The Juneau Arts and Humanities Council in all matters related to employees, board members, committee and task force members, and volunteers is guided by a set of principles and goals for our organization and our community. With this Equity Statement, the JAHC reaffirms our commitment to racial equity, which includes the elimination of policies, practices, attitudes and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race. We commit to working to increase arts opportunities for people of the global majority.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & AFFIRMATIONS

All peoples, their cultures, and their art contribute to the meaning and understanding of our humanity and should be honored and celebrated.

In the United States, there are systems of power and privilege that create inequity and injustice and must be continuously addressed and changed. Artists, their art, their process, and the organizations they create and support play a unique role in witnessing, demonstrating, and providing inspiration to resolve societal inequity and injustice. We, the Board of Trustees and the staff of the JAHC, must all hold ourselves accountable, because acknowledging and challenging societal inequities and internal biases and working in partnership with our community is how we will make change happen.

MODELING THROUGH ACTION FOR RACIAL EQUITY

To provide informed, authentic leadership throughout our organization we strive to:

• Pursue cultural awareness through ongoing substantive learning, transparent policies, and restorative justice practices.
• Commit time and resources to acknowledge and dismantle systems of inequity within our organization and communicate ongoing action to our constituency.
• Commit time and resources to foster more diverse leadership within our board, staff, and advisory bodies.
• Commit time and resources to expand support for more diverse Southeast Alaskan arts organizations.
• Commit time and resources to expand the diversity of, and access to, our programming.

RACIAL EQUITY, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND RADICAL SUPPORT

The JAHC recognizes that our society is challenged to overcome a complex web of inequities – racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and ableism among them. While this statement has been intentionally focused on racial equity, we affirm that the JAHC is intersectional in our thought, practices, and actions. To create antiracist practices, we commit to providing radical support to all historically marginalized members of our constituency. The JAHC holds a position of privilege in our community, and we strive to use this position to elevate others.