By Tim Komatsu, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Over the past decade, book bans and other forms of artistic censorship have become a common part of American life. The political right declares anything that makes them uncomfortable (from calls for a more equitable society to the existence of LGBTQ+ people) as outside of “normal American culture.” Their response is to silence artists whose work challenges them to face realities that they do not like. 

Rather than admitting the truth (that they fear a loss of racial, economic and ideological power), the right speaks in terms of a moral panic, implying that unconventional artistic expressions are an attempt to introduce explicit and dangerous ideas. Implicit in these attacks is the notion that there is art that is acceptable and art that is unacceptable. But the conservative position reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of arts and culture and its essential place in an open and democratic society. 

One group does not have the right to dictate what is and is not a part of American culture, no more than they have the right to decide what art others should be allowed to experience. What those seeking artistic censorship refuse to acknowledge is that culture is not something that can or should be dictated by elites; culture is something created by those whose experiences and observations compel them to communicate. It’s about expressing their unfettered views and opinions on life, however challenging and unpopular those views may be to establishment leaders and institutions. 

Moral panics about exposure to art is nothing new. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the art that has produced the greatest moral panic in conservative circles has typically been created by artists from marginalized groups. In the 1920s, white critics claimed that jazz music–one of Black America’s most precious contributions to American and world culture, was “primitive and evil” (Anderson 2004). Today, Moms for Liberty claims that LGBTQ+ authors are attempting to “groom” children. The underlying message of these criticisms is that the art form and message are not conforming to the artistic sensibility of white, heteronormative society and must therefore be regulated or banned. 

Throughout history, forward-looking creatives have bravely persevered in spite of opposition based on their unconventional points of view. The best of them have provoked new thinking and possibilities intentionally designed to challenge the status quo, owing to their strongly held beliefs that existing systems of power and commerce are inequitable and exclusive. We need look no further than the Harlem Renaissance for an example of people using their creative expression to reflect their lives and experiences, and the manifest inequities and artificiality of social and economic stratification. 

The fall 2023 symposium, entitled In Common at The New School highlighted the artistic contributions of Romare Bearden, one of the great artists of the Harlem Renaissance, whose work combined elements of collage, painting, and jazz while never allowing his audience to forget the social and economic oppression faced by members of the African American community. Bearden’s legacy can best be understood through the words of Columbia University professor Robert O’Meally (a leading race and culture scholar who presented at the symposium): 

Even more profound than [Bearden’s] work’s answer to the question—Who am I?—is the set of answers to that other question implied everywhere in Bearden’s oeuvre: Who are we? For starters, Bearden’s pictures say, we are the collage people: individuals and communities with big hands and big hearts, scarred and battered but reassembled and layered. We are drawn together.

The greatest achievement of Bearden’s work was inviting his audience to understand that they are a part of a larger whole; that even though life is confusing and at times frustrating, its beauty is in its complexity and its layers. Bearden criticized white patrons of the arts for “enforcing imitations of classical European forms,” as he made the case for American culture more fully and fairly to reflect the lived experience of Black Americans. This same critique may be fairly leveled today: it should not escape our notice that many of the groups seeking to limit the works of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists are predominantly white and straight. Bearden’s work is beautiful, yes, but it is also challenging. It is not simply a pretty thing to nod at and then move on. Rather, it is an expression of the tumult and complexity and joy of his era. His art grabs your attention and invites you in. This is exactly what the best art does: it reflects the challenges of everyday life and invites introspection.

Ironically, today’s attempts to ban art speak to the power that creative culture holds while completely misunderstanding why art is necessary in a society. Art does not exist only to make those already in power feel comfortable. It exists to reflect the experience of the people that society has made to feel rejected. Art can serve as both a mirror and a window: reminding marginalized audiences that their experience matters, and allowing others a gateway to understanding. 

By narrowly defining American culture as creative content that “makes me feel better,” privileged groups are not only denying others meaningful art, they are also robbing themselves of the potential for growth. By limiting young Americans’ exposure to challenging new ideas, conservative groups are attempting to rob America of the next generation of artists and independent thinkers. Experiencing art that reflects the lived experience of other people, especially people that have been marginalized, creates an opportunity to understand and to act on the world differently. 

If people are only exposed to one way of looking at the world, their understanding of life and our collective responsibilities to one another will be greatly limited. If people of color or members of the LGBTQ+ community are told (implicitly or explicitly) that their worldview is illegitimate because it does not conform to an established standard that excludes them, they are very likely to be disincentivized to find their own true voice and to share their compelling stories in the public discourse that ultimately shapes our civic culture and our material possibilities. Such outcomes are inherently antithetical to what a democratic, inclusive and moral society requires to succeed and thrive.  

As Romare Bearden once said, “Art is the Soul of a People.” By limiting the free expression of American artists, conservative groups are trying to take away a most consequential part of our nation’s soul. If America is to remain a beacon of progress for all of the people who make up our increasingly multicultural society and economy, then those of us who are committed to inclusion and the Common Good must activate and organize as never before to contest the evolving degradation of our cultural commons, owing to growing fear and loathing in far right wing circles. In this connection, nothing less than our very fate and survival as a working multi-racial democracy is at stake.

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Tim Komatsu is a graduate of The New School who is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has published and taught on issues of inclusion in politics and education; and he is a former multicultural theater arts professional affiliated with Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis/St. Paul. MN.