Monthly Archives: February 2022

As I gathered signatures to end legacy preferences at Harvard College outside of the schools science center, I got called just as many names as there were signatures scrawled on my petition. Some names I embrace: advocate, stubborn campaigner, naive but daring optimist. Others I could have done without, like dense idiot, loser with a clipboard, and, most notably, swindler.

While there was no deception involved, swindler struck on something I knew to be true: At its core, our movement could be seen as a swindle. Mobilizing students and alumni of institutions like Harvard to end legacy preferences, the practice of giving special consideration to children of alumni in admissions, means getting people to advocate against their self-interest. Signing our petition means you are willing to forfeit a significant leg-up in an increasingly competitive admissions climate. It can take convincing, sure, but instead of deception, we use other tools: appealing to peoples common sense, morality, and innate inclination against injustice.

Our crew of undergraduate and graduate students went into our canvassing prepared to answer any question that could come our way, particularly from legacy students: Are we saying that legacies are undeserving of their admissions? Does legacy even matter? How will this impact fund-raising for financial aid? For all of these questions, we had our responses and statistics to back up our position.

Unexpectedly, however, our planned answers fell apart while talking to some students of color and first-generation college students like myself. They asked the most gut-punching questions:

Why do you have to take this from us now?

Why do you want to shut the door just as we got in?

And from another Vietnamese student: Dont you want your family to go to Harvard? We need more Vietnamese students here.

These questions sparked countless conversations and arguments within our activist community, and even within my own family. As a low-income student myself, I could see the internal conflict that many of these students faced. Getting to college was an uphill battle one that, when I was in high school, felt like an unobtainable fantasy. When I finally got into college, I felt like I had the chance to change the trajectory of my entire family.

Most of the low-income students and students of color we talked to had spent decades fighting to get through classist and racist systems to get to where they were. To end legacy preferences now when more first-generation college students and students of color are entering than ever before does very much seem like a rug being pulled out from underneath us. It makes sense how one could see this as unwisely forfeiting a channel to increase the number of Black, Indigenous, and people of color as students in these institutions.

These feelings are legitimate, and at the same time, they should not confuse us into seeing legacy preferences as a salvageable tool for true diversity and inclusion. The answer to higher educations exclusivity and homogeneity is not to create an elite lineage of people of color, but rather to increase access to those most marginalized within our communities. To do this, we cannot rely on the tools of white supremacy to save us.

Legacy preferences cannot be repurposed for equity, because they were created to exacerbate inequity. No one is arguing that eliminating this practice will end all disparities in higher education, but it is among the first and easiest steps in that direction. For a more fair admissions process, these preferences can only be dismantled, in conjunction with strengthening existing policies like affirmative action and poverty-preference admissions.

For decades, even among allies, legacy preferences seemed like they were too entrenched in our education system to be removed. But these past few years have shown us the power of prolonged pressure. With top institutions like Amherst College and Johns Hopkins University eliminating the practice, Harvards student body voting 59-41 percent in favor of ending legacy admissions, and now Representative Jamaal Bowman and Senator Ed Markeys new bill to ban universities that receive federal funding from using legacy or donor preferences, the momentum is growing.

With these shifting tides, those within the Ivory Tower need to now do our part. We cannot continue to be quiet and passively complicit. We need to leverage our status as alumni and donors to let the powers that be, the trustees and gatekeepers to these institutions, know that we enthusiastically and proactively reject this privilege. In doing so, we reframe the narrative.

Ending legacy preferences is not pulling a rug out from underneath ourselves. It is an intentional, collective step off the rug to make room for others, giving them the same opportunities we had to change the trajectories of their families.

Viet Nguyen is the executive director of EdMobilizer and trustee emeritus of Brown University.

Excerpt from:

Ditching legacy admissions is first step in ending disparities - The Boston Globe

Schools often refer to groups of students as at-risk, describing youth who have weak relationships with school systems, their home life or the community.

But advocates at a recent conference hosted by the Clark County School District and the City of Las Vegas argued for flipping the script on the term and having institutions take responsibility for the oppressive forces that racially marginalized children encounter multiple times a day.

They start to believe something is inherently wrong with their character when we call them at-risk when they are placed at-risk because of oppressive systems, said Celeste Malone, a Howard University professor and school psychology expert.

Malone was a presenter at the 6th Annual Las Vegas My Brothers Keeper Conference, titled Fighting for our Future: Healing our Community to Heal our Youth, held on Jan. 24 and 25 by the City of Las Vegass Youth Development and Social Innovation Department. The virtual conference attracted 600 to 700 people who work in education, law enforcement, policy, and religious and community organizing spaces.

My Brothers Keeper (MBK) Alliance is a national mentorship initiative launched by former President Barack Obama to address opportunity gaps that persist for male children of color and especially Black boys. The online conference, which ran for a combined eight hours, saw local leaders illuminate the wounds in the community that needs addressing, and the humanity required to do such work.

Speakers focused on healing the community with self-care as a means of fighting for the future of young people. They argued that there can be no healing without knowledge and an understanding of todays societal values and the modern moment.

Malone spoke about oppression in schools and how it particularly affects Black boys. She described how severe repressive actions in institutions disrupt children's interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships, exacerbating the situation called at-risk.

She asked attendees to think about the repeated microaggressions that traumatize Black boys experiences in schools, such as excessive observation and lack of empathy. Microaggressions are subtle indignities expressed by people, whether intentional or unintentional, that affect another persons self-esteem and can come across as hostile or insulting.

Malone said that opportunity gaps are more frequently experienced by Black boys than any other racial group in schools, as is school pushout (suspensions, expulsions or other disciplinary policies that keep students physically away from school) and harsh discipline. Her presentation compared schools to boiling pots and at-risk children to frogs inside them, experiencing a simmering combination of bias, oppression, and differential treatment depending on their racialized and marginal status.

She said some kids finally jump out of the pot by dropping out of school. She also said there is a lack of public intervention on the issue.

One initiative celebrated by local Black leaders at the conference was the TAPS Academy program, which focuses on local children identified as at-risk. TAPS, or Teen and Police Services, is a national program that puts police and at-risk youth on equal footing so they can work together and share ideas.

According to the TAPS Academy website, strategies include adopting the best approaches to community policing, including lessons from the D.A.R.E. (drug abuse resistance education) program, gang resistance education and other initiatives that actively engage youth who have been placed in the at-risk category. The federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which funds the program, says the outcome from the TAPS program has increased social bonding between at-risk teens and police by 30 percent to 60 percent.

But not everyone is a fan of the TAPS program or others aimed at connecting police with Black youth. Former youth offender Dontae Scott said in an interview that the program sounds like more law enforcement in kids' lives to me.

They keep trying to fix the problem by focusing on the symptoms, he said. That aint how it works.

Sharing a similar sentiment, University of Nevada Las Vegas professor of psychology Shane Kraus spoke about increasing hopelessness experienced by racially marginalized teens, especially African Americans, that he said must be addressed. He pointed to the unmet need for social services and federal services.

Former NFL player, licensed therapist and self-described two-time suicide survivor Jay Barnett described a world for Black men that can cause them to implode because they dont have safe spaces to express pain. He asserted that we dont see humans we see numbers.

When we see teachers, we see a percentage. When we see students, we see a test grade did they pass or not? he said. What does that do to [the] mental?

The conference also centered on promoting culturally affirming language or speech that acknowledges cultural differences, anti-racism education or curriculum that actively addresses white supremacy and racism in educational systems, rather than being neutral, and systems of change. According to Niibilo Armah IV, interim director of My Brothers Keeper Alliance, the program is doubling down on change systems, or systems that identify and solve complex issues, to see better outcomes.

Mental health is not listed as a milestone because it is integrated across all milestones, Armah IV said. Building systems of change work is in my DNA.

Armah IV also emphasized the importance of the role a rite of passage plays, tying the practice to tribal and ancestral rituals. He alluded to its lack of presence in the inner-city community signifying a gap that My Brothers Keeper Alliance can help fill.

The My Brother's Keeper initiative was founded in 2014 by the Obama Foundation, but in 2017 the local alliance was restructured into three different task forces: community engagement, educational equity and law enforcement. A year after the organization was reorganized into three task forces, the Las Vegas chapter received special recognition from MBK.

The national My Brothers Keeper initiative has six primary goals:

Community perspective

As long as communities remain intertwined with policing, Black individuals might experience what therapist Jay Barnett calls Black-xaustion (derived from exhaustion) which speaks to the secondary traumatization Black people feel from public police killings on top of experiencing microaggressions regularly.

He described how these mental uphill battles contribute to the second leading cause of death for Black youth suicide.

During the conference, public education advocate Punam Mathur said, The world is under our watch. If under our watch, a man can be killed for nine minutes, then what is it that were not doing?

Former NFL player and mental health advocate Solomon Thomas said the current generation is more aware of their mental health. Both Thomas and Barnett spoke about the social programming boys, especially athletes, endure that causes them to shut down their emotions and react, rather than processing and understanding the moment.

Panelists called on law enforcement officers to work on their mental health too. Brigid Duffy, director of the Clark County Juvenile Division, says her policing career forces her to see the lowest points of human nature.

Since the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act of 1974, at-risk youth continue to be managed by the punitive arm of the federal government the U.S. Department of Justice. Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration, argues in her book that punitive tactics to address youth classified as at-risk exacerbates racial disparities in the justice system.

Before those policies were introduced in 1974, strategies that actively engage at-risk youth were housed under the federal Housing, Education, and Welfare Department.

Tammy Malich, director of the City of Las Vegass Department of Youth Development and Social Innovation (YDSI) and chair of education equity at CCSD, said young people in the city are scared, and she can see it in their eyes. Malich has spent her career working in underserved communities in an educational leadership role in Las Vegas for more than 20 years, including on projects such as Batteries Included and Reinvent Schools Las Vegas.

Malich said CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara mandated that all school principals attend the conference.

According to Mathur, law enforcement was in attendance as well. Duffy, from the juvenile division within the Clark County district attorneys office, told law enforcement during the conference, We will have to learn to look at our goals a little differently.

Visit link:

Leaders come together to redefine, better serve 'at-risk' youth in Las Vegas - The Nevada Independent

On a recent winter Tuesday just off Bostons Southeast Expressway, dozens of aspiring carpenters were banging nails, sawing wood and hoisting heavy steel rails to other apprentices at the local union training site.

One of them was Annisha Simpson, a 27-year-old from Boston. Simpson is Black and part of a growing number of minority construction workers in the state.

Its pretty cool to see people like me on the jobs. Having somebody thats also of color is like, Oh, I got my own little friend, she said during a break from a day of training by the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Workers of color now make up almost a quarter of the states workforce in the building trades, their numbers climbing 30 percent from a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But those trends arent clear in the states track record for hiring workers of color on public construction jobs. And with an infrastructure boom on the horizon fueled by federal funding, labor experts say the state has an opportunity to do better.

Despite a 2016 state mandate requiring all state agencies to track minority workers hours on construction projects, GBH News found only two agencies doing it consistently: the Division of Capital Asset Maintenance and Management and the University of Massachusetts Building Authority.

The minority hiring rates posted by contractors working for DCAMM are about 17 percent, far below the availability of workers of color. That still beats the states goal for hiring minority workers, which has remained 15.3 percent since 2016.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation which spends huge sums each year on major construction projects creates no annual report of minority workers hours and could not provide a full record of them, despite months of requests from GBH News.

Documents obtained by GBH News on five recent projects run by MassDOT costing almost $90 million show that people of color worked only about 9 percent of the total hours and far less than that on some large projects.

Other state agencies were also unable to produce workforce data requested by GBH News. The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs provided nothing.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority said it tells local school districts to track workers construction hours, but the building authority never asks to see that data.

GBH News reached out to dozens of school districts that had recently completed construction projects. None responded with their workforce data.

MassDOT and other public agencies will play a huge role in spending more than $12 billion appropriated by Congress and headed to Massachusetts through the infrastructure and pandemic relief bills, going toward projects such as new roads and bridges, affordable housing and better ventilated schools. Gov. Charlie Baker said last week in Lowell that the state is already planning more than $9 billion in construction projects with funds from the federal infrastructure law approved last year, but the governor and his team said nothing about its impact on the state's workforce or the need to increase hiring of minority workers.

The numbers here are lackluster, to put it lightly, said state Sen. Sonia Chang-Daz, head of the Legislatures Joint Committee on Racial Equity. But I think that equally, if not of greater concern, is the lack of transparency. You've got five projects [from MassDOT] ... but we dont know the rest of it.

Policymakers such as Chang-Daz emphasize that the construction jobs will pay strong middle-class wages, and they want to leverage those billions to help close the racial wealth gap in Massachusetts.

If the workforce is there in the industry, we should not let ourselves off the hook with these lower numbers, she added. It is hard to overstate the importance of getting this right in our spending, making sure that we're using those federal recovery dollars, not just to build stuff that we all need as a state, but also that we're using it to build wealth and close the wealth divide.

I never once had a savings account. Now I do. ... It feels amazing to actually be able to take care of myself."

Annisha Simpson, the carpenter apprentice at the union training site in Dorchester, has excitement in her voice when she talks about her career, saying that four years in the building trades have put her on the path to the middle class.

I never once had a savings account. Now I do. First year I was on the bus. Second year I got a car. Third year I got my own place, and it feels amazing to actually be able to take care of myself, Simpson said. Im probably going to make 100K a year.

High-paying construction careers are a magnet for women and people of color whose other job prospects are often in low-wage sectors like food service or driving an Uber, according to economists.

Labor experts said the coming infrastructure boom is an opportunity for unions, the construction industry and especially for governments to push for more diversity in the construction workforce.

Governments have the ability to really push the needle forward in ensuring that people of color have more pathways into good construction careers, said Hugh Baran, a labor rights attorney in New York.

Examples can be found at the University of Massachusetts Building Authority, whose big construction projects over the past five years hired minority workers for more than 26 percent of the work hours.

Likewise, for the recent construction of the casinos in Everett and Springfield, overseen by the Mass Gaming Commission, workers of color made up a quarter of the workforce.

Mark Erlich, a fellow at Harvard Law Schools Labor and Worklife Program, said the only way to move the workforce needle is for state agencies to set ambitious goals and then hold their contractors accountable for making sure a larger percentage of minority workers get hired.

In the absence of that kind of intentional policy efforts, he said, the industry will continue to evolve very slowly in terms of becoming more diverse.

To keep an eye on the spending of federal funds, state legislators created a new 25-member equity and accountability review panel to monitor the $5.2 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act in December. The aim of the panel is to prioritize spending in underserved communities and to set goals for both contracting with minority-owned businesses and hiring minority workers on projects funded by the act.

One pipeline supplying minority construction workers to the region is Youth Build Boston, a nonprofit that teaches building skills to more than 150 young people a year and lines them up for jobs.

Over 90 percent of our students are from Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, looking for opportunities in the construction and design industry, said Brian McPherson, Youth Builds executive director.

Before McPherson took over Youth Build in 2020, he worked for the Division of Capital Asset Maintenance and Management, heading up its diversity efforts. He said there are still barriers to people of color all over the industry.

People applying to these unions and to these positions are getting turned down. And [they] are very, very qualified, said McPherson. I hear that story over and over again in my community, and its disturbing.

Organizers like Martin Sanchez at the Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters admit theres a lot work to be done to diversify their ranks. He spends his days recruiting nonunion builders in their native languages, or the ones he can speak: English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Most of them are bilingual immigrant guys that probably dont have the right information. And I do that. I do that, he said. I talk to every language, every skin color.

At a construction site on Post Office Square in Boston, electrician William Li, who is Asian, said the growing diversity in Bostons political landscape should dictate a more diverse workforce.

I see that there's more Asians. I see that there's more Blacks and Latinos [on construction sites], he said after finishing a shift in December. It goes back to the city of Boston or our City Hall. White people are the minority now in City Council. And we have Michelle Wu as our mayor. You got to get with the times.

Data collection and analysis for this series was provided by computer science students at Boston Universitys SPARK! program. Participating students were Lingyan Jiang, Murtadha Bahrani Al Bahrani, Carmen Sabrina Araujo, Elisa Cordeiro Lopes, Jennifer Jordahl, Richard Lee, Anqi Lin, Ayca Solmaz, Yagev Levi, Daniel Dash, Daniel Kool and Lily Kepner.

View original post here:

Infrastructure bills are kicking off billions in construction projects. Will workers of color get the jobs? - wgbh.org

Photo courtesy of xinhuanet.com

We are in the third year of the pandemic and the end is indefinite. What we know in terms of methods to overcome this pandemic has remained the same since mid-last year. This means our path is clear although challenging.

Variants are a wild card. We still do not know everything about this virus, we still do not know everything about variants and the future trajectory of that. But what we do know is what works: vaccines work, vaccines prevent people from needing hospitalizations and prevent people from dying, Maria Van Kerkhove, the Technical Lead for COVID-19 at the World Health Organization (WHO) stress the importance of a layered approach where vaccinating is combined with physical distancing, masking, and avoiding crowds are used as part of the strategy to minimize spread and avoid outbreaks of COVID-19.

The definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated is also shifting and it is natural for it to shift in the face of new variants. The most recent guidance in Sri Lanka has made three doses to be the definition of fully vaccinated. Why? Mainly because the efficacy (ability to provide adequate protection against the virus) of vaccines can reduce overtime. Especially with novel variants such as Omicron, it is vital to improve your chances of not being hospitalized or becoming severely ill by getting a third dose. There is also intentional effort from the public health sector to get vaccines to people with government directives such as implementing a vaccine mandate and providing mobile vaccine clinics.

However, it is understandable to have fear and anxieties. Questions such as Can I just get sick and get over it? or Why should I vaccinate my child with such a rapidly developed vaccine? are natural. As a community Sri Lanka has done better than most countries in adhering to vaccine uptake. However, it is difficult to ignore the noise and fear spread through social media groups or in everyday conversations.

In these instances, it is helpful to create a checklist for yourself and your community. Questions you can ask yourself is:

A basic checklist can help you structure the unknown and recognize the root of the challenges that you are facing. To answer the checklist above, the answers to the first three questions are a resounding yes and the answer to the fourth is a strong no. To provide more context, the first two questions have been answered by many experts and over time as we have now administered vaccines to millions without significant safety issues. Short but comprehensive guidance have been provided by the WHO on vaccines where both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are deemed safe for those of 12 years and above. It might help you to know that many countries including high income countries are vaccinating children to increase their safety and to allow them to have a normal social life with reduced safety risks.

Communities pushing back against vaccines and other public health guidance are seen everywhere and are most visible in high income countries such as the US. The US, with perhaps the most visible and widespread anti-vaccine and anti-public health measures, has the highest death rate compared to countries with similar resources,painting a bleak picture.

The fourth question in the checklist to consider getting infected by COVID-19 to get it over with comes with many challenges. First, the impact of COVID-19 including the Omicron variant has varied. Although you might expect it to be mild, it can put you in the hospital for days and leave you with fatigue for months. Therefore, expecting Omicron variant to be mild is not safe for you or your loved ones. Second, as the pandemic goes on, the long term negative impact of getting infected known as long Covid continues to challenge the health systems and communities. So you might be inviting more trouble than you bargained for and have long term complications by intentionally getting sick or avoiding vaccines. Third, the protection you get via vaccinations often have data that can provide us with information of the duration of optimal protection and the time to get a booster. Getting infected and recovering, although does provide protection, the duration and level of immune response can vary and is relatively less understood.

Our goal as a community is to keep each other safe. One important approach is to vaccinate (all doses) and mask up despite understandable frustrations that we are facing as this pandemic drags on. Another very important measure is to keep each other safe from fears and anxieties about COVID-19. Getting your news from official Sri Lankan government sources or signing up for WhatsApp alerts from WHO itself, avoiding experts that provide wildly alternative too good to be true solutions can be simple ways to help us all.

The pandemic will come to an end. And our role in ending this pandemic by vaccinating and minimizing spread is crucial for it to happen.

Excerpt from:

The Definition of Fully Vaccinated is Shifting We Must Keep Up to be Safe - Groundviews

As a young artist, when Black History Month came along I thought, Woohoo! because it meant I got a lot of shows in February, says Waterville-based photographer Sean Alonzo Harris. But then I realized this was doing me a disservice.

This is not an uncommon sentiment among Maines Black and brown artists. Though many acknowledge it is better to have this observance than not Its a doorway to start looking into the relevance of Black history, which is American history, Daniel Minter believes it is also a double-edged sword. It can lead to marginalization by the art-going public as well as institutions, which narrowly categorize this work as Black art. This, of course, makes it easier to tokenize or, worse, dismiss.

Interestingly, there is very little going on in the states art institutions to commemorate Black History Month. Colby College Museum of Art is a notable exception, with its current Poetics of Atmosphere: Lorna Simpsons Cloudscape and other Works from the Collection (through April 17). Museums and galleries say this may be a good thing, since it bodes a change toward including artists of color in their planning and curation throughout the year, not just in February.

Indeed, there have been many recent major exhibitions, including blockbuster retrospectives at the Portland Museum of Art on David Driskell and at Colby on Bob Thompson; an incisive survey at Bowdoin examining the portrayal of Black women throughout history; The Bates Museums Joseph Delaney show; and a prominent street-facing exhibition of the work of Portland-based muralist Ryan Adams at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) in Rockland.

The uprisings of 2020 and the power of the Black Lives Matter movement have also ramped up the art worlds discussions about what is exhibited, what is collected and how museums, academic institutions and galleries must transform to accommodate what artists see as an overdue racial awareness. Yet many of Maines artists of color are still distrustful about meaningful change. And many continue to face daily insensitivities not only from these institutions, but from their white artist colleagues.

Subtle slights

Someone once asked me if I was a Black artist or an artist who happened to be Black, remembers Portland sculptor Ashley Page. To me, theyre the same thing. You cannot ask me to separate myself from my blackness, from my identity.

Further, Page says, Theres still a level of invisibility for Black female artists in Maine. It is still the men who get the recognition. We can see that throughout history. Its starting to turn around, but Im hesitant to trust that because Im really aware of tokenism.

Rachel Adams feels this in a particularly acute way. She graduated from the Maine College of Art (now called Maine College of Art & Design, or MECA&D) and has been a practicing visual artist since 2009. Her husband Ryan Adamss art education was less conventional, beginning with graffiti, moving into murals and then sign painting. But for the last few years, Ryans career has experienced a substantial ascent.

Im more of a marketing tool for people, Rachel Adams says, part of the Black artist couple or the wife of the famous artist. One magazine introduced me not only as the mother of his kids and his muse, but an artist in her own right. Then the social media around the article promoted it as a story about Ryan Adams.

Harris has lived in Maine for 27 years and has long been a fixture on the photography scene. After opening a gallery called Hinge with his wife, Elizabeth Jabar (its now a collaborative artists space), he caught the eye of prominent photography curator Bruce Brown and the director of the PMA, Mark Bessire. Soon Brown curated Harriss work into the CMCA and the PMA acquired an image. Harris has had 26 solo shows in 26 years, he notes.

In spite of his high profile, however, Harris has also had white colleagues ask him, Are you still doing photography? or expressing surprise when they find out he was not self-taught. Of the former, he says, Id been doing photography longer than him. Why wouldnt I still be doing it? The latter presumes he was too disadvantaged to afford an art education or buys into the romantic myth of a nave Black artist. Still another colleague asked if he photographed white people. Theyre not being malicious, Harris says. They just dont think of these things because they dont have to.

There have also been more overt omissions. Another Maine institution that he preferred not to namecurated a portrait show and, in a critique of the exhibition, a reviewer wrote about the gaping hole represented by the absence of Harriss work. They never addressed it, remembers Harris. Then they had a second portrait show and did it again!

The Black Lives Matter shift

Then came 2020, which caused a quantum shift in the attention paid to artists of color. Most of those interviewed for this article were suddenly being pursued to participate on this panel or that round table, to submit work to shows and judge exhibitions.

My phone had never rung so much before George Floyd passed away, recalls Harris, who adds that the very institution that had shunned him in its portrait shows asked him to be on its board (he refused). Despite what he feels was this insincere reversal, however, he believes the worldwide response to Floyds death was empathetic and genuine. Maybe were not going to fix anything, but well figure out how to continuously move forward. People will ask themselves, If February is the only time we call that artist, do we have a problem?

Others are less sanguine. A lot of people, Minter fears, can use the uprisings to draw a line, to say, Im not going there. Im not going to say I had anything to do with the last 400 years, or go so far as to say we have a systemic issue in this country.

Rachel Adams reports, People who Id done the song and dance for and didnt get a second look from are contacting me. Some of the calls are sincere Wow, youre this cool artist living in Portland and I didnt know you were here. But some are clearly dial-a-Black-person calls.

Her husband Ryan echoes her skepticism. My wife and I have been here the whole damn time! That adds to my worry and apprehension about lasting change. Im curious about its longevity. I do believe its causing self-reflection and sparking some change. But the problems are so deep-rooted at the foundation of our culture that its going to take massive change to get to the equity were talking about.

Institutional racism

For Black and brown artists, one of the biggest uphill climbs, they say, is at the institutional level, particularly the way museums can tend to contextualize their art from a white perspective or within the white canon.

People see my work and go, Oh! Braque, Picasso! Ryan Adams says. And I say, No, Dondi White and Futura 2000, (two of the architects of the graffiti art movement). Everything does not derive from European-American work. Thats one area people have not realized is problematic.

Athena Lynch, a graduate of MECA&D, points out that even much of the white European perspective was the product of cultural plundering. Picasso actually appropriated his imagery from African art and got all this praise, she says. What he was doing was stealing. It was vicious and wrong. As long as institutions keep white art as the standard, any kind of art is pitted against it. We have to figure out how we change the standard.

Ive always worked to insert myself into the arts community here, Minter says. But its always felt like there has not been a lot of context for the work, or an environment for the work to have an understood place. This goes for African-American art in general. It wasnt looked at for what it was, but as Oh, this is art by Black and brown artists. Then people moved on. They werent looking at what the work was saying or connecting with it in a deep way because they thought it dealt with issues that didnt apply to them.

This was the impetus behind the Indigo Arts Alliance, which Minter co-founded with his wife, Marcia. Indigo was meant as a kind of survival in spite of that paradigm, he says. We wish to live and function on our own terms and have the art serve our community.

For Page, the lack of context extends to many institutions of higher learning. As part of a public engagement art project in 2019, which she designed with fellow MECA&D student Alejandra Cuadra, the women posted large pads and pens in the cafeteria that posed questions about issues students faced and asked for ways the school might remedy them. The pads quickly filled up with worries about food insecurity, housing insecurity, lack of support for BIPOC students and other concerns.

Eventually, after some difficult conversations between the students and the institution, Resilience Week was created. A series of events, lectures and exhibitions, it now puts the issues of racial equity in the arts front and center for students.

Change in the air

Since most of Maines art institutions and galleries are run by white people, its understandable why Black and brown artists might be reticent to believe much will truly shift. Certainly, the available data is not encouraging.

In 2018, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors undertook a national survey. Among the findings was that 35 percent of museum staff were people of color, compared with 26 percent in 2015. However, those positions were mainly in curatorial and education departments. Non-white curators represented 16 percent of curators overall, but only 4 percent of those (21 positions total) were filled by Black professionals.

Another study conducted by Williams College in Massachusetts found that 85.4 percent of works in American museums were by white artists. Of those, 87.4 percent of them were male. African-American artists claimed the lowest share of works at 1.2 percent. A 2020 AAMD report stated, Diversifying collections based on artist identity (i.e.: race, ethnicity, gender) is seen as a priority in acquisition strategies. The report also called for diversification on museum boards.

The Mellon and AAMD are embarking on another study, the AAMDs Chief Administrator Alison Wade said in a phone call, though she could not make any predictions about new findings. The new report might, however, offer some indication of whether the BLM movements heightened racial awareness is having an impact on inching these strategic priorities toward greater parity and inclusion.

The art world has to ask itself what its for, Minter says. If they dont, theyll just replicate systems of using artwork as a way to adhere to the same canon theyre built upon. I do sense some change at the institutional level the last seven or eight years. Its small, but its something they have to look at from the inside, to realize they have been complicit.

Here in Maine, Minters perception of small change seems validated. DAI (diversity and inclusion) efforts at the museum began in 2016, says Jacqueline Terrassa, the Carolyn Muzzy Director of Colby College Museum of Art, but it wasnt the first time we started collecting Black artists by any means. The importance of having a lot of work that represents particular groups is to show theres absolutely no way to homogenize any group. There isnt one story of being a Black artist, a Latin artist, an Asian artist.

Works by 25 to 30 African-American artists are on display in the galleries at any given moment, Terrassa, who is Puerto Rican points out; she holds one of the few leadership roles nationallyoccupied by a non-white professional). She adds that the Lunder Institute at Colby selects fellows whose research and practices help advance the mission of the institute, which is rooted in equity and social justice.

At the PMA, Christian Adame, Director of Learning and Community Collaboration, says, The PMAs Art for All mission is grounded in platforming our communities in the museum every day and in impactful ways across the entire PMA experience. We are intentional about working with BIPOC artists, scholars, educators, activists, and community members to champion the importance of multiple perspectives and histories.

Bowdoins co-directors, Anne Collins Goodyear and Frank H. Goodyear, are going even further. They enlisted Elizabeth Humphrey, an alumnus who had returned for a two-year position as curatorial assistant and manager of student programs, to curate the recently concluded exhibition There Is a Woman in Every Color, which looked at depictions of Black women from the 18th century onward.

For a just-opened exhibition on Wabanaki basket-making, the Goodyears had three students from the schools Native American Student Association Amanda Cassano (Akwesasne Mohawk), Sunshine Eaton (Pueblo from Tesuque Pueblo) and Shandiin Largo (Din) curate the works. And they had Humphrey and consulting independent curator Laura Sprague recontextualize the historic collections to, says Frank Goodyear, de-center the European-American perspective and add works by people of color.

Were very interested in providing students with professional training to nurture the next generation of art museum professionals, who are more attuned to the issues of structural inequity, Collins Goodyear says. Its the kind of change that one doesnt necessarily see on the surface but will effect deep, institutional change.

Frank Goodyear adds that the museum has established a fully funded endowment in David Driskells name to support diversity initiatives. Youre not going to build a diverse collection by one acquisition, he says. It happens through a series of decisions that foreground this as a priority.

New voices

Pressure for change also comes in the form of non-American Black narratives from Maines African immigrant community. Gabon-born sculptor Titi de Baccarat, says, I dont have a deep understanding of American history. Im African and have a different story and existence. But I want to support the struggles of my fellow African-Americans. I face the same issues because these are about the color of my skin. So, its important to have a month that celebrates the work of Black artists.

Even what one might call conventional Black narratives are also changing. Kevin Xiques, an abstract artist who only started painting in December of 2020, was adopted and raised in a white family). But, he says, By virtue of the fact that Im Black, my blackness is going to come through in my work. As the world becomes more aware of the great rangeof Black experience, these conversations will be freshened in new ways.

It is certain, too, that artists who are coming of age during the tectonic shifts of the Black Lives Matter movement and its subsequent cultural debates will be pushing for reforms. Athena Lynch is known for her racially charged subject matter. For one installation in Congress Square Park, she painted body outlines of Tamir Rice and Atatiana Jefferson, two victims of police violence against unarmed Black people.

For a show at Able Baker Contemporary, she created a figure in a hoodie and projected faces of male friends and family into the hood. I want people to get the point. I dont want ambiguity. If you feel uncomfortable, then good. If theres no discomfort, theres no growth.

Movement on all these cultural levels may one day propel us toward some semblance of mutual respect and appreciation. As Harris says, Love and empathy. Thats the ultimate goal and what Im trying to do as an artist.

WHERE TO SEE WORK:

Rachel Gloria Adams: rachelgloria.com Will be doing a Black Seed Studio residency sponsored by Indigo Arts Alliance

Ryan Adams: ryanwritesonthings.com Received a Kindling Foundation grant through SPACE to create a space in Thompsons Point where people can interact with working artists and give emerging artists a place to show their work Recently completed a residency at Surf Point Foundation in York that will generate new work No gallery representation currently, but prints available for sale on the site; paintings through private inquiries

Sean Alonzo Harris: seanalonzoharris.com

Athena Lynch: acapellalynch.com Coordinating MECA&Ds Resilience Week, Feb. 22-26. Among various activities will be a virtual exhibition of student and alumni work

Daniel Minter: danielminter.net Show at Dowling Walsh this summer Upcoming collaborative project with Eneida Sanches from Bahia, Brazil, at CMCA, Sept. 30-Jan. 8

Ashley Page: ashleypagestudio.com Her installation in the windows of SPACE will be up April 8-May 15 Shell have a piece in the Resilience Week virtual exhibition, Feb. 22-26 at MECA&D

Kevin Xiques: kevinxiques.com Participating in Visionary Arts Collectives permanent virtual show Splash, Drip, Throw visionaryartcollective.com

Indigo Arts Alliance: indigoartsalliance.me and the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design ICA will be presenting an exhibition of works by Indigo Arts Alliance Artists in Residence Dianne Smith, Nyugen Smith and Carl Joe Williams, March 25-May 6

Bates Museum of Art Works by David Driskell, Sam McMillan and Daniel Minter in The Adventurous Spirit: The Jane Costello Wellehan Collection, through March 19

Bowdoin Recent acquisitions include works by Benny Andrews, David Driskell, Whitefield Lovell, Lorna Simpson, Mikalene Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems On view in the galleries is a c. 1840 pot by David Drake and a portrait by Joshua Johnson

Center for Maine Contemporary Art Work of Jennie C. Jones in the Walk the Line, through May 8 Reggie Burrows Hodges: Hawk Eye, May 28-Sept. 11 Collaborative art project of David Minter and Eneida Sanchez, Sept. 30-Jan. 8

Colby Poetics of Atmosphere: Lorna Simpsons Cloudscape and other Works from the Collection, Feb. 3-April 17 Work of 25-30 black artists regularly in the gallery, from Henry Ossawa Tanner and Edward Mitchell Bannister to Barbara Chase-Riboud and Julie Mehretu

Portland Museum of Art Works by Daniel Minter and Reggie Burrows Hodges currently on view (closed for construction until Feb. 16) Permanent collection also includes David Driskell, Sean Alonzo Harris, Jacob Lawrence, Alison Saar Randy, Kara Walker. Recent acquisition of Burrows Hodges painting

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Of Black History month and their work, Black and brown artists say, 'it's complicated' - pressherald.com