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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIn just two years, the arts and culture startup known as GangGang has become one of the most influential and active producers of events in Indianapolis, promoting the creative economy and the concept of equity. The founders are Malina Simone Jeffers and Alan Bacon, working from the precept that creative people of color continue to be underrepresented and underrecognized for their contributions to culture. GangGang means to change that. The group wants to bring these artists to the forefront, but everyone is welcome to collaborate.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, guest host Dave Lindquist asks Jeffers and Bacon about the impact of “We. The Culture: Works by the Eighteen Art Collective,” a ground-breaking exhibit curated by GangGang that debuted last month at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. They discuss Butter 2, the second edition of GangGang’s fine art festival featuring work by Black visual artists. They also touch on the blueprint that GangGang is creating for stimulating the creative economy, why the group is trying to raise $500,000 by the end of the year, and what they foresee for GangGang over the next five years.
Click here to find the IBJ Podcast each Monday. You can also subscribe at iTunes, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify and anyplace you find podcasts.
You can also listen to these recent episodes:
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Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ’s The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana’s business community.
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This organization’s purpose is racially discriminatory, no doubt. They use the word ‘culture’ interchangeably with ‘skin-color’ as the basis for their altruistic discrimination.
From their website:
“GANGGANG isn’t bogged down in superficial discussions about diversity, equity and inclusion. Instead, we’re investing in the creative economy directly, paying the culture back with an intentional reparational slant. Creatives of color continue to be underrepresented and underrecognized for their contribution to culture. But we aim to change this. We believe that culture brings humanity together, and so we work every day to protect and promote it, by supporting a city’s makers in new, equitable, revenue-generating ways.“
The IBJ has been a huge promoter of this organization for whatever reason, I assume to help it fund its racially discriminatory purpose.
IBJ and Indianapolis Monthly have astroturfed this organization for the same reason most of these organizations get promoted–if you do otherwise, you will get called racist, and that terrifies IBJ/IM/etc.
GG aren’t interested in “superficial discussions about diversity, equity and inclusion” yet they immediately complain about being “underrepresented and underrecognized for their contribution” and seek to promote “new, equitable, revenue-generating ways” to get their message across. This miraculously high-profile organization (receiving undue publicity because of their race–a publicity that would get denied otherwise) still complains about equity will pretending not to care about equity. Not only is nobody holding them accountable enough to point out the contradictions in this five-sentence paragraph, but we all know there will never be a point when such an organization says, “Okay–we’re sufficiently represented and recognized now. Thanks!” Because such a message would cause the gravy train to bypass their station.