A recent article from Createquity examines and challenges the common juxtaposition of terms like “mainstream” and “culturally specific” in reference to arts organizations and art forms:
Racial Equity
Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) is committed to addressing structural inequities and increasing philanthropic and government support for BIPOC artists and arts organizations. Racial equity is a lens through which GIA aims to conduct all of its work, as well as a specific area of its programming.
Since 2008, GIA has been elevating racial equity as a critical issue affecting the field. To actualize this work within the sector, GIA published its Racial Equity in Arts Funding Statement of Purpose in 2015. Through webinars, articles, convenings, and conference sessions, GIA provides training and information to support arts funders in addressing historic and structural inequity through their grantmaking practices as part of an effort for racial justice as a means toward justice for all.
GIA believes that all oppressed groups should benefit from funding. We give primacy to race because racism is the means by which oppressed groups are manipulated into opposing programs that assist them. Therefore, Grantmakers in the Arts’ equity work – including our discussions of support for trans artists, artists with disabilities and for disability arts – is NOT race-exclusive but IS race-explicit. GIA’s vision for the future of our work is to increasingly reveal how the liberation of all oppressed people is interdependent.
GIA has made a strategic decision to foreground racial equity in our work for several reasons:
- Within other oppressed peoples’ communities (including women, members of the lgbtqi community, people with disabilities, and others), it has been well-documented that people of color still face the worst social outcomes.
- GIA feels that others’ strategies of combining considerations of race with other considerations too often result in racialized people being pushed into the background or ignored.
- The U.S.’ creation of race was established to keep oppressed peoples separate.
Unless we articulate our support for racialized peoples, while calling out this separation strategy, we inadvertently reinforce this separation strategy.
Specific themes of our racial equity programming include:
- The analysis of how funding practices create structural challenges for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)/ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native-American) organizations (Eurocentric quality standards, matching requirements, among others).
- The impact of these practices, as manifest in racialized disparities in levels of funding.
- An exploration of the use of coded language to justify racial inequity (i.e. referring to white audiences as “general” or “mainstream,” while organizations of color are “culturally-specific.”
When it comes to self-identifying language, GIA seeks to use terms that communicate our respect. We do not seek to impose language on members of any group. We respect the manner in which anyone prefers to self-identify. When referring to issues of racial equity, “we use the term BIPOC to highlight the unique relationship to whiteness that Indigenous and Black people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white supremacy for all people of color within a U.S. context.” We take this explanation and practice from the BIPOC Project.
GIA has also used the racial and ethnic identifiers African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American. We have used African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American – represented using the acronym ALAANA – because we know that many believe the term, “people of color,” conflates together entire groups of people and as a contrast to white. This results in a continued centering of whiteness as the norm and the standard from which other identities deviate.
GIA does not refer to organizations that are founded by, led by, and feature the work of ALAANA/BIPOC communities as “culturally-specific,” as we believe this term centers whiteness as the norm from which other organizations deviate.
GIA is committed to communicating respectfully. GIA does not ask that anyone self-identify with or use any term other than ones they prefer.
This June, while facing a proposed 2018 budget just large enough to sunset the agency, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu began a keynote address at the 2017 Americans for the Arts conference with a simple but timely question, “What if access to the arts was a human right?”
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by Monica
The Alliance of Artists Communities has announced the six inaugural recipients of its Diversity and Leadership Fellowship. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the fellowship aims to promote equity in the residency field through direct support of emerging arts administrators of color and administrators with disabilities regardless of their current role.
by Monica
A blog post by Media Impact funders highlights the importance of diversity and representation in media outlets following recent racist violence, and what funders are doing to support diversity in the newsroom:
Many funders recognize that reporting on intolerance is weakened by the persistent problem of lack of diversity in media outlets. [American Society of News Editors’] 2016 Diversity Survey suggests that while newsroom numbers are improving after a long slump, the percentages of female and minority staff still don’t correspond with those of the population.
Media funders are responding with grants to organizations that support diverse journalists and media producers.
July 2017, 37 pages. Surdna Foundation, 330 Madison Avenue, 30th Floor, New York, NY 10017. (212) 557-0010. http://surdna.org.
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by Monica
The recent Helicon Collaborative report examines continuing (and increased) inequities in funding to culturally-specific arts organizations across the country. An article in American Theatre discusses the results of the study and offers data and examples from cities facing funding equity challenges, including how some have made intentional efforts toward progress.
by Monica
The Native Arts & Cultures Foundation has released a report evaluating the social impact of the four pilot projects of its Community Inspiration Program. The evaluation framework layers multiple approaches to holistically consider the effect these projects had within their communities and on the issues the artists strove to address: climate change, the veracity of Indigenous knowledge, US/Mexico border relations, the definition of community, and storytelling for social and environmental justice.
by Monica
In a three-part series of articles, Helicon Collaborative has released the key findings of its study on cultural equity issues in philanthropy:
by Steve
In the latest issue of the GIA Reader, artist-in-residence Dylan Klempner reflects on the power of the arts to support medical patients and their loved ones in times of crisis. Read “Of Birds and Butterflies: On the Convergence of Arts and Health Care.”