From Robin Pogrebin at The New York Times:
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.
The opportunities to connect communities through culture and to use that cultural engagement to educate one another are simultaneously compelling and challenging to cultural foundations and philanthropists. Recent reports and research provide strong arguments and preliminary insights into ways that culture can advance engagement across boundaries, both geographic and societal. But the most challenging efforts may be those intended to connect the United States to Muslim populations abroad.
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by Steve
From Diep Tran, writing for American Theatre:
Sometimes all you need is a push. At least that’s the thinking behind the 51% Preparedness Plan that was released last week. East West Players artistic director Tim Dang wrote the plan, which calls on Southern California theatres to diversify their staff and programming.
“We’re in Southern California, we prepare for earthquakes. Are we preparing for the demographic shift that is going to happen in 2042?” posits Dang. “We should prepare now, for theatre.”
by SuJ'n
Released in the fall and in collaboration with D5 Coalition, OMG Center for Collaborative Learning (newly renamed Equal Measure) released Foundations Facilitate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Partnering with Community and Nonprofits. This report outlines eight specific practices that foundations can do to facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion with non-profit grantees and their communities.
by SuJ'n
From Jennifer Smith of The Wall Street Journal:
A mecca for the arts, New York City has also become one of the most multicultural cities in the country, with no single dominant racial or ethnic group and residents who speak more than 200 languages, according to the Department of City Planning. Whether its cultural institutions reflect those demographics is another issue.
by SuJ'n
From the news page of Arts Council England, post dated December 8, 2014:
A ‘fundamental shift’ in the Arts Council’s approach to diversity was announced today by Chair Sir Peter Bazalgette, in a momentous speech that placed responsibility on every funded organisation to make their programme of work more reflective of the communities they serve.
by SuJ'n
From LA Weekly:
Two days ago, Stacey Allan, a Wikipedia expert from Cal Arts, and Denise McIver, the California African-American Museum librarian, held an "edit-a-thon" to add black visual and performing artists to Wikipedia. When the day ended, arts experts and everyday citizens had added 15 noteworthy African Americans—who until then had been non-existent on the globally influential encyclopedia.
by Steve
On December 10, the Asian American Arts Alliance was speaking out on the steps of New York City Hall on the critical need for public funding of small, community-based arts and cultural organizations that work on the front lines, serving the needs of a diverse and complex city.