This Call was spearheaded by ArtChangeUS, the Center for Cultural Power, First Peoples Fund, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, Race Forward, and Sipp Culture. It was written by Michele Kumi Baer, Jeff Chang, María López De León, Tara Dorabji, Kassandra Khalil, Lori Pourier, Favianna Rodriguez, Nayantara Sen, Carlton Turner, Roberta Uno, and Elizabeth Webb, in consultation with Ananya Chatterjea, Ananya Dance Theatre; Sonya Childress, Perspective Fund; Pamela J. Peters; Randy Reinholz, Native Voices; Lula and Erwin Washington, and Tamica Washington-Miller, Lula Washington Dance Theatre; Dyani White Hawk, and Carrie Mae Weems. It was translated by Yahaira Carrillo Rosales.
Together we have co-created a Call that speaks from and across our locations in Oakland, CA; Jackson, MS; Lakota Territory, SD; New York City, NY; San Antonio, TX; Shakopee, MN; Marmora, NJ; Charlottesville, VA; and Los Angeles, CA, and with your support, connects manifold other points between and beyond.
Our Intention
The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice is a call for us to transform our personal, institutional, and global thinking. We believe that culture moves before policy. We believe that culture endures beyond politics. We wrote this Call because our work in culture and arts is inextricably linked to larger social movements for change. We invite you to adopt and adapt this Call to your specific contexts to hold leaders, policy-makers, and institutions — and ourselves — responsible, accountable, and transparent in achieving equity and justice.
In these unprecedented times, as justice movements converge, many of us have asked ourselves what the stakes are for the culture we want to advance. We concluded that we needed to change the conditions under which we artists and culture bearers labor and live. The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice points us toward new understandings of how we together can build a culture that is inclusive, sustainable, and leads us toward justice and freedom for all. We urge timetables that are immediate and demonstrate change that is not aspirational, but concrete, measurable and visible within 1-3 budget cycles. We offer this Call in the spirit of advancing accountability and collective responsibility, and urge you to activate these ideas within your work and our shared future.
#CulturalNewDeal