The art of activist hysteria

First, a berserk coalition of 12 anti-gentrification groups lambasted the Brooklyn Museum for daring to hire a highly qualified woman who happens to be white as an African art curator. Then, they seized upon the appointment, which the art world widely praised, to urge the museum to form a “Decolonization Commission” to help it “account for (its) own role in the histories of colonialism and white supremacy.” The museum, as culturally sensitive as institutions come, Friday sent an open letter from director Anne Pasternak defending its hire and restating its commitment to confronting “longstanding and pervasive issues of structural racism.”

As for that commission, Pasternak was too kind to say what we will now: Get bent.