the world? Composers? Photographers? Authors?

People's personal opinions will differ, so let's adjust that question: what is the race of the most famous "artists" in the world?

Ooh . . . starting to see where I'm headed with this?

If not, here's another question: what is the race of the most famous professional athletes in the world?

I'll give you a hint - the majority of those answering the former question are very likely white. A large proportion of those answering the latter are probably African-American (or other minority races).

So I ask again - why do people have such differing opinions on "the arts" and "sports"? When people talk about the "savagery" or "violence" of a sport like football, what sub-conscious associations are going along with that? When they talk about the "beauty" and "perfection" of a master painter's work, what associations go along with that? When people consider art more "important" than sports, what social constructs are they upholding?

I work at an arts camp in the summer, and I don't know how long I've battled with the artists about having more physical activity at camp. Not just for the health of the campers, but for the messaging we give them if we denigrate physical competitions at the expense of sports. Because, for our kids of color, there are no (or very few) role models that reflect them in the art world. But there are many in the sports world. So when we tell them (flat-out or more subtly) that "art" is more important and that sports are frivolous or unimportant - what are we telling them about their role models? What are we telling them about the most successful people that look like them?

And I'm tired of it. Because, as an artist who loves sports, I see the value and importance in both. And I see how they are one and the same. And it fills me with frustration and anger when otherwise-well-meaning artists start downplaying sports when interacting with kids of color. Or when youth workers, who claim to value their kids' cultures and that they are "open-minded," do not even put in the slightest attempt to give sports respect or value in this world.

And I'll tell you - sports (football, specifically) gave me an outlet as a kid that did more for me than any art could at the time. Sports gave me confidence that art never could. And sports kept me out of trouble in a way that dabbling in art absolutely could not. It also gave me role models who worked hard and gave back to their community. My coaches were mentors and teachers. The artists I knew/heard of? They all did drugs, drank too much, womanized (or the female equivalent), and died at a young age.

So which is more valuable? These days, they have leveled out more. Now, I am as likely to immerse myself in expression through music and writing as on the playing field. And that's how it should be - equal. And important. Because, when it comes down to it - there is no difference.

Art. Sports. One and the same. And supremely important in this world.