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For many years, back at the turn of the 21st century, I worked as a labor and community organizer. This was at a time when it wasn’t so hip as it is now to talk about “social justice.” I don’t remember using that phrase too often. Instead, we talked about the things we wanted to change, and what we needed to do to change them.

Today, I run a nonprofit organization that provides free instruments and music lessons to kids in New Haven who otherwise would not be able to afford them. Music Haven provides a safe and supportive place for about 80 young people to come after school to practice, rehearse, play, do their homework and have a snack.

The music part is serious. High expectations, juries, recitals, practicing every day. Their teachers/mentors are conservatory-trained professional musicians who work with the same students one-on-one and in groups over the course of many years.

At first glance, this work seems like a separate universe from community organizing. But the goal is the same: for everyone to be heard, feel powerful, and create the world in which they want to live. Together, we identify things that seem impossible, and then we go ahead and do them anyway. Just as in organizing, the results may be collective and large-scale, but the real work is done one-on-one — through honesty, listening, persistence, high expectations of one another, and mutual support and respect. And practice. Lots of practice.

Is our tuition-free music education program what some would call “social justice” work? I’m often asked this question, which is a good thing, because it means people care about whether or not “social justice” work happens in the arts. I wonder if leaders of other arts organizations get asked that question as much as I do. I wonder this because of how many times I have recently heard leaders in the arts speak about “access” and “diversity” and “inclusion” as their top priorities. So it seems this is an important question for all of us in the arts.

Here’s a short-hand version of how it usually goes on our end. We’re told, “We care about access and inclusion. Here are some free tickets to our concert!”

We love free tickets to concerts. Without them, the students and families at Music Haven probably couldn’t go to too many concerts.

So we say: “Thank you for the tickets!” And we mean it.

But, we add: “If you want to talk about access, and you care about inclusion, please give me an instrument of my own, teach me to play, listen to me, push me when it gets hard, support me when I’m struggling, understand what I have to overcome to focus on the music in front of me each day, expect me to excel, and then save a seat for me in the first violin section.” It is more than inclusion; it’s equity. It’s what we all actually need. It costs you more. It requires you to open the door wider, come closer, and re-think our whole relationship, your whole model, and what kind of investment in us you’re willing to make.

There is a somewhat endangered but persistent point of consensus right now that our “most vulnerable children” need help and support, so someone must put aside something to make sure they don’t become a huge problem for all of us.

What does this look like in a state budget, or in an analysis of how philanthropic dollars are spent? Leaders will — minimally — fund programs to keep “inner-city youth” from starving, being homeless, ending up in jail, and/or having abysmal test scores.

But art? Music? Those are reserved for people who have wealth. Because those things are typically seen as economic development — we use them to add “cultural value” to our cities, draw people in from outside, build our “arts economy.” Support for the arts in Connecticut falls under the Department of Economic and Community Development. Investments in the arts are made based on how much they will contribute to the economy. So the more connected to communities and sources of wealth an arts institution is, the more public (and private) money it gets. What does that mean for organizations that exist and persist despite — rather than in service of — the economy, and serve/connect to communities without financial wealth? How do we value the unique contributions to our region’s “development” that come from true access to the arts for those who are usually excluded?

We have a staff of nine. Some of us think of our work as anti-racist or social justice work, some don’t. Our kids come to us because they want to play music. The day-to-day is creating a safe space for every student to pick up an instrument and get it to produce something beautiful. How does that push towards equity? How does it align with principles of racial justice?

I hesitate to ask any of our young musicians to expend time and energy on explicitly grappling with race and racism during our precious hours together, especially when their affluent peers (mostly white), who can pay for lessons and tuition-based programs, are not asked to engage with these questions as part of their music education.

But how can we ignore it? Race and racism matter in their lives every day – and in mine. It matters that I am white and lead an organization that serves predominantly Black and Latinx youth. It matters that none of our teachers are Black. It is not sufficient to proclaim that this is a “pipeline issue” and that it’s the result of external structures of racism. It matters that our board is 60% white, even though we predominantly serve people of color. We are not off the hook.

I am not off the hook. These are still my responsibilities, our organizational blind spots, and our problems to solve together with our community. It’s my job to always ask who isn’t in the room and why, and then to get them in the room. And then when they get there, it’s my job to shut up and listen. We in the arts community should be leading the charge, not bringing up the rear, when it comes to equity. After all, we’re an industry that’s all about what it means to be human.

But too often we’re among the worst offenders. Our boards, our audiences, and our leaders are mostly white and mostly affluent. We gather in groups as leaders in the field and talk amongst ourselves about our priorities, our collaborations, our visions for the future, our important questions to consider. Here’s one of mine: If access is about free tickets and not about dismantling structures of racial and economic exclusion, who will challenge the segregation and inaccessibility of artistic spaces? Where is equity? How will orchestras, art museums, and theaters build new audiences and sustain themselves into the future?

Here’s the thing: nothing makes a kid (who then turns into a grownup) more interested in attending a live performance than having the opportunity to participate in the craft. Nothing turns them off more quickly than telling them: look but don’t touch; listen but stay in your seat.

At Music Haven, it doesn’t look like we’re dismantling racism or undoing systems of oppression. There are some heated games of chess and Uno, a moderate amount of homework, and a fair amount of fooling around. (Although in case you haven’t noticed — and if you’re a young person of color, you have — the world is generally not too tolerant of kids of color just “fooling around.”) But mostly what you’ll find here is a lot of black and brown kids playing music that – for the most part – was written by dead white guys on instruments crafted in Europe. That isn’t liberating. It isn’t anti-racist. It isn’t political. It’s just music.

And yet, something fastidious and ancient is unraveling and re-knitting itself here into a beautiful sweater that everyone can wear. We’re all feeling warmer. The colder it gets outside, the closer we huddle together under this garment our kids have made for themselves with some help from their teachers and their families and peers, through hours of practice and struggle, in some cases, years of finding their own sound, their own way in the world, and their own community of music-makers.

So we re-commit to navigating the world honestly alongside our young musicians, letting them take the lead. We help provide some of the resources necessary to manifest something closer to equity in a highly inequitable world. We acknowledge the persistence of racism, taking ownership of and responsibility for our own inherent biases, race-based privileges, and blind spots. Through music, we challenge the stereotypes that concretely shape the contours of our kids’ futures, and their ability to walk safely and peacefully in the world. We provide a space and the tools and the supports necessary for them to make their own music. If some of us don’t use the language of “social justice” while we do that, it’s because we understand our actions and our relationships are what matter. They are our vocabulary. They define what we do in the world, and shape the music we make.

To contact Mandi directly: Mandi@musichavenct.org

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