Undoing Bad Policy for Racial Justice
2022 Conference Blog
Jasmine Liu
Six panelists who were part of GIA’s own Cultural Policy Action Lab in 2022 presented on “Public Sector Possibilities for Transformation: Advancing Racial Equity through Cultural Policy Structures.” In recent years, GIA has welcomed more public sector agencies to its ranks, and this newly formed lab is an effort to create a space for public sector employees committed to foregrounding racial justice in their work.
The conversation kicked off with an introduction from Jen Cole, dean of the Pacific Northwst Collee of Art, and Randy Engstrom, the principal and co-founder of Third Way Creative. Both provided reasons for why the Cultural Policy Action Lab was a particularly necessary initiative. From a macroeconomic standpoint, the public sector is slated to grow locally, at the state level, and nationally. Furthermore, while there are more BIPOC and Latinae women represented in mid-level leadership in the public than in the private sector, a cause for celebration, they are often isolated, with no formal structure in place to support their work.
The introduction highlighted the disjoint that often exists between the values of racial justice and equity that grantmaking employees hold personally and the web of bad policies professionally that prevent them from putting those values into practice.
“How many of you rolled into a grantmaking job without ever having done grantmaking before?” Cole posed to the audience. “How many of you encounter ways that things are done that you don’t stand by and are racist?” Many rose their hands for both questions. Much of the job is about “unwinding, reversing, and eliminating bad policies that are functioning in all of our lives,” she said.
Engstrom added that there are days when working in the public sector might feel like risk management, even as public funding for the arts should be all about investment in risk and experimentation.
The GIA’s action lab was formed to respond to the lack of professional development programs and opportunities in the public sector. Each panelist spoke to their experiences as inaugural cohort members and what was both productive and challenging about the experience.
Several pointed out that the composition of the cohort was less diverse than they expected it to be, with over half of its members identifying as white women. Several mentioned that having a forum to vent about the unreasonable assignments, deadlines, and budgets they are often given on the job — and to collectively strategize about how to navigate these situations — was immensely helpful.
I joined a breakout session that probed the meaning of advancing racial justice “at the intersections,” and the opportunities that can come about through “liberating” money from other agencies. The conversation revolved around how artists might meaningfully do work related to education or community health, but also the pitfalls that might come with slotting artists into bad careers that they don’t help advance their creative practice. One contributor in my group posed a provocative question: if most grantmakers and public sector employees feel as if they are powerless in their positions and bound to bad, outdated policies, how must artists feel on the other side of the table?
This morning session prompted me to think about how conferences like these are so vital for convening people across the country facing similar challenges, so we can work together on precisely that work of undoing harmful policies and norms in pursuit of justice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jasmine Liu is a staff write for Hyperallergic.
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
The 2022 GIA Annual Conference begins on Thursday, October 6 and runs through Wednesday, October 12. In the meantime, get familiar with our virtual portal and check out the in-person sessions!
You can follow the convening and join the conversation using the hashtags #ConvergeTransform and #GIArts2022 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And, don’t forget to visit the Conference Blog for stories and reporting from the in-person and virtual conference tracks throughout the week.
