Arts Council England made a clear commitment to increase funding to Black-led organisations. Its new levelling up priority puts that commitment at risk. In this article, I question how it plans to square the circle and deliver both. Levelling up must not lead to levelling down on diversity.
The fight for racially equitable funding in the arts and creative industries is what drove me to set up Create Equity. Here I argue the need for Black and White leaders to work together to make it happen.