Behind the Mask: The Inner Life of a Black Grantmaker
Part of the Black August Series
Courtenay Aja Barton
“You’re Courtenay?”
The emphasis on the word “you’re” always betrays their disbelief: this young (-looking) Black girl is not who they expected the program director, the grants gatekeeper, to be.
Being Black in philanthropy often feels like a game of tug of war. Your body is the rope, your people have one arm, the institution that employs you has the other, the pull on both your sides is equally strong, and the only thing that can give is you. Yourself.
I have worked in a world where grantseekers complain that their grant is not large enough. That I just don’t understand the dynamics of the field and the pressures nonprofits feel. That what “the Blacks” really need is not to separate themselves from everyone else. That all of the new opportunities for people of color are taking away from their operations. That I am antagonizing the Latinx community whenever I talk Blackness. That I am reverse racist. That I am personally harming people.
I spent the last few years, in the face of this pandemic, in the face of the movement for Black lives, especially in the face of the movement against Black lives, grinning and bearing it. Polite and professional when I wanted to swear and curse. Frozen-eyed when I wanted to cry.
“Am I doing enough? More often than not, the people say no.
(More often than not, I agree.)
Am I doing too much? How very often the institutions say yes.
(How very often my health says yes.) ”
I took a daily walk to the GirlTrek Black History Bootcamp Walking Podcast in 2020, and all around I saw reminders to keep fighting, such as this billboard juxtaposition: #GeorgeFloyd, DO IT FOR. Photo by the author.
This Black August, I write because we Black folks in philanthropy need to get free, too. And in the interest of getting free, I write to drop the mask for just a moment.
If you are not a Black grantmaker: just remember your Black colleagues never, ever earn or achieve our way out of the systemic issues this sector professes to work to dismantle. Never. This is a fight for our lives.
Black grantmakers, we work in one of the whitest fields operating in the United States. And if no one else appreciates both your rock and your hard place, I do. I also know that what keeps you going is pushing through that one grant, that grant that may not be huge, that may be the least of what you wish you could do, but would not get done if you were not there.
And I thank you.
The GIA Black August Reader Series lifts up the work, aims, and possibilities of Black artists, community, and grantmakers, and offers a call to the field asking cultural grantmakers to interrupt institutional and structural racism while building a more just funding ecosystem that prioritizes Black communities, organizations, and artists. Black August, born out of Black liberation, resistance, and justice movements, is a month dedicated to critical learning and analysis, reflection and study of our roles in oppressive or liberatory systems, and an opportunity to grow, connect, and prepare for the challenging work ahead.
About the Author
Courtenay Aja Barton is the senior manager for Racial Equity and Workforce at The Allstate Foundation.
