I’m an artist, and my body suit is white and female in America.
I make art in vulnerable communities and sometimes my white, female body triggers something for the community-artists I am serving.
For many reasons, I work in low-income and traditionally underserved communities. It’s my way of honoring my blue collar roots and striving to pay my luck and privilege forward by amplifying the voices of others, while giving them (and now you!) access to the tools I have gained along my way.
Last summer, for the first time (!), I had a local philanthropist step up as my benefactor and sponsor a $3,000 fellowship that allowed me to attend two trainings on community-engaged theatre and White allyship. My mentor, a brilliant Latina director and playwright, wanted me to go away and think about how artists can make work that centers racial and gender equity. My task was to create a toolkit for individuals and organizations (particularly historically white/dominant narrative-centric groups) seeking ways of making their work more equitable. I’m going to share some of this toolkit with you today, but first:
The two trainings I attended were
Theatre of the Oppressed Facilitator Training | Mandala Center for Change | Trainer: Marc Weinblatt
CPCP/Michael Rohd Civic Practice Lab | The Center for Performance and Civic Practice/Sojourn Theatre | Trainer: Michael Rohd
(For more on TO specifically, check out my recent blog post: Theatre of the Oppressed: A Rehearsal for the Revolution) Perhaps the most important take-away from both trainings is that community engaged art cannot be made without a thorough understanding of and commitment to racial, gender, and social equity. White Allyship from White-Led Projects and Historically White Institutions is crucial.
And now for part of my toolkit!
7 tips to make artistic work more equitable:
1) Learn and listen. Read articles, books, and commentary on race and civil rights in America. Listen to POC and female leaders on these issues. Take the time to learn and listen before you do anything else.
2) Ask questions, but be educated. Know the issues and what is at stake for the most vulnerable folx in the room. You don’t know their pain, but you can understand what is causing it. See above: Learn and Listen. Approach everyone in an individualistic manner, get to know them and who they are. Ask every person and every community how they want to identify, be identified, and be involved. Make no assumptions. You can’t read a book by its cover.
3) Let POC lead. Share power. The goal is not to take away anyone’s seat at the table, but to build a bigger table for more voices to be heard.
4) Let women lead. Share power. The goal is not to take away anyone’s seat at the table, but to build a bigger table for more voices to be heard.
5) You don’t get to “take a day off”. People of color, women, LGBTQ folx, and others dealing with institutional traumas don’t get to “take a day off” from being themselves. Although it’s uncomfortable, allies need to build up their muscle, and get used to being aware/woke and uncomfortable.
6) Allies spread awareness in their own community. White folks need to talk to other White people about institutional, structural, and historical racism in our country. It’s all well and fine to empower diverse communities, but it is crucial to avoid a “Missionary Complex” and remember that the hardest work is often closest to home.
7) Don’t be silent. Ending racism in our country isn’t just the work of Black and Brown folx. Many potential White allies think they don’t have a role to play, or think they shouldn’t have a voice in America’s conversation on race. That could not be farther from the truth. Read, learn, listen, ask, and then speak up.
Working with people of color, or communities from low to mid socioeconomic status requires facilitators/artists (especially White folkx) to have done thorough analysis of their own perspective(s) on equity, the project goals, and the proposed partner communities before stepping into the ring. Thorough analysis looks like organizational and individual trainings, policy, and project analysis through an equity lens.
Whew! Well, if you’re still reading thank you for dropping by. I’m new here and intend to use steemit to share thoughts on artistic practice, arts opportunities, my personal projects, and other fun things happening in my world.
To kick it off I’m part of the #DolphinSchool Challenge with @markmorris, and will be putting out some content every day! Shout out to some of my favorite new accounts I’ve discovered already: @soyrosa, @naquoya, and @mandelsage. Find out more about me.
Wow, I'm glad I found you around the steemosphere :) Followed, upvoted, resteemed by @motherearthist.
Awesome, thank you! Followed back. :)
As a POC (I'm assuming you meant person of color for this), I applaud you for your effort to be inclusive. These are great tips you outlined here, and I feel like these really help in levelling the playing field. Quite too often, there are a lot of awesome artists that are held back because of their race or gender. If everyone would just be given a fair shot, I'm sure we'll be surprised at the breadth of diverse art we can discover. In behalf of the little guy, good looking out! :)
Oh, and welcome to Steemit! I'm not doing the dolphin school thing, but I've known @naquoya for more than a year now, and I must say that he's a great choice for a follow!
Hi there! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this thread. I definitely don’t claim to know everything, and I’ve put my foot in it more than once, but I think it’s worth it to keep going. I feel like identity is always changing, new terms and ways of being called are always being developed. It’s a constant process of learning, asking, and not being too nervous to at least try to do something proactive!
I’ve followed you and bopped a bit around your blog. It’s great! :) Thanks for stopping by, see you around the steemosphere.
Seriously impressed with you. Stay in touch please? Drop me some of your links and I'll do the same back. Looking forward to learning a little if not a lot of something!
Absolutely, I’ve been over at your blog and really enjoy it. Will definitely up vote, keep reading, and keep talking. :)
Wow ... You make me feel rather lazy/self-absorbed, hehe. Getting involved in the community and helping those who need it most is sadly not something I can say I've ever done. All my artistic efforts are done from the comfort of my home, with my PC.
It has been something in the back of my mind for so long, actually... What difference are you making in the world, Jody? You're in a better position than most. What can you do? ... But I've always just put the question aside.
Well done, for what you're doing, and for making others think about what they should be doing.
Oh, and also, thank you very much for the mention! <3
Thank you so much for your kind words. I think there are so many different ways to support community and contribute--everyone has a different role to play and kudos to you for being brave enough to think about yours (many folks don’t get there!). You know, one of the the things that finally made me get on board and sign up for steemit and some crypto was finding out that you could use the currency for Etsy--i.e. free money to support independent artists. So cool! I also love some of the socially progressive and creative coins being developed. Whatever you want to do, I’m sure you’ll find some cool ways in!
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Great to find you here. Havent found many people involved in theatre here for some reason. I have been involved in a lot of radical theatre over the years and am very familiar with theatre of the oppressed. I think we need it more than ever right now.
Will follow you to see what interesting projects you are doing.
Great to find you too! I agree that I haven’t found a lot of theatre folks yet, but think its a great outlet for performing artists to share their work! Followed you back and looking forward to checking out your blog!
This is a great post. I really enjoyed reading it for the knowledge and to hear your point of view on what some would say a touchy subject. I bet its rewarding to be able to go out and play music.
Haha, you know its funny I’m not really a musician, but we needed a drum effect for a show I recently did and didn’t have a budget to hire a drummer so I learned real fast.
It is a touchy subject, but you know, it’s even touchier when we don’t talk about it all. :) Thanks for responding and engaging with a conversation that I think is really important--especially in the arts community where a lot of things go under the radar because we often assume that being artists makes us automatically radically inclusive.
Hey, that makes the story even better!! Thank you for sharing! The way you write is very easy to read and I seriously enjoyed your point of view on this subject. You actually brought stuff to my attention about it that I didn't know previously. Very well done.
Thanks so much, I’ve followed you and look forward to seeing you around the steemosphere. :)
Thank you for being!!
:)
That's a wonderful thing you are doing for change and understanding each other. Don't judge me by the color of my feathers or anything. I am a nice bird when you get to know me.
Thank you so much Dear Bird! See you around #Bootcamp.
I notice these issues particularly where i am from where the original peoples of this country are still treated as second class citizens. I think white Australians have a guilt complex from past mistreatments that still leaks out as self-justifications. The Aborigine's voices are being heard more and more these days, but still in isolated context, such as sport, and movies.
I had the good fortune of seeing an Australian movie as a child, called Storm Boy where a young boy befriends a pelican and an Aboriginal. This moulded my thinking at just the right time. I wrote a post very recently on my thoughts about this.
But yes, privilege is very uneven in my home country. To me art is a wonderful way to address such topics as this, to give voice to an issue, and do so in ways that people often resist when done directly.
I’d love to read that article, if you’d share the link?
It’s interesting to talk about these dynamics in different countries--there seem to be stark patterns of suppression and discomfort in places that were colonized by Europeans early on. Having the conversation is really uncomfortable for many folks, and because it is uncomfortable, we continue to fail to fully address it. Art is such a great way in to all of this--I agree with you and could go on, but I won’t! :)
In Australia land rights is central to everything. The colonisers literally stole it all. No declaration of war, no treaty. Just took it. We in today's age live off the benefit of that theft. That's where it gets tricky, and brings up big upsets on all sides. It's slowly being taken seriously with a genuine attempt to heal past issues, but I emphasise slowly.
The conversation does get uncomfortable, usually. I do understand why. Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts, and appreciation for your post.
And thank you for letting me share my link:
Revisiting Childhood with Storm Boy and Mr Percival
That article is a really interesting read. Interesting notes on Australia, too. I spent a few weeks working in Hawai’i last year and there were similar feelings between the native Hawaiians and the white American folks who lived there. The Hawaiian people own a ridiculously small amount of land and have the least amount of money on the islands, despite the fact that it used to be their country. A sensitive topic for sure...but important to know about!
Awesome post! Love it. I've worked in this area a lot. I have a sister in law who is a director for the city of Oklahoma parks and rec. She is a dance instructor and theater person by background. She also is black, with a white husband. They have faced some really unique challenges regarding this, thanks for your work to improve it.
Now, for the critique. The assignment was to include a bucket brigade. You could promise to share a link to a tool, or a story that would point it out, then remind us, then present it at the end. That is the only critique I have here, you've gotten 87 VIEWS on this piece already! Dang! Nice! And 19 votes. good job. If you decide to edit in a bucket brigade, let me know, I'll consider it for revenue share tonight.
Hey thanks so much for saying so! I’ve been really humbled by how much people have responded to this post via comments and whatnot...nice to know that people will engage with this kind of work! I’m not entirely sure I understand the bucket brigade method...I went back in and tried to add some teasers about “sharing the work with you” here and there before the section on the tips. Fingers crossed that’s what you meant?
I'll take a look. The simplest example would be I'm goin to solve all your problems, but first...I didn't forget, think about this....and now I'm going to share this, but before I do....The reveal
It's not a technique you'll likely use a lot. It's very salesy, but as an exercise, it gets us to think about creating expectation in our readers and keeping them just slightly off balance, tilted toward us so that they can't stop reading.
Aw okay, that makes more sense. I won’t do a ton of re-writing on this one, but I’ll definitely try to incorporate this technique a little more directly into another post before the end of #bootcamp! Cheers. :)
Don't do it for me. Your writing is great. You'd never have gotten that suggestion from me on this post, if it were not part of an assignment designed around that trick. LOL These blogs need to uniquely reflect each of you. If the tips fit, use them, but just like any acting tip,or art trick, if it doesn't work for you, don't use it.
Sounds great, I actually did blend it in a bit better. It’s less for “you” and more about me enjoying the challenge of trying to incorporate a new technique in my writing style (hey, the more tools the better, right?). Thanks for the feedback and I think I have a solid understanding of how to use this tip now. :)
Great!
Great post. Thank you for sharing your unique vantage point with us. @lahvista
Thanks for stopping by! :)
This is a great post! Would fit the tag #teamgirlpowa as well. I personally value number 2 a lot, I believe it's super important to educate yourself, so you don't expect PoC to explain it all.
Great job on supporting the artistic community!
Thanks for reading through! I agree with you on number 2...there’s a lot of information available and if folks can take the time to get the basics down before jumping in with questions it really really helps everyone involved. Looking foward to seeing you around the steemosphere.
good inspiration
Thank you for stopping by!
Amazing write up. I really love your works and would love to Stay in touch please? You can Drop me some of your links and I'll equally do same. Looking forward to learning and garnering so much knowledge from you.
Hey! Thanks so much for stopping by to say hello and comment. :) Followed! Thanks for letting me share some links. I don’t have too much yet (just a week old) but here is a recent one on my favorite project and here is one on Theatre of the Oppressed. :)
what a great pos mam.........keep it up
Thank you so much! :)
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It’s a shame that we l live in a world that actually still has even a sliver of racism. I wonder how people can actually still be convinced that white people are somehow superior...as a white male, I can assure the world that I’m not superior...
Thanks for stopping by, reading, and commenting. Ya, it’s a bummer. And it’s so easy not to think about it, so staying aware is key (and hard). :)
That’s at least a step in the right direction