I went to a neighborhood bakery in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, on the Friday following the 2024 presidential election to have coffee and offer my condolences to a friend. Being among the first few, if not the first, states to call for Trump in the previous three elections, Kentucky is a dependable red state.But Kentucky is diverse, complicated, and misunderstood, just like the rest of the South. Louisville stands out in particular. Louisville rates highly on rankings of LGBTQ-friendly cities and is the most diversified city in a state that lacks diversity.Kamala Harris received the votes of 57.4% of Louisvillians. The city had been gray and silent since Wednesday morning, and so were the people around us.
As we sipped our lattes, my companion and I discussed our journey thus far and our future plans. She was already concerned about her team and the writers she helps in her role as director of a local literary nonprofit. She described how, following Trump’s election in 2016, donations abruptly stopped coming in. The pandemic took its toll before they recovered completely. Now that he is back in government after eight years, there are indications that donors are going to move their money to other places.
Another nonprofit director—this one in the visual arts—over dinner the next week. It was the same story she told me. When progressives feel threatened, they stop supporting the arts and instead concentrate on supporting organizations like Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and social justice groups.
The more I replayed those exchanges in my mind, the more uneasy I felt. This is a well-meaning error on the part of those donors. At this point, wealthy people should support the arts rather than turn away. If people allow their support to wane at a time when government funding for the arts is in grave danger, it may be a deadly combination. Trump attempted to stop financing the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) during his first term. The NEAs, an independent government organization, are the greatest funders of the arts and arts education in the nation, according to its website. The consequences of having a Republican-controlled House and Senate that will probably support his agenda, as well as the nature of his budget this time, are still unknown. The danger is not only financial. For instance, the number of attempted book bans rose by 65% from 2022 to 2023.
To prove that the arts are anything from trivial, allow me to present some statistics. Forbes estimates that the nonprofit arts and culture sector supported over 2.6 million employment, generated $151.7 billion in economic activity in 2022, gave inhabitants $101 billion in personal income, and brought in $29.1 billion in taxes for the federal, state, and local governments. Access to the arts has been associated with better mental health in adults and better academic achievement in children. Additionally, research indicates that when people engage in the arts, they exhibit more behaviors that support the well-being of society, such as better social tolerance and civic involvement. According to some reports, the arts can even aid in the fight against addiction and the opioid crisis, which has wreaked havoc on Kentucky.
These findings support the facts I already know about my bones. The people who produce art and those who view it both gain from the arts. Following the election, author Sarah Lemon provided a concise explanation of the advantages for artists in an Instagram post: Being an artist feels so foolish when the world is in dire need of assistance, yet art has saved me numerous times, like a lamp in the dark, and I want to spread that light.
Everybody should have the opportunity to discover that light. And financial and material resources have a big influence on who gets to create art. According to a Harvard research, children from wealthy homes are more than twice as likely to pursue careers in music, acting, or the arts. Furthermore, the differences become even more noticeable when race is taken into account.
The average wealth of a white family is approximately $184,000, whereas Black and Hispanic families only own $23,000 and $38,000, respectively, according to 2019 Federal Reserve data. Who can afford arts education, who can risk money for creative careers, and ultimately whose perspectives are heard in our cultural settings are all directly impacted by this income disparity. It becomes evident why there are such significant racial differences in who is able to pursue a career in art when you take into account that white families are also five to seven times more likely to be millionaires than Black or Hispanic families.
Research continues to demonstrate the positive effects of arts education on students’ academic performance, creativity, and emotional well-being across a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Additionally, studies show that communities with a thriving arts scene tend to have higher levels of civic engagement and improved quality of life. These benefits include improved academic performance, enhanced critical thinking skills, increased social cohesion, and economic development.
But even after I gave to both of their groups, I still found myself wondering about my friends’ remarks days later. I was struck by how the arts make us human as I sat under a local artist’s print, drank coffee from a handcrafted mug, and looked at stacks of poetry books by Kentucky natives. They provide us connections to our homes, to one another, and to hidden selves we might not otherwise be aware of. They also, and maybe most crucially, make us think. To dream. If we give up the things that inspire us, how can we achieve something new?
Poet, lecturer, and lifelong Kentuckian is Lucie Brooks. She was a finalist for the 2024 Grand Prix poetry prize and the winner of the 2022 Kentucky State Poetry Society Chaffin/Kash poetry prize. She appears in Pegasus, Swing, Taunt, and other works.
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