Who Actually Gets to Create Black Pop Culture? ❧ Current Affairs
A closer look at the economics of Black pop culture reveals that most Black creators (outside music) come from middle-to-upper middle class backgrounds, while the Black poor are written about but rarely get the chance to speak for themselves.
via Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/who-actually-gets-to-create-black-pop-culture
Out of 10 longlist nominees for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, all 10 are college graduates. On average, the nominees attended universities with rejection rates above 80 percent (i.e., highly competitive). Five went to Ivy League schools or competitive equivalents, and winners tended to double up. Charles Yu, who won the 2020 award, attended Berkeley as an undergraduate and then went to Columbia for his JD. Susan Choi, who won in 2019, graduated from Yale and Cornell. Sigrid Nunez won in 2018; she’s a graduate of both Barnard and Columbia.