Session 5 of BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions, Support in Action: Movement Towards Liberation, is this week! Shout-out to our brilliant guest speakers and artists for this session: Erika Hawthorne, Quanice Floyd, and Marissa Herrera! Read more about them at https://www.artequity.org/bipoc-pwi or through the link in our bio. This space is for individuals who identify as People of Color, BIPOC, AAPI, MENASA, ALAANA, SWANA, Black/African American, Indigenous/Native, Latinx/Latine, or People of the Global Majority. If you identify as white, we invite you to explore some of our other training opportunities. ​ These offerings are free, but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED to attend. Please register for the individual sessions you wish to join at https://www.artequity.org/bipoc-pwi! See you there! Image description: A peach background with orange squiggle motifs frame the top right and bottom left of the image. A teal box with white text sits on top and reads: “SESSION 3 | Beyond Survival to Self-Care” Below, a black bolded subtitle reads: “GUEST SPEAKER + ARTIST” with a teal outlined orange box beneath. Within the box are three circular portraits. Extending from each portrait is a teal rounded rectangle. They are aligned one atop another vertically. In the first portrait is a photo of Erika Hawthorne, a headshot of a person with curly hair pushed to her right shoulder in a navy shirt smiling with her teeth showing. Text reads: “Erika Hawthorne (she/her), Interim Executive Director, Arts Administrators of Color Network.” The next portrait is of Quanice Floyd, a Black woman with black and red braids parted onto her right shoulder smiling with her mouth closed, wearing a gray blazer. Text reads: “Quanice Floyd (she/her), Executive Director, National Guild for Community Arts Education.” The final portrait is of Marissa Herrera, a headshot of a woman with curled, shoulder-length brown hair, mouth slightly parted. She is wearing a bright pink blazer with a red top. Text reads: Marissa Herrera (she/her), Co-Founder and Executive Artistic Director. 4C LAB and CEO, De Mi Alma Productions.” (fb)

It has been five years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. We were asked to normalize this and keep pressing on, but we at artEquity knew that we would not “move at the pace of racism.” We paused, took a collective breath, and worked with our community to do the work of dismantling systemic anti-Blackness, structural racism, and the root causes that dehumanize so many communities. In the current climate of hate, this work must continue. Attempts are being made to stamp out the hard-won changes that came out of the 2020 protests. From the destruction of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC, and the removal of memorial art, to the attempt to co-opt, distort, and reverse the meaning of DEI, we are being asked again to just “move on.” This backlash to the racial reckoning that shifted mass consciousness in the US is part of a cycle that we have seen before. They may pave over the roads and cover what used to welcome us, but they cannot kill the arc that bends toward justice. The image in our graphic captures the “Say Their Names” mural by Whitney Holbourn, Andrew Thompson and Braylyn “Resko” Stewart on 11th and Main St in Louisville, KY. Image Description: An image of the “Say Their Names” Mural in Louisville, KY is centered on the page. The mural is on a wide building with swoops of yellow, pops, of red, and pops of green. Portraits of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, David McAtee, Elijah McClain, and Sandra Bland are painted in black and white. The words “Say their names” are written in block letters to the left of George Floyd’s portrait. There is a light blue gradient above the image, and dark blue gradient below. A quote by Bayard Rustin frames the left and right margins in white text: “When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge their dignity as a human being, their very act of protest confers dignity on them.” (fb)