The dominance of the white male critic
In this New York Times Op-Ed, our program officer Chi-hui Yang and Elizabeth Méndez Berry argue that we have a dangerous blind spot in our national conversation about culture. By employing mostly white males to act as their critics across almost every art form, major media outlets threaten to displace a new, dynamic generation of artists of color from important economic and intellectual marketplaces.
Published on THE NEW York TIMES | JULY 5, 2019
The Dominance of The White Male Critic
BY elizabeth méndez and chi-hui yang
“It’s 2019 and we are in the middle of a renaissance in black artistic production. And you are telling me the best people to evaluate that are the same ones who basically ignored black artists for decades?” the art critic Antwaun Sargent tweeted in May.
He was referring to reviews of this year’s Whitney Biennial, which will close in late September. But he could have been writing about reviews of film, theater, dance, even hip-hop.
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