On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers–including artists, critics, writers, and curators–to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Clayton Yan, B.S. candidate in Business Administration at UC Berkeley.
Keyword: Inequities
Associated most frequently with the growing wealth disparity in the US and the world. It’s interesting to see this especially with the spotlight recently on the US presidential elections, with a lot of flak on Mitt Romney for being a ‘disenchanted’ political candidate. It seems as though there are two different types of groups within the wealthy here in America. One group that focuses on continuing the elevated social status of the wealthy, distancing themselves from the rest of society. Their belief comes from the fact that their wealth has the ability to literally move the economy and make a splash within the country. The second group are those that intend to move their money to affect positive change within society. Those of the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, pledging their massive wealth after they pass away. The economic inequities that occur within our society are bound to happen due to the nature of people within groups. But it is interesting to see how we can address the growing wealth gap. The poor within society really don’t have many options of decreasing this gap. It almost falls completely on wealthy to increase or decrease the gap.