A Statement/Thread from Baltimore Center Stage:

Today is the day of our end-of-season gala. We are meant to be spending this day celebrating our artists and community. And yet… We are grieving.

With our Black staff members, with our Black artists, with our Black audiences, with our young Black students, with our Black-led partner organizations, and with our Black colleagues and theatre leaders across the country.

We see you. We are with you. Your lives matter.

Systems of power and supremacy do not exist solely in egregious acts of violence that make national headlines. They are upheld and reinforced daily. They are strengthened by cultural narratives which are shaped by arts institutions.

They're entrenched in the many ways that arts institutions are a driver of displacement. Racism is bolstered by the stories we tell, the inequitable economic structures we adhere to, and the representation (or lack thereof) of Black, Indigenous, and people of color on our stages.

Anti-blackness is sustained by our complacency. It isn’t easy to admit or confront our own unwitting complicity in oppressive systems and hate-filled ideology, but we must; we do.

In solidarity with our Black community in Minneapolis, across the country, and right here in Baltimore, here are our commitments:

· We commit to working with our self-organized staff Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression group to hold space for healing throughout the coming days, weeks, months.

· We commit to bystander intervention training for our staff.

· We commit to amplifying anti-racism resources.

· We commit to amplifying the hyper-local work of Black-led organizations.

· We commit to being productively dissatisfied with our own progress, and to working with all our might to help bend the arc of justice ever further.

As we remember uprisings here in Baltimore almost exactly five years ago, we are reminded of our interconnectedness and of the deep necessity of anti-racism and decolonization.

It is our responsibility to constantly examine the ways white supremacy and anti-blackness have insidiously found their way into our stories, into our building, and into our organizational practices. And then, we must do the hard, but critical work of rooting them out for good.