"Solidarity," etc.

So I've gotten vast numbers of emails, from musical organizations, museums, commercial enterprises, etc. this week, all making attempts to address racism and show solidarity with the protests that are quite rightly sweeping the United States following the murder of George Floyd.

First off, the protestors are out there taking very significant risks. They are at increased risk of exposure to COVID-19 and they're at great risk of police brutality. There are lots of films of police violence directed at peaceful, nonthreatening protestors; if you have any need to see these, Greg Doucette is keeping a running tally of links to them.

If you watch these videos, keep in mind that a lot of what you see will be video of cops beating up white people. Cops beat up, murder, and abuse Black people every day. It's only part of the ongoing systemic violence that Black Americans are subjected to. Imagine living with that.

If you're white, your skin color protects you from a lot of that violence, and furthermore, you probably were raised to believe that the police were there to protect you. No, really, they are not; you just have been lucky. Anyone who has been sexually assaulted will be happy to tell you how uninterested the cops are in either protecting you or properly investigating such assaults.

Getting back to all the solidarity emails: I have been deleting them as fast as I can. In some cases, they are coming from businesses and organizations that are at least donating to protest-related and Black-community-supporting organizations, and I'm glad to see the donations.

In most cases, all I can say to these organizations is, put your damn money where your mouth is, and I mean through your actions rather than your words. Talk is easy, action is harder. You could start by asking yourselves these questions:

1. When did you last perform a work by a Black person? How many are scheduled for your upcoming season? (Whenever that might be, I know, I know.)
2. When did you last commission a work by a Black person?
3. What's your audience like?
4. Can we see photos of your board and administration?
5. Can we see photos of the last decade of conductors? And your orchestra? Your actors, if a theater company? Your dancers, if a dance company? Your singers? Your instrumental soloists? Your directors? Your choreographers? Your stage and backstage crews?
6. Do you have processes in place for dealing with racist behavior inside your company? Are these codified in union agreements?
7. What are you doing to fix the issues you see when you give honest answers to the above questions?

UPDATES: 1. This post has gotten a couple of hundred views, and I want to note that I think the questions were inspired by a post I saw on Twitter.....and I can't find it, which I would like to do so as to give proper credit. If you see such a post, please do point me at it.)
2. Edited to make it clear anyone can be a victim of sexual assault. I should not have phrased it as I dd initially.