Attacks on DEI have become a fixture in contemporary American life under the Trump administration, to the dismay of many, including the numerous cultural organizations that have sought to broaden and enrich the American story by including voices that historically have not been heard.
Our current issue contains many references to this dark shadow and the fear and uncertainty it has instilled in minority communities and those who have sought to level the playing field.
Emily Spradling’s Honors column on trans poet Canese Jarboe, recipient of a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, for instance, notes the uncertainty over the funds being disbursed, given executive orders targeting the NEA and grant recipients.
Concurrently with the dismantling of DEI, a spate of performances and exhibits focusing on the people and activities of the country’s white rural population is surfacing in the American cultural landscape. On the one hand, this might be seen as an effort to counter perceptions of cultural elitism and to placate the conservatives now in charge of what projects receive funding. But more importantly, this shift foregrounds the discovery of a new “Other,” and an effort to know, understand and find areas of common cause with a large swath of the country that has not been represented in the halls of high culture.
At The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, an exhibit of wildlife art showcases a genre rarely given wall space in major art museums, because, as chief curator William Keyse Rudolph contends, it was thought to be “more of the purview of the hunting, fishing crowd.” In what could be considered a radical act of inclusiveness, the exhibit’s presence suggests that the crowd he describes, and the art it considers meaningful, also deserve a place in the nation’s art museums.
A similar agenda of inclusiveness can be found in the Nelson’s current photography exhibit, “Strange and Familiar Places,” which as writer Brandan Griffin notes, foregrounds “the types of people that city-dwellers are most likely to lump into one politically outré class.”
Here too, animals are an important point of contact, in images documenting “the very human activities of farming, husbandry, hunting and ecological stewardship” among the country’s rural population. Curator April Watson has assembled an exhibit that is sensitive, revealing, respectful and appreciative of the lives lived in what Griffin describes as “the vast interior of the American empire,” and one that fosters understanding in a climate of divisiveness.
A deep desire to overcome divisiveness percolates through many of Kansas City’s recent and current cultural offerings.
“Recognizing our link to the world and each other is one of the first stages of empathy,” Libby Hanssen notes in her column on Te Deum’s upcoming “Harmony of Connections” concert. “With this concert,” she adds, “Te Deum encourages us to see and appreciate these connections, individually, globally and beyond.”
A highlight of the spring season was the Heartland Men’s Chorus March country music celebration, “Y’all means All,” a clever comeback to efforts to stifle diversity, while also honoring the rural community’s major contribution to American culture. The climax of the concert came at the end of the second half, when the chorus took on the persona of a militant choir of angels calling out hate in an unforgettable performance of “Follow Your Arrow,” “Not Ready To Make Nice” and “Be A Light.”
