Here is what I hope will be -- from my perspective -- a definitive, substantive, and conclusive thread regarding all things authenticity, presentation, and, as well, why you would have a white woman curate hip-hop at the @NMAAHC.
Foremost, it's an issue of numbers. 2004 @smithsonian survey data notes that 78% of Smithsonian visitors are adults, 48% representing the SE and Midwestern US, with 74% Caucasian representation. 7% black. si.edu/content/opanda…
Of course, these are incredibly racially and socially polarizing times. So polarizing in fact that they've likely rendered the fallacy of "post-racialism" as just that, and likely reinforced some notions of tribalism in American society.
But, at the end of the day, @smithsonian is a business, one that's working to optimize ROI while also modernizing its presentation and retaining cultural relevancy. THIS, while working in a phenomenally culturally and racially polarized space.
Opening the @NMAAHC and having it zoom to being a top 5 visited Smithsonian museum in under two years is a showcase of the pop cultural relevancy of African-American to ALL citizens of the world. However...
said experience, in the 400+ years that we have existed on this continent, has been colored and hidden by racism, classism, sexism, violence, and general social malaise. thus, this is where things get tricky.
Hip-hop culture is the tie that links everything in sociopolitical black history from Harriet Tubman to Lauryn Hill, and beyond. Thus, is about literally everyone & everything simultaneously. Problematic then is how to relate this CROSS-CULTURALLY AND CROSS-GLOBALLY.
What some folks may not even be cognizant of, is that @SmithsonianFolk has done an AMAZING job for 41 years of synergizing the cultural bonds between not just rock, pop, and rap, but the sounds, vibes & voices of literally every type of hyphenated-American into a beautiful noise.
Thus, when it became time to not just do @NMAAHC, but @SmithsonianNMAI as well, it's quite possible that the MUSIC, moreso than any other cultural artifact, was well codified, represented, apparent, and seamlessly integrated into the existent socio-cultural visitor base.
But that still doesn't explain, "why a white woman?" Well, foremost, said white woman had ALREADY spent time working within every other genre and culture of every other type of person represented in America, thus understood the strongest points of multicultural connectivity.
f you're looking at numbers of visitors alone, want someone curating the museum space who looks, and likely acts in a manner similar to a GREAT percentage of visitors, curating the most MAINSTREAM-REACHING thing that a museum we jokingly call THE BLACKSONIAN is going to do.
If the museum was called THE SMITHSONIAN FUBU MUSEUM, I'D GET IT. But, it's not. It's the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. That's an honorific and inclusive turn of phrase for a museum system that well, NINETY PERCENT MORE WHITE PEOPLE VISIT THAN BLACKS.
Couple into this intriguingly, as well, that we're at a point with hip-hop in America where two commercially successful white rappers just had a rap feud that black people judged around the world. Also, add in the fact that it's entirely likely that, if you (con't)...
did a "dollars per person" study of WHO exactly is funding the success of hip-hop as a pop cultural juggernaut, there's likely three-to-four as many white faces as there are black ones. Hip-hop was STARTED by black folks. But became a cultural cause celebre on the backs of whites
That being said, I'd MUCH prefer hip-hop in the hands of a white woman from Wisconsin, then well, a black man from the South Bronx. There's something about where we are with things now -- on multiple levels -- that makes this a smarter, safer, & more comfortable gambit.
We need to build more bridges than walls right now. Stereotypically, for what looks to be a GREAT PERCENTAGE of @smithsonian visitors, a SOLELY black-perspective led curation of hip-hop culture MIGHT be problematic and/or misunderstood for many visitors.
However, the person in question leading the curation has actually met or been vigorously co-signed by the literal crafters, arbiters, tastemakers, and once-in-a-lifetime superstars of the culture. Furthermore, those IN CHARGE of @NMAAHC TRUST HER VISION. Facts.
On the surface, the angst one might feel about a white woman curating hip-hop at @NMAAHC feels warranted. BUT, look deeper, and realize that a) the numbers NEVER lie and b) PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING.
Moreover, a fact remains that if 90% more black folks than white folks were regularly visiting the @smithsonian museums themselves, and sat, @SmithsonianFolk wasn't already creating the connective ties that bind ALL of our cultures and music, this wouldn't have ever happened.
But, that's not the case, so we are where we are. So, I guess the biggest takeaways here are as follows. Somebody at @smithsonian needs to get my guy @DjChubbESwagg a permanent "cut the line pass," a gig at @SmithsonianFolk, and a sit down with @NMAAHC.
