BLACK LIVES MATTER
On behalf of our Team at Why Not
Miriam Fernandes, Kelly Read, Owais Lightwala, Kira Allen, Kevin Matthew Wong, Sam Semczyszyn, Tom Arthur Davis, and Ravi Jain.
We are not making a statement.
We are making a vow, a public commitment, to our values and our feelings in order to hold ourselves accountable, and for you, the community to hold us accountable, as colleagues and friends.
We are not okay. Our colleagues are not okay.
The atrocious, inhumane murders of Black people at the hands of police officers in both Canada and the US are exemplary of the racism that affects the lives of Black people every day. This racist system is inextricably embedded in our arts sector and in the people who live and work within it, and it is on us all to rise and address these racist beliefs head on.
To our diverse Black communities: we stand beside you, we grieve with you, and we commit to dismantling the systems of power in the pursuit of liberation.
To our diverse Indigenous communities: we see you, and we see how this violence is committed against your communities everyday. We know you are hurting and we reaffirm our commitment to your liberation through our actions.
To our white colleagues. White supremacy is real. You are a part of it and you need to actively engage in these conversations, which you have been asked to engage in, and not prepared yourselves for. A statement is not enough, each one of you has enacted harm and you need to find ways to actively address and dismantle the systems that keep Black, Brown, Indigenous and racialized people excluded from society.
People of colour we know you hurt too, and while you suffer you must rise above this pain and support our Black brothers, sisters, and non-binary family. People of colour benefit and perpetuate anti-Black racism through our actions and inactions. We need to address anti-Black racist views in our own communities, with our own people and we all have a lot of work to do to challenge our comforts and assumptions, to stop appropriating Black culture, and to stop supporting white systems of power that allow us to thrive and Black people and Indigenous people to continue to be harmed, ignored, disregarded, disrespected and sadly, too often, murdered.
At Why Not, we are starting with ourselves. As a company largely composed of racialized people, and that works with and supports the voices of BIPOC artists, this moment demands that we rise up and be better allies.
As of this week, we have begun an ongoing series of conversations within our staff around anti-Black and anti-Indigenous blindspots, and racism within our workplace and ourselves, beginning with an examination of our own individual positionalities. We believe in living our values and are making the most important change we can, change within ourselves.
These conversations will ask us to face our own privileges and how we have benefited and upheld systems of white supremacy. We will do the work to bring our white colleagues into these conversations and encourage them to do the work. And bring in our South Asian, Asian, and racialized colleagues to ask the same of themselves.
We affirm our commitment to doing the work to better support Indigenous artists, voices and bodies. We affirm our commitment to doing the work to support Black artists, voices and bodies.
ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER.
We as a company have made donations to these groups or organizations. If you are able to, please support these groups or organizations who are leading the change:
The AMY Project, led by Naomi Bain
https://www.theamyproject.com/
Black Lives Matter
https://blacklivesmatter.ca/
Black Legal Action Centre
https://www.blacklegalactioncentre.ca/
