Saith the Mountain Xpress:
In February, N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory’s office issued a brief statement announcing eight new board appointments for the North Carolina Arts Council. None of those eight were from any of Western North Carolina’s 28 counties. What’s more, only three of the board’s existing members are from the region, prolonging the age-old divide between Raleigh and the western part of the state. How does this impact our arts community?
None at all, I should hope. With all the ferners moving into the arts community, it would be difficult to argue people on the left side of the state have a regional je ne sais quoi, or that the creative sector is somehow subservient to and dependent on what a bunch of suits sitting around a table have to say. The angle of this story is another example of the agitation that displaces concern from causative factors, to play up irrelevancies as divisive.
