STATEMENT FROM CULTURAL CONNECTIONS' BOARD

Cultural Connections supports and stands with the Black community and all communities of color. We are a group of Bay Area museum, arts, and culture professionals whose mission is to connect, exchange ideas, and share resources to inspire creativity and action. As a platform for dialogue, we cannot stay silent.

Black Lives Matter. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only a few of the many Black people who have been killed, murdered, or lost their lives as a result of the United States’ long history of systemic racism. We stand in solidarity against hatred, intolerance, and ignorance.

We also want to acknowledge that museums are, unfortunately, not necessarily diverse spaces. As an organization dedicated to changing how we practice our profession in order to advance the field and make it more inclusive, we need to make this issue more transparent. Our mission, vision, and value statements form the foundation of our organization and are at the forefront of our programming. These values include a commitment to diversity, pushing boundaries, and being responsive. 

While we continue to advocate for the active participation of diverse voices in our programs and in our field, we must do more. Cultural Connections is in a privileged position, and we must use our organization to center and elevate voices of Black museum professionals, collaborators, and museum visitors to highlight and fight against injustice. We commit to including and centering the voices and issues of Black people and people of color in our future programming. We will work to change our institutions to support Black people and people of color entering and employed in the field.

As part of our commitment to sharing resources, we have provided a list of museum-specific and local Bay Area resources below. We look forward to continuing the conversation with our community.