The Whole World Is Watching…

Chicago Transit Authority. Anyone remember that album?  One of the greatest debut albums of all time, right up to the track Somebody (August 29, 1968). Then it veers from a great album into tremendous social commentary with the chant  “The Whole World Is Watching.” That was over 40 years ago, and perhaps we should remember that it’s even more relevant today than it was then.

For those of you too young to remember, or not into political history, the chant “The Whole World Is Watching” sprang up because of the situation surrounding the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention held in Chicago.  It was a mess, and it was the first real political/social mess of that type caught live on TV and broadcast, yes, throughout the world.  It’s considered one of the seminal moments in broadcast media, right up there with the moon landing, the Kennedy assassinations, the MLK Jr funeral, etc.

Today, forty-two years after Chicago, there’s not anyone I know who isn’t worried about what is going on with the Detroit Symphony.  This venerable institution is on the brink, caught between the proverbial Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and passions are running high.  Perhaps a bit too high.  I don’t have the facts as to what happened with the whole Sarah Chang business, and I have profound doubts that anyone else does.  I refuse to pass judgment through the immensely distorting lens of the internet on what either went on or was supposed to go on with said recital.  I don’t even think it’s relevant anymore.  But what is very relevant is how this incident might be perceived out in the real world.

My blog mates have posted some very interesting articles.  Drew McManus has done a sweeping overview of what happened via social media.  Frank Almond has a excellent article from the perspective of musicians.  But the problem with social media, and one could argue society in general these days, is that we do a lot of preaching to the choir.  This tendency has allowed such entities as FoxNews and the Tea Party to not only survive, but to thrive.  There tends to be little understanding of the perspective of others in our reasoning, and there is one constituency who has not been heard from concerning this episode.

I had a friend/colleague email me yesterday.  He was disturbed by the whole Chang/DSO incident and his email went directly to the heart of the problem:

I just spoke to an executive director friend/former employer who was also a top development director about this situation, particularly the comments posted on people’s individual Facebook pages regarding the at-the-time scheduled recital. My question to her:

“Considering that some of the letters and pleas to Sarah Chang are being published, and that some of them have been, well, less than deferential, is it possible that donors both large and small could, upon seeing some of these comments, decide to withdraw their pledges, donations, and other types of funding to orchestras around the country?”

Her reply: “Unfortunately, yes.”

Still, I know not what to say – solidarity is one thing, and I understand that “when the going gets tough, the tough need community,” but do we not owe it to ourselves and our profession to act with manners and grace at all times? It almost seems as if the American orchestral “business” may have just been shot in the foot – with an AK47…and that’s sad.

That goes straight to the heart of the matter.  I spent time trolling various websites over the past few days and I had little trouble finding comments directed at Sarah that made me wince.  They were few, and very far between, but just like modern politics it is the loud-mouthed extremist who gets all the attention, and sure enough the initial headlines and news digests from the Chang/DSO debacle intimate late-night phone calls and veiled, or not so veiled, threats.  Whether any of this happened might not be relevant anymore.  That’s the way it was spun and that’s what how the people outside of our business will perceive it.  If you think that this can be contained do a little personal survey and ask 100 people whether Obama is a Muslim – you’ll get my drift.

It is tempting to say “so what, we’ll deal with that once the strike is over.”  However,  there is no guarantee that the strike will be over anytime soon, and I think the smart money is on this lasting for quite a while.  Meanwhile, this first nationwide action, successful though it was, might be the tipping point when it comes to donors to the DSO.  Sure, Detroit’s is an old union town.  Like every other black person on earth I had two uncles who moved to Detroit post-WWII and made a living working for The Big Three.  The long-term sociological impact of that transition on the Detroit area, though, has been rough.  The city has lost half of its population in 50 years due to bad economic decisions and white flight. The gorgeous hall that the DSO plays in sits in an area which eerily resembles Watts after the famous riots.  The suburbs may not see this action in the Chang/DSO matter as a union victory but rather as a vestige of a bygone era that they never believed in.  And, unfortunately, those suburbs are where most of the DSO donors and patrons come from.

The problem harkens straight back to the difference between for-profit and non-profit.  In a for-profit world, if this was a strike by workers against Caterpillar, the stockholders would be immediately effected.  No work, no product, no sales, no money, your stock goes into the toilet and your investment gets wiped out.  That hits you where it hurts the most – the wallet.  Strike = effective.  But we live in the non-profit world.  There is nothing, not one little thing, forcing anyone to contribute to a non-profit, and between donors and ticket sales any orchestra will get the vast majority of their budget from people donating their money.  Anyone who lives in the MidWest will know the home store Menards.  It’s privately owned, and the guy who owns it is one of the richest men in America.  He’s also an absolute tightwad and won’t part with a slivered farthing if he can possibly help it.  On the other side of the spectrum is the Dayton family, founders of Dayton’s Department Store and Target – they’ve shoveled oodles of cash at Twin Cities arts organizations since long before I ever got here simply because they want to.  But they don’t have to! If they and others like them decide to take their toys and leave the playground we’re going to be left with nothing but a pretty naked sandbox.

When, or God help us – IF – the DSO strike ever settles that organization is going to need every last donor that they can find.  It behooves all of us to be aware of the power of the internet and keep our written voices civil.  The last thing we need to do is to be perceived as a bunch of man-the-barricades lunatics ready to throw musical tea into the Detroit harbor. This will simply drive those few and precious donors away from the institutions that we love, and it will make the road to recovery for the DSO that much more pot-holed.

So to those few, those very few, who want to pretend that they have just signed up for a bit part on The Sopranos I have a request – please shut up.  You’re not helping.

9 thoughts on “The Whole World Is Watching…”

  1. Hi Bill,
    Nice piece. I was intrigued by your friend’s perception of “the heart of the problem”. No one should forget that had the DSO management not contracted Sarah to do this recital, there would’ve been no reaction on social media or anyplace else. The whole point of my article was that no matter who’s side one takes, this was an inflammatory and destructive action by DSO/Sarah (intentional or not) that was bad for the entire organization and its donors. And of course it didn’t increase the chances of getting both sides back to negotiations.

    • Exactly true, Frank. I don’t know what people were thinking when this decision was made. Now it has served as a major distraction to the real problems at hand, and it has further alienated everyone involved. Social media in this example both helps and hurts. Let’s hope this is quickly forgotten.

  2. ‎”In a for-profit world, if this was a strike by workers against Caterpillar, the stockholders would be immediately effected.”

    Noam Chomsky in a ZNet interview http://www.zcommunications.org/worker-occupations-and-the-future-of-radical-labor…-by-noam-chomsky :

    “I mentioned a pretty striking case of this in “Crisis and Hope,” which was the Caterpillar case in the early 1990s. Caterpillar was quite important because that was the first manufacturing industry that used Reaganite strike-breaking techniques. They illegally called in scabs to break a major strike. It was reported pretty well in the Chicago Tribune, who pointed out something very interesting. They said that the workers got very little support in Peoria when scabs illegally broke the strike, and that was particularly striking because that whole community had been built up by the union—it was a union-based community. But when it came to the crunch, the community itself didn’t support the union. Now that’s kind of interesting about Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I’m sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don’t think he’s forgotten, and the labor movement didn’t react. Even radical labor historians didn’t remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that’s a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.”

  3. Are there not really two issues at stake in the DSO strike? One, of course, is the paycut the orchestra is being asked to take. The other is the proposal for musicians to do other types of musical “services” besides playing orchetra concerts, things like chamber music, teaching, community outreach, etc. I’ve lost track of where the musicians feel about this.

  4. Nice work. I like how you consistently make a comparison between the not-for-profit and the for-profit world; I think it’s quite a necessary fact to keep in the forefront of one’s mind in this industry.

    And it’s so true – the internet is much more of a tool than people often think it is; especially from the secluded privacy of their home office or bedroom.

    Well written.

  5. Their feelings are quite clear on the matter, which they’ve made available at their website and Detroit Free Press articles that focus specificity on those items.

  6. Bill,

    Thanks for a good column on this. While Ms. Chang’s action of “crossing the picket line” was unusual and unwise, you have reminded us of how this whole sad episode will likely be perceived by much of the public. Namely, both sides end up looking like jerks.

    Indeed the DSO will lose patrons and donors over this, and the longer the strike lasts, the more of them they’ll lose. To me, that’s one of the saddest parts of a strike: it is ultimately self-defeating. It is almost always the result of a financial crisis and a lack of sufficient revenue. Regardless of the reasons for the chronic revenue shortfalls, the unintended victims of the strike are the music lovers and philanthropists who ARE supporting the orchestra. They often end up feeling betrayed and bitter, and many take their support elsewhere; who can blame them?

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