I've been involved in the arts since the 1980s as an actor, DJ & artist and went onto producing, directing & writing by the 1990s. It was during this time that I began race equality and audience development work within the arts, health, education and voluntary sectors.
In 1999, the Macpherson Report in response to the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence was published. A key finding labelled the Metropolitan Police as "institutionally racist". This had ramifications on the wider public sector. Theatre also began to address institutional racism in its’ own sector. Following the Eclipse Conference on developing strategies to combat institutional racism in theatre in 2001, Arts Council England published the Eclipse Report in 2002. The reports recommendations focused on: Governance; Audience Development; Employment and Training; Equality of Opportunity; Positive Action; Programming of Black work. At this point I was appointed as an audience development consultant to work with Arts Council England. And that's what I have been doing over the last 24 years - through policy, strategy, staff training and recruitment, artist, programme and audience development - working towards a more equitable, inclusive and diverse sector and the work is on-going.
I have seen the evolution of the 'diversity' conversation in the arts, as well as being aware of the context in which my work sits - from the report, ‘The Arts Britain Ignores' in 1976 by the late Naseem Khan to the Black Arts Centre proposal to find a home within Roundhouse, Camden in the mid-1980s. And there are plenty more examples. These are not new conversations. They go back decades.
I mention all this as the arts sector struggles with amnesia or in some cases, the erasure of past anti-racism or diversity work, as there is little to no evidence of it available. This lack of evidence or awareness of this work means that we are consistently revisiting old conversations, recycling efforts and not progressing as much as we should have. I have the evidence and have first hand experience of this work since the 1990s.
So the response to the 'Black Lives Matter' protests and the recent riots fuelled by racism and Islamophobia by many in the arts sector feels like empty gestures, as many like me have heard these calls of solidarity before, but we don't see significant change when it comes to leadership, investment and representation reflecting the diversity of England. It sometimes feels like 'performative allyship'.
I continue to work with brilliant and committed people (of all ethnicities) in the arts sector, so that's not the issue. The issue is that when the arts sector does not reflect its' communities in its' power structures - we will continue to see limited progression. It's also important to put recent and current 'diversity' and 'race equality' conversations into historical context, so to stop a repetition of past efforts whilst recognising those who have contributed to this work in the past.
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3moThanks Dr Varina Michaels . These expectations occur here too in Australia, I have seen that play out and it's ugly and dehumanising. The legacy of colonialism and decades of racist politics persist