Groups respond to protests in measures and in words
Organizations put racism on notice, commit to change
Eleven days after the killing of George Floyd, as police brutality protests sprawled across the nation and shouted for change, Jacob’s Pillow released a statement.
It laid out the matter in stark and urgent terms:
“We have a heightened responsibility to challenge white supremacy and disrupt systems of bias and oppression,” it said, then pledged “to expand our previous efforts to confront implicit biases, to practice deep listening, and to hold ourselves accountable to explicit standards of racial equity.”
It went on: “We know a statement is not enough.”
And that, in sum, is the challenge faced by arts groups around the region
and the country.
“There was the murder of George Floyd, and then this pain and outrage that just exploded across the country, and then organizations of all sizes and ilks making statements about solidarity,” said Pamela Tatge, executive and artistic director of the 89-yearold dance festival and center in Becket, Mass.
“And, you know, Jacob’s Pillow was a stop on the Underground Railroad. We hold the spirits of people who were subjected to slavery, who sought refuge on our land. We have it in our history. We felt a responsibility to come out with a statement, that, yes, times have to change. Yet i wanted it to be a statement that included actions — especially that we could be measured by,” she said. “Because I feel, at this time, people are done with words.”
Arts organizations everywhere are doing the same, releasing statements that promise something more than the statements themselves. Around the Capital Region, most of the longstanding mainstream institutions are white in audience and leadership both. And among the many of them vowing to change are three established orgs in three different disciplines across three different corners of the arts scene: the Pillow, the Albany Institute of History and Art and Schenectady Light Opera Company.
All are laboring to respond to this moment in history with measures as well as words. And all are laboring to figure out how.
“That is the question,” said Kody Carpenter, co-chair with Daryl Hirschfeld of SLOC’S newly created Committee for Diversity and Representation. “That really is. What is the action?”
In interviews with Carpenter, Tatge and others from the three organizations, several themes popped up repeatedly. Action was a big one. Questions. Community. Change. Accompanying them were heavier terms that ran like a drumbeat under everything: Floyd. Racism. Protests. Pain. Peppered throughout were the terms and acronyms codifying the push for change.
At the Pillow, they’re calling it IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access. Other organizations have other acronyms encompassing the same imperatives, which are being pursued both in-house and externally. AIHA’S community engagement committee has been exploring such issues, and the Institute has been bringing in national leaders to talk about museums and change.
“We will not only look at our programming but our community engagement, collections, and also look at the diversity of our board, our staff and voices,” said executive director Tammis K. Groft. The question: “How best can we engage our communities around us and work together in partnership and collaboration?
. . . So, you know, we’re continuing these conversations.”
Conversation: That’s another word that bubbled up often in interviews. “I think we’re in a sea change right now — and I feel very confident that museums are part of that change and need to be a part of the conversation,” Groft said. “And although the conversation’s been going on, I think it is more essential today than ever.” In its external response, AIHA issued a “message of solidarity” that addressed the need for change. Internally, Groft said, it grasped the moment as “a time of ref lection” in considering the museum’s programming, outreach and even the artifacts from history it preserves and displays.
“Do our collections, our exhibits, our programs — how are they reflective of the needs of our community? ... You know, it really comes down to: Do people see themselves in our museum collection?’” And while they’ve been asking that question for years, Groft said, “You know, there’s always more work to be done.”
At AIHA, probing for answers means scouring the museum’s holdings “for objects and materials reflecting diversity, so we can prioritize and fast track” them for digitization — an effort that AIHA has submitted for federal funding. As a collecting institution, Groft said, “There’s always an eye toward new scholarship, new interpretations . ... and it makes you go back and rethink what you have. And it’s our responsibility to have multiple voices and multiple ideas.”
AIHA’S strategic plan is due to be updated in the fall. Other efforts, at the Institute and elsewhere, have less-exact timelines — but after years of conversation and gradual progress toward diversity and inclusion, arts organizations are proceeding with increased urgency.
“Timing is everything when it comes to causes of social justice,” Carpenter said. “You know, the climate has to be right in many ways for some of these things to come to fruition in a meaningful and powerful way.”
SLOC’S own statement, posted June 17 on Facebook, announced the diversity committee’s formation and apologized for producing “shows that we should not have, given the lack of racial representation in both the cast and production team.” Vowing “to be better now and in the future,” it continued: “This committee is dedicated to creating a safe space for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ through education, opportunity, advocacy and representation at SLOC.” It also promised reparations for alienated members, plus reform outreach, education and programming that reflects diversity in the theater scene and the Capital Region.
“We have an open door policy. We want to listen,” Carpenter said. “We want to hear from everybody who has something to say on this topic . ... We want to hear everybody’s opinions, because everybody has a voice.”
Beyond Floyd’s killing, he said, the move was prompted by a recent change in SLOC’S leadership — new president, new board — and a new openness to tackling such issues head-on after past “instances of injustice” and failures to respond. Hirschfeld called president Matthew Dembling “a huge ally for us” and noted the backing of the board and the broader SLOC community. “It just feels that now everybody’s ears are open to change.”
The issues at hand, they said: How to bring people of color into the picture? Because finances can remain a barrier, how to make tickets more affordable?
But just filling the seats with more diverse audiences isn’t enough, Hirschfeld said. “Are people of color seeing themselves represented in a show in a positive way?” Beyond that, the board needs to be proactive in community outreach. “That’s really what it comes down to: getting the information out there, letting community members know how to get involved — and then possibly run to be on the board to incorporate more people of color.”
SLOC has been around for 96 years, Carpenter said, and for most of that time it has represented and reached just one demographic slice. “You know, we — community theaters as a whole — we see the average patronage being older white folk,” Carpenter said.
That’s a reality faced by arts groups across the region — including the Berkshires, filled with summer festivals that attract waves of mostly white ticket buyers. The Pillow’s latest statement came a year after incidents last summer at its annual gala, when a white attendee touched a woman of color’s hair and groused that it blocked his view. Later on, a different white person, seated with the same woman at dinner, asked “What are you?” and other offensive questions.
In response, Tatge wrote an impassioned, forceful piece in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper that charged the community to “think collectively about what we should do to address bias and racism within our midst.” The Pillow then pushed ahead with outreach and programming that encouraged dialogue and challenged the status quo.
Nothing about the behavior exhibited by white patrons last summer surprised Dennis Powell, president of the Berkshire County NAACP, which
has partnered with the Pillow in various efforts. “They’ve lived it for so long, it’s become a norm. They don’t even understand it,” he said, recalling the times white people have rubbed his hair or called him “old boy.”
Powell said the Pillow and other organizations “have just really stepped out of the box” to counter such attitudes and combat racism with programs, panels and talkbacks after performances.
“They have really — I say really — taken the lead, along with Barrington Stage, in our community, to really address white supremacy — not only within their own organization, but within the field of art,” he said. “And they do this because they’re all deeply engaged in this work . ... They’re really digging into the hard-core questions.”
Even before last summer’s incidents, the Pillow was training staff, working with BRIDGE — Berkshire Resources for Integration
of Diverse Groups through Education — and addressing the role of arts organizations “in creating climates where everyone can belong,” Tatge said.
But then Floyd died, the protests sparked to life across the country and the need for change became accelerated, she said. And a realization hit: “‘OK, we’re doing what we can, but we have to do more.’ … Unless we all change in profound ways, there will not be the equality and justice that we seek.”
Among the actions promised in the Pillow’s June 5 statement are ramped-up recruitment and retention of “a more inclusive staff and board”; evaluation of how resources are spent, and who benefits; bringing in and compensating black and brown artists to assess “curatorial, education, preservation and community engagement programs in terms of racial equity”; continued diversification of its programming; and other efforts at outreach, dialogue in “creating a shared climate of belonging.”
“The reason we’re still here is our community supports us — so we want to make sure what we’re doing here at the museum is a reflection of our community. And since we’ve been here for so long, I dare say, we still have a lot of work to do.” — Tammis K. Groft , executive director of the Albany Institute of History & Art
Achieving all of won’t happen overnight, Tatge said. “It takes time, it takes reflection, it takes selfunderstanding of where our own individual biases are before we start working on our organizational priorities. And I think what’s true about many organizations, including arts organizations, is that we’re all going to have to invest time and energy in this work — and it doesn’t happen fast.”
History rarely does.
And yet.
“The museum’s been around since 1791,” Groft said. “We’ve changed our location seven times. We’ve changed our name seven times. And a lot of those changes really reflect our changing community and our role in the community — so in the continuum, I think what is going on today has been talked about for, you know, a decade or two.”
AIHA, rooted in Albany both past and present, is “a community institution,” she said. “We are. The reason we’re still here is our community supports us — so we want to make sure that what we’re doing here at the museum is a reflection of our community. And since we’ve been here for so long, I dare say, we still have a lot of work to do.”
That urge to meet the community’s needs drives the push for change at other arts organizations. Jacob’s Pillow might have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, but other stages, here and elsewhere, were once showcases for racism. “They realize they’ve got a powerful platform — because, remember, it’s that same platform that used to feature blackface,” Powell said.
And even after minstrel shows became a thing of the past, old habits took their time to fade. “The industry has always had a problem with diversity,” Carpenter said. “There’s been implicit bias in both professional theater and community theater ... So this has been in conversation for many years.”
That word again. Conversation. Though talk isn’t the same as action, arts leaders said, it’s a place to start.
“I think this is the important thing with the different venues” working for change, Powell said. “It definitely creates conversation. And conversation, talking about it, is what can improve it and make it better. So I’m hopeful.”