Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Grantmakers in the Arts released its Statement of Purpose for Racial Equity in Arts Philanthropy in March 2015. It did not spring from thin air. Members concerned with social justice have been active within GIA for nearly a decade. Over the past six years, members have shown an overwhelming interest in equity issues facing their communities. Racial equity was deliberately selected four years ago for a thought leader forum in order to go deeper into one area of social justice.

On June 2, 2015, Kenny Leon presented the following as a keynote address at the Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Forum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jeff Chang. 2014, 403 pages, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY

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.

Introduction

A day celebrating Latino playwrights? Yeah, right. Ha ha. Very funny. Though today does not appear to be April 1. . . Hm. And these flyers are pretty slick and well designed. If someone wanted to prank me, they really went out of their way to do so. Hm. Do we get the entire twenty-four hours? Or do they just give us like from noon to four and then kick us out? Oh, hold on. “They” don’t give “us” anything? We made the day ourselves? And invited whoever was game to join in the fun? And people who weren’t Latino actually came? Holy shit, that’s amazing! Oops.

For several years my brother, Alex Laing, principal clarinetist for the Phoenix Symphony, and I, senior program officer at the Heinz Endowments, have been having often intense conversations, where my brother probed the thinking behind Heinz Endowments’ grantmaking that placed an emphasis on African and African diasporic culture, distressed neighborhoods, and teaching artists. Heinz Endowments, having taken the advice of Anasa Troutman of the consulting firm Lion and Butterfly, has begun to call this work transformative arts education.

33 pages, Feburary 2014. The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy, 1801 Edgehill Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212, (615) 322.2872, www.vanderbilt.edu/curbcenter/