The killing of George Floyd has brought an intense moment of racial reckoning in the United States. As protests spread across the country, they have been accompanied by open letters calling for — and promising — change at white-dominated institutions across the arts and academia.
But on Tuesday, a different type of letter appeared online. Titled "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," and signed by 153 prominent artists and intellectuals, it began with an acknowledgment of "powerful protests for racial and social justice" before pivoting to a warning against an "intolerant climate" engulfing the culture...
...On social media, the reaction was swift, with some heaping ridicule on the letter's signatories — who include cultural luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Bill T. Jones, Thomas Chatterton Williams and Wynton Marsalis, along with journalists and academics — for thin-skinnedness, privilege and, as one person put it, fear of loss of "relevance."
But on Tuesday, a different type of letter appeared online. Titled "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate," and signed by 153 prominent artists and intellectuals, it began with an acknowledgment of "powerful protests for racial and social justice" before pivoting to a warning against an "intolerant climate" engulfing the culture...
...On social media, the reaction was swift, with some heaping ridicule on the letter's signatories — who include cultural luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Bill T. Jones, Thomas Chatterton Williams and Wynton Marsalis, along with journalists and academics — for thin-skinnedness, privilege and, as one person put it, fear of loss of "relevance."