BUSINESS AS USUAL IS NOT POSSIBLE

Dear White Colleagues in the Independent Film and Television Industry, 

There have been many open letters recently. This is a direct letter, to you, our bosses and colleagues, and from your BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) peers. We are an anonymous collective of film professionals who, through talking to each other over the past year, have discovered our complaints of this industry are the same. We see there’s a problem, and now it’s time for you to see there’s a problem. Attached to this letter are direct, immediate actions you can take.  It is time to take the focus off those “excluded” and on to the behaviors of those who do the excluding.

In light of recent uprisings across the world and the profound impact of COVID-19 on global Brown and Black peoples, many institutions put out statements against racism and anti-Blackness. We, your BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) colleagues, who understand the staff make-up, pay scales, and culture at the majority of Film and TV focused institutions were pained by the hypocrisy of these statements, and the broad structural inequality informing them. 

Go back and look at your statements. Most were written as if “we” (the institution) is white and “them” (Black colleagues and artists) are Others to show solidarity with. Why are these institutional statements of solidarity not written as if BIPOC were, or could be, leading your institutions? The people who are sending this letter are also “we”: your peers. Yet it is assumed that these organizations and their intended audiences are white. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you start with that assumption and accompanying language, our industry will remain by and for white eyes. BIPOC professionals will be tacked on carelessly, and will continue to fall off and be replaced. 

In contrast, organizations robustly led by BIPOC, and doing the work, could speak to the radical truth of the Black Lives Matter protests in focused, grounded, and active ways, without centering guilt. PWI (Predominantly White Institutions), on the other hand, suddenly highlighted films by Black filmmakers or about Black people. Why were these films not more available before? Where will they get buried after this moment passes? We are not a trend that comes and goes based on social media pressure. We are not a “community” to whom you perform outreach to. We are not something to tick off on a grant application or make sure to include in marketing photos. We are your target audience, we are your peers. We are you. 

In the early months of 2020, we have watched as the “diversity and inclusion” goals espoused in the past five years were put on the backburner in light of other urgent needs. BIPOC staff lost their jobs out of proportion; Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people are dying of COVID-19 at higher rates than others; and we are moving forward to a time when BIPOC front-of-house workers at cinemas could be endangering their lives. There is not and cannot be a choice between diversity and survival. There is no going back to business as usual. The old business models are collapsing. This is an opportunity to rebuild with a solid, inclusive foundation.

We refuse to regress. But the backtracking comes as no surprise. The United States is currently going through a moment of extreme backlash to progress made in racial equity. These cycles—a few steps forward and a violent push back—have been the story of the United States of America since at least the Reconstruction Era. Our current crisis is because of recent gains made. Progress is now stuck. How do we get beyond this hurdle?

All of us in the film and television industry are gate-keepers for narratives, which has huge implications on the racism in our culture. Our institutions have platformed and celebrated so many films about slavery yet so few about the more insidious racism of the Reconstruction Era. Why is that? With stories about slavery and the Civil Rights Era—the “black stories” that dominate our screens—racism is something that happened because of bad people, good people help change legislation, and then racism is solved. These stories say racism is what happens in other times and places, from other people. That is a way of evading accountability. You look at “racism” as if under glass on your screens, meanwhile the racist micro-aggressions in your offices are invisible to you.

Racism is structural. Equity isn’t achieved from getting the bad guys (whether bad apples in the police force or in your office). Dealing with racism begins with you. Accountability and transparency are the first steps.

In the too rare instances in our industry when BIPOC lead, we are allowed to be professionals, artists, human beings. Our knowledge is not limited to our culture, to what we represent to you. We, like you, got into this industry because of our interest in art to better illuminate what it is to be alive in this world. When that art is made for white audiences, based on white experiences, it is extremely limited (even if it contains BIPOC representation on screen). We are educated and inundated in white experiences, in addition to our lived experiences. You have work to do to catch up to our knowledge.

So you think you are an ally? Allyship is a (continual, committed) practice, not an identity. Put your empathy into action by reading and signing the attached 10-point pledge. This is the first step in building trust and a baseline for further change to take place. We have done the work to provide you with steps to direct action. These aren’t asks or demands, but basic steps to not remain stuck. Good intentions without actions is a choice to uphold systemic racism. 

Read and sign the pledge. Also encourage your organization to fill out this short survey. These are the first steps. 

Signed,

Arts in Color Collective