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In tandem with our open letter to the Visual AIDS community, we are sharing a list of resources, links, and actions in response to recent anti-Black police violence. Below, we are also sharing past Visual AIDS projects that have worked to address the lack of representation of Black artists in cultural histories of AIDS.
We are grateful for the Barnard Center for Research on Women for sharing many of these resources earlier this week. For a regularly updated, comprehensive list of resources, see this google doc.
Take Action
Join a demonstration in the street, but be sure to wear a mask and bring water. See here for more suggestions about how to protest safely.
Visit the Movement For Black Lives, take part in their week of action, and learn more about how you can help.
In New York City, join the movement to defund the NYPD and call for #NYCBudgetJustice. Send a message to Melanie Hartzog, Director of Office and Management and Budget for the Mayor, and call or email your city councilmember. If you want a script for what to say, see this document.
Help repeal Section 50-a so that NYPD officers are held accountable for their misconduct. Endorse the #SaferNYAct and tell your legislators to support the bill. Learn more at changethenypd.org.
Read: 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets
Learn what white supremacy looks like
Undoing white supremacy is ongoing work, and for white people that starts by looking inwards. Do you know what white supremacy looks like? It's not as obvious as you might think. Read What is White Supremacy Culture? and think about how these characteristics show up in your workplace and your personal relationships. Read What Does It Mean To Be Antiracist? and 10 Steps to Non-Optical Allyship to go further.
On the Visual AIDS blog, read an interview with Adam M. Geary, author of Antiblack Racism and the AIDS Epidemic: State Intimacies to make the connections with the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
Educate yourself on the history of institutional racism in the United States
Scroll through Critical Resistance's Policing Timeline to see the connections between slavery and contemporary policing. While you're there, read more about the important work that Critical Resistance is doing to end the Prison Industrial Complex.
Put recent police murders in a historical context with this syllabus from JSTOR and “Why is this happening?” — an introduction to police brutality from 100 Year Hoodie.
Think long term
Fill out the Census to make sure your neighborhood gets the resources and votes it deserves.
Make sure you are registered to vote in the upcoming elections.
New Yorkers: you have until June 16 to request an absentee ballot to vote by mail.
Donate
Redistribute your stimulus check and donate to bail funds to free protestors around the country. Split your donation across several organizations with ActBlue. Consider supporting organizations like the Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block in Minneapolis, or other groups that are doing long-term anti-racist work, such as:
Black Women's Health Imperative
National Black Disability Coalition
Mutual Aid Fund for Sex Workers of Color
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Make the connections
At Visual AIDS, we recognize that the disproportionate impact of HIV on Black lives continues to be ignored in conversations about both the past and the present of the epidemic. In recent years, we have worked to intentionally represent a greater number of artists of color in our archive and our programming more generally, and we recognize that there is much more to do.
ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS
A video program prioritizing Black narratives from within the ongoing AIDS epidemic.
Read a statement by the curators, Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett
Visual AIDS statement on the Tacoma Action Collective: Direct action and interventions matter
#StopErasingBlackPeople - Historical Lands - A Statement from the Tacoma Action Collective
Web Galleries
View three recent web galleries that feature the work of Black artists:
In the Name of the Father and the Mother, curated by Syd Baloue
The Multi-faceted Narrative of Illness, curated by Jareh Das
Decolonizing Fetish, curated by the Tacoma Action Collective
Outsider Blackness, curated by Shanice Bailey
Cell Count and HIV Criminalization
Download our broadside, YOU CARE ABOUT HIV CRIMINALIZATION (YOU JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET)
Hear Dr. Muhjah Shakir talk about her work on the Tuskegee Bioethics Community Quilt Project and make the connections with HIV criminalization
Ajamu's Archiving Activists Portrait Project
Watch video interviews with 14 young activists of color, produced by Ajamu, our 2016 International Curatorial Resident