Engage ans Support:
First, consider if your work or business has benefitted from appropriating BIPOC cultural art motifs or practices. Address this and commit to dismantling the framework of exploitation. Instead of thinking of ways you can “help” BIPOC artists, imagine that they are authoritative experts that you can learn from, because they are. Find out if there is a BIPOC artist teaching workshops in your area. Support them. Promote them. Purchase a seat in one of their workshops and introduce yourself. This is about long term, meaningful support. Try to form earnest connections with BIPOC artists in your area. Listen to them. They are in no way obligated to reciprocate interest or be your friend. Do not put any expectation of emotional labor on them. Do not ask them for all the “answers” the first time you meet them. Make yourself available to them but do not impose. They are not a means to an end, they are your colleagues and community members.
Narrative:
Raise visibility of BIPOC artists in your curriculum, whether there are BIPOC students in your classes or not. This is important for disabled and LGBTQIA+ artists, too! Remember, BIPOC artists can be disabled or queer.
When you talk about these artists, do not reduce their entire life or work to any suffering, hardships, or racial mistreatment they experienced. Doing so erases entire parts of their life.
Do not fetishize them. Discuss them as a complete human being. Do not tokenize them. Speak about their work only after you’ve fully learned about it, be able to articulate things about their body of work other than that it was made by a BIPOC artist, named so-and-so.
Consider if you notice a tendency to only show work that meets expectations of the white gaze. Again, this is about not reducing them to their racial or marginalized identity, but showing them in the fullness of their personhood and artistic expression.
Educate yourself in non-Eurocentric art history and bring this knowledge into your curriculum.
Location and Access:
Consider the geography of racism and other barriers based on systemic oppression, exclusion, and neglect.
Think about where to host a class that is close to public transit.
If you live somewhere that does not have robust public transit, use this opportunity to think about what it’s like to not own or have access to a car in your community.
Many areas have non-moving traffic violation codes that are predatory and disproportionately impact BIPOC communities. Raise awareness of these practices and demand they be changed in your city or town.
Ensure that the chosen venue can accommodate mobility aids like wheelchairs, etc. Make this information available on the class listing.
Neighborhood and Community:
Understand your impact and role within different community spaces.
If you are teaching in a neighborhood you don’t live in, especially one that is a historical or current center for BIPOC communities, take time to participate in that community before holding classes.
Get to know local business owners and patronize their shops and restaurants. Make your relationships more than transactional.
Talk to them about your classes and ask for their input. Hosting classes in a particular neighborhood means you have the opportunity to introduce new people to that neighborhood. This may, or may not be welcomed.
Debunk Art and Challenge the Status Quo:
Debunk the idea that some people are just born with creativity/talent and others aren’t, or that materials make the artist. Sometimes these beliefs originate from a lack of access to art spaces and experiences, or a negative experience in these spaces. Did you have access to art classes in primary/middle/high school?
Think about the experiences in your life that made expression through art pleasurable and possible. Consider what your life would be like without those conversations or opportunities and whether those opportunities were built into a racist system that favored some over others.
Ask yourself how your perceptions of “pretty” or “acceptable” art have been shaped by the idea of whiteness and/or systemic suppression of BIPOC visual arts, particularly in the fine art, mainstream home decor, or “maker” space.
Also consider that BIPOC cultural art styles and motifs have long been fetishized or co-opted for the white gaze in pop culture, but in more historically white spaces they are considered an aberration.
Many BIPOC community public schools suffer from lack of funding due to problematic practices like relying on local property taxes for their budget. This perpetuates the financial and social impact of racist policies like redlining or other more covert segregation tactics.
Just as our police force has become more militarized, schools have become more punitive and like correctional facilities for children. Schools often hire disciplinary positions (including police) instead of arts positions or mental health professionals like licensed counselors due to out of date and racist attitudes toward BIPOC communities.
This reaction to the needs of students is a part of the long standing denial of BIPOC pain, specifically Black pain. This begins early as BIPOC students who are experiencing the fallout of generational trauma are treated as the problem and not given the resources to treat their traumas, but only punished instead.
Educate yourself on the school-to-prison pipeline. Demand a change to more equitable and data driven funding based on the needs of the students, not the district administrators or anyone else married to the status quo.
Remove Financial Barriers:
Many art classes and creative experiences are prohibitively expensive or are based on models that perpetuate exclusion. There are many ways to address this, but the model you choose should ensure these things:
It’s intersectional.
The quality of the class is not somehow lowered when the ticket price is lowered.
You are not inadvertently perpetuating exclusion/second class citizenship by holding separate classes only open to underserved groups that are materially different in content and structure to those you’d teach to other groups.
It’s sustainable (as in, your financial model means you can do this as an ongoing practice, not a one time “donation”)
Economic need is not the only factor you’re assessing when designing your model or identifying space to be made and held for others.
What could this look like?
A model that has worked (for me) is earmarking half of any given class for scholarship seats. These seats can be at reduced or no cost to the recipient, and are given based on anti-racist goals. These could include offering seats to people who have not had access to these resources, or have not felt welcome in traditional art spaces. This lack of access can take many forms - budget cuts/misallocation of funds in schools, racial or cultural exclusion/intolerance, gender identity exclusion/intolerance, ableist infrastructure, and geographic/transportation limitations. Do not position yourself as a gatekeeper in this capacity, involve BIPOC partners in scholarship decisions. Resource redistribution is the goal here, not asking for BIPOC or other marginalized people to engage in trauma porn. You are not giving them a gift, you are helping make space for them and committing to maintaining it.
Be Clear and Be Humble:
Commit to the long term work of investing in and forming relationships with marginalized groups. If you've done this, then your venue, model, curriculum, and impact will have a much greater chance of meeting your good intentions. Make a clear statement about your intention and commitment to keep your classroom a safe space for BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ people on your website listing for the class. Ask for honest feedback and send optional followup surveys about how comfortable and equal BIPOC students felt in your class. Commit to a growth mindset.