BLM Artist Grant: What about the kids?

I can’t wait to hear more about the fall 2021 exhibit planned at Washington State University! The twenty Black Lives Matter Artist Grant winners have been announced. Now for the next step: showing our work on campus, in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

I’m glad the selection committees included a few students like Mikayla Makle, president of the Black Student Union. Now that the first jolts of excitement have worn off, though, I wonder how the exhibit will land with other WSU students. I don’t expect anti-BLM protests. But as recent graduate Promise Calloway observed, micro-aggressions are fairly common.

I’m well aware there are plenty of people who think BLM means “only Black Lives Matter.” Not just in Pullman, Washington, but in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, where the two other branches of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum are located. I hope the only thing (and it’s a big one) that might interfere with the exhibits is another spike in coronavirus infection rates. The current lockdowns in Washington and Oregon are supposed to end on December 14th and 16th, respectively. So mask up, all right? Let’s not delay The Big Show any longer than necessary.