Supporting Racial Equity and Justice

GIA, as a team and a community of peers, is committed to addressing structural inequities and increasing philanthropic and government support for African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA) 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. As you prepare for our Virtual Convening, please review this tip sheet to ensure equitable language and framing. As the contributors of this tip sheet offer, we believe it is necessary to explicitly decenter White Supremacy Culture and work toward a practice of community accountability where intention is acknowledged, and impact is attended to.

“In order to decenter Whiteness, we believe we need to create processes, structures, and practices that value relationships and relationship-building; engage the head, heart and spirit; respect the diversity of ways people develop and express knowledge; and provide a space for participants to be their full, authentic selves. We believe that conferences should be accountable to the people and issues they address and the larger community within which they are located.”

As we gather in New York City this October, occupied Munsee Lenape, Wappinger, Canarsie, Lekawe, and Matinecock lands, we commit to honoring the same intentions held when we last gathered.

• Ensure conference is responsible and accountable to the local community and larger social justice movements.
• Create inclusive and equitable space.
• Ensure that the topics and the ways they are framed reflect the leadership, interests, perspectives, and needs of people of color and other marginalized communities.
• Provide options for multiple ways of learning and engaging.
• Provide options for different areas of interest and depth of knowledge.
• Consider how to be responsive to people’s cultural and physical needs as well as overall well-being.
• Access how well the goals for decentering whiteness, and advancing equity and inclusion are being met.

This tip sheet was created by a multiracial, multinational working group of racial and social justice educators, organizers, scholars, researchers, and activists: Natasha Aruliah, Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, Shakti Butler, Bill Calhoun, Diane Goodman, Sally Leiderman, Emily Morrison, and Maggie Potapchuk. This group is engaged in ongoing work together, and with others, to develop a critical literacy to transform and heal from the legacy of Whiteness and colonization.