Racism in football can’t be solved by just punishing racist fans. While we call for action against them, we must also push for their rehabilitation.
I was optimistic about the possibility for change to the stark and urgent problem of only 2.4% of regular arts funding going to BAME* organisations when the BAME population is 14%. But as I plan to launch Create Equity’s campaign for arts funders to pledge to distribute their funding equitably within the next ten years, …
Exploring The New Normal Two weeks ago I produced an online event with MeWe360 ‘Funding BAME Creativity – Exploring The New Normal’. The aim of the event was to ‘dig deep’ into the systemic racial bias in UK arts funding. Bringing together major funders in the sector, our panelists included Francis Runacres, Executive Director, Enterprise & Innovation, Arts …
1. The challenge Setting up projects which develop BAME creative businesses – through which the founders can potentially generate significant financial reward – has been at the heart of my life’s work. To date I have supported thousands of artists and entrepreneurs, the four most successful of whom have an estimated combined net worth of …
Several people have challenged my continued use of the term BAME. I remain ambivalent about this change. The fight to end the use of the BAME acronym seems won. A key recommendation from the government’s report by the Commission on Race and Racial Disparities (the Sewell Report) is to disaggregate the term BAME. Arts Council …
Article published on Arts Professional Huge energy has been expended by Arts Council England (ACE) on distributing the £1.7 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF). There is a clear need for this distribution of funds at pace: the money has provided life support to many large institutions that would have struggled to survive lockdown measures without …
A decade to change what should have changed decades ago I have been in discussion with Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Nesta and the British Film Institute (BFI) amongst others about Create Equity’s campaign to get the sector funding equitably (in proportion to the BAME population) by 2031. Based on today’s …
The kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard (like the murder of George Floyd) dominate the news and social media as it rightly sparks upset, the telling of personal stories, outrage, and calls for things to change. When you have a specific manifestation of any discrimination the calls to action sometimes overrides the deep-seated causes and …
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, many BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) creative entrepreneurs existed in an invisible space between the public and private sectors. Both sectors had consistently undervalued what they do.
Interview with Kevin Osborne for The Times, UK by James Hurley.