Our Complicity With Excess

March 23, 2015 11:24 AM

"[In] the face of a culture that would deny them, it becomes necessary for an artist of color in the west to defiantly announce to the world: I am a fact." In April 2014, at the first ever Yale Asian Alumni Reunion, Vijay Iyer delivered a powerful speech "on two intertwined issues: the role of Asian Americans as upwardly mobile minorities and the role of the artist as a potential transgressor within elite institutions."
posted by Errant (3 comments total)

Good talk.
posted by kenko at 11:46 AM on March 23, 2015

I'm a little surprised that he did not address the admissions biases against AAPIs especially by the Ivy Leagues but this was a super thoughtful talk, nonetheless. much appreciated, Errant
posted by runt at 12:06 PM on March 23, 2015

I am not surprised; mentioning those biases would not have been at all consonant with the surrounding political context.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 4:51 PM on March 23, 2015