Enrich Chicago’s racial impact survey finds equity still lacking across arts and culture ecosystem
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Three years after the racial reckoning following George Floyd’s murder, Enrich Chicago, a nonprofit working to address systemic racism in the arts, released results of a survey showing work remains to be done to improve racial equity in the city’s arts and culture sector.
Since 2014, Enrich Chicago, a collective of 40-plus cultural and philanthropic institutions, has been doing research, collaborations and racial justice workshops to bring access and opportunity to artists and organizations of color and other marginalized communities. In a 2017 report, the organization found gross racial disparities on boards and in decision-making staff at foundations and arts and culture organizations. It also found that funds given to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) arts organizations were half of what white arts organizations received.
Enrich Chicago’s most recent survey, released last month, reveals a need for more transparency and communication when it comes to racial equity efforts being made on behalf of employees and communities of color. It also indicates that public racial equity statements made in 2020 did not lead to intentional actions, and that racial equity trainings for staff are more effective than trainings for people in leadership positions.
According to the survey, 30% of Asian American and Latina cisgender females don’t feel safe bringing their whole selves to work. And 40% of Black folks who identified as LGBTQ said they “disagreed or strongly disagreed” that they are fairly compensated. And nearly 24% of respondents who identified as Hispanic/Latino strongly disagreed that they were fairly compensated.
“This is an issue with arts and culture that I think is very symptomatic of the larger society,” said principal researcher Anh Thang Dao-Shah. Her firm, Creative Equity Research, conducted the survey.
“I’m pretty sure that if we do the survey for other kinds of organizations, the result is probably going to be very similar,” Dao-Shah said. “What I’m hoping for is that this small research project is going to spur other kinds of questions, research projects in other sectors, so together, we can continue to sustain the momentum that was driven by a tragedy, but led to a major awakening for our society.”
There have been numerous recent efforts to reduce diversity, equity and inclusion work. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law in May banning the state’s public colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and reports show corporate America is cutting DEI positions that were created after Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police.
Tiara Hughes, a senior urban designer at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and a landmark commissioner and founder of First 500, calls it “performative DEI.”
“Companies engage in performative practices, appearing committed to equitable workplaces and community welfare while doing the bare minimum to effect real change,” Hughes wrote in a recent commentary. “When companies believe they have done enough to appear socially responsible, they are less motivated to enact substantive change. Consequently, the urgent issues of racism, sexism, and other biases persist within these workplaces, perpetuating an environment of inequity.”
Enrich Chicago’s 17-question survey was created by a Black, Indigenous, and people of color-focus group and members on staff at Enrich Chicago network organizations and promoted on social media to Enrich Chicago’s network. It was conducted from mid-March to early May with questions about compensation, training, leadership representation, organizational capacity, a sense of belonging and safety, as well as public racial equity statements as possible metrics of change. Respondents expressed varying levels of agreement or disagreement with a series of statements.
“This was about how we understand where change is actually happening, how change can continue to happen and get a sense of not only are we doing what we said we would do but what are we learning in the process? And we’ll keep trying,” said Enrich Chicago Director Nina Sánchez.
The survey also listed recommendations to help keep DEI a priority, including encouraging and publicizing racial equity action plans that go beyond statements for accountability purposes, racial equity audits conducted by third parties to determine how the organization is doing in terms of its commitments, and the development of a model to compensate BIPOC staff for work activities that are based on their lived experience.
Sánchez said in the coming six months Enrich Chicago will double-down on its ongoing work with the survey as a tool.
Dao-Shah said the results of the survey aren’t surprising. Working in the DEI space as a consultant and within her own organization, she said she’s seen how DEI does not remain the priority that it should be.
“The data does show that there is awareness, which does not necessarily translate into action that we can feel now as change,” she said. “The problems that we had three years ago are still here; you don’t get to quit as an organization. If you made this commitment … felt compelled to make those promises and hire somebody three years ago because of the pressure from your employees and from your communities, that is still there.”
Dao-Shah said the goal is to build accountability.
“What we can do is create structures in which, if you do something that is discriminatory, then you feel the pressure to say, ‘Oh, maybe I should not do that,’ because there are going to be consequences,” she said. ”Those consequences can only come if you actually have systems in place to keep things going.”
Sánchez agreed. “This is not about pointing fingers,” she said. “It’s about understanding how can we show up again and show up differently. The report gives generous feedback from our people of color colleagues. And it’s a clear call to action with meaningful next steps that we can take in the immediate future, strengthen our efforts and continue to build trust with impacted communities.”
