Anti-Racism Commitments

Photo: A community mural project by artists Isaac Bloodworth and Kyle Kearson at the Five Star Laundromat Center in New Haven in partnership with the Courtland Seymour Wilson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library and CT Murals (Two "Five Star" Murals Take Shape In Hill by Lucy Gellman, The Arts Paper, June 17, 2021)

"DEI work is important to our organization because it allows for participation and representation from different groups of individuals including people of different ages, races, abilities, genders, etc. Every person sees and experiences the world in a different way. I believe that when these views and experiences are shared with each other it allows for deeper conversations, new ways of thinking and a richer organizational culture."

Winter Marshall, Acting Executive Director

OVERVIEW

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is now a part of everything that we do at the Arts Council. We have a DEI statement and issue anti-racism commitments each year. This includes requiring all team members, including staff, Board, and volunteers to attend The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s Undoing Racism/Community Organizing Workshop. We have updated our employee handbook at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven to now explicitly include policies against racial harassment. We have listed behaviors that might cause our staff, board members, Arts Council members, and people in the community to feel uncomfortable in a professional and community work environment. We also recognize that this is an ongoing process that will impact every aspect of our work and will be a central influence for our future.

DEI STATEMENT

The Arts Council is committed to becoming an anti-racist organization because the lives of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people are still at risk in Greater New Haven.

June 2020, the Arts Council released a statement that condemned state-sanctioned violence and acknowledged that white supremacy culture within our own organization has damaged our community.

We are grateful to those who have called us in and held us accountable. We also honor those leading the way with transformative justice work across artistic and cultural media, which remains a central focus for the Arts Paper.

Three years later, we are still committed to fighting structural racism in our organization with the urgency, dedication, and creativity that this crisis demands.

UPDATES 

Here’s an update about our commitments for this year to help us fight white supremacy culture and work towards becoming an anti-racist organization:

1. Require that everyone on our team (employees, Board of Directors, contractors, and volunteers) attend The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s Undoing Racism/Community Organizing Workshop
   • Update: 75% of our staff have participated in this training. In addition, members of our team attended the following: Celebrating Black Philanthropy Webinar, How to Make your Event Anti-Racist Webinar, Cultural Equity Tour statewide webinar series, How to Make Your Website More Accessible Webinar, Undoing Racism and Community Organizing; follow up series, Whiteness at Work Webinar: Transforming Cultures of Nice, Amplify Restorative Justice’s Webinar: Dismantling White Supremacy Culture with Tema Okun, Grantmakers in the Arts Webinar: Disability Justice for Individual Artists.  Creativity is Boundless: An Inclusive Guide; online webinar. White women on our team received a copy of the book White Women, Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Sara Rao. 
2. Develop policies to identify, report, and resolve racial harassment issues in our workplace
   • Update: Now that we have completed our internal work, we are excited to share this policy with the wider community. 
3. Adopt an anti-racist advocacy platform that addresses arts funding, political participation, police and prison systems, housing, and education
   • Update: Planning to co-create a policy framework for two focus areas plus identify community members who can support this work. This is part of our focus on who we seek to be our new Executive Director. 
4. Secure financial resources specifically for creative projects led by BIPOC artists and collectives
   • Update: In 2021- 2022 we funded 16 Black, Brown, and Indigenous creatives with $160,000 in unrestricted grants through our Creative Sector Relief Fund. 
   • Update: In 2021 we supported 9 arts admins of color with $17,000 in funds, and in 2022 we secured additional funds for the Arts Administrators of Color fund. 
   • Update: We also continue to invest in BIPOC students through our Youth Arts Journalism Initiative, which provides 1:1 mentorship and paid stipends to high schoolers in New Haven and Hamden public schools interested in journalism and the arts.
   • Update: We continue our partnership in the City of New Haven's Cultural Equity Plan, which is the first process of its kind in Connecticut.

5. NEW Expand the Cultural Equity plan beyond New Haven

   The Arts Council is adopting the City of New Haven's Cultural Equity Plan and expanding it into the region. We have hired consultants who worked on the City's Plan to undertake an exploratory phase so that we can thoughtfully move forward with a Regional Cultural Equity Plan. Their work over the next 6 months includes:

   • Developing a stakeholder matrix to identify and segment local arts and culture stakeholders in each town.
   • Meeting with artists, administrators, and organizations across the New Haven Region to establish priorities in creating a plan.
   • Determining what relationships are key to making a plan that speaks to all areas of the regions and prioritizes Black, Brown, Indigenous, Queer, and otherwise historically underfunded artists and culture workers.
   • Clarifing which towns are committed to this process
   • Crafting a proposed step by step process and scope to create a Regional Cultural Equity Plan.

    

    

2022 has been a transition year for us. In January of 2023 we have hired a Black Women owned search firm to facilitate the process of finding our next leader who commits to leading the Arts Council of Greater New Haven on becoming an anti racist organization. 

It is our goal to regularly update the public on our collective progress and each year we will draft new commitments. We expect that this process will continue for many years and have a central influence for our future.

Part of our process is focused on identifying where the Arts Council’s assets are best realized. There are many areas where we are not suited to take action and, instead, should seek partnership. For example, we do not produce our own performances or exhibits or have experience teaching anti-racism.

We hope that you will join us as partners in these commitments. It is also urgent that you make anti-racism commitments that are unique to you and your creative practice or organization.

View our Strategic Plan here: