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November’s presidential election results will have pulled the United States back from the brink of authoritarianism. After we’ve taken a moment to celebrate our achievement and rejuvenate, there comes the challenge of plotting a course forward. Because there’s no going back to some imagined normalcy. Many consequences of Trump’s presidency – cult of strongman personality, capture and erosion of the courts and other democratic institutions, normalization of misogyny and white nationalism, consolidation of Christian Right power, mobilization of vigilantes, enrichment of oligarchs, rise of a media disinformation infrastructure – will not be so easily undone.
We no longer have to wonder what we would have done if we’d been around at the peak of the civil rights movement. Whatever it is, we will be doing it now. These words ring from our conference. This moment demands more from us. This moment demands we be explicitly clear: Black lives matter! This moment demands we say their names: Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and remember Oscar Grant.
The Community Arts Stabilization Trust’s goal is to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018 and expand its footprint in Oakland. Today, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced $3 million in additional funding for the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST), a game-changing organization that protects San Francisco Bay Area arts and cultural organizations from displacement. This three-year grant will help CAST realize an ambitious goal to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018. With this funding, CAST will expand and prioritize its work in Oakland to create permanently affordable spaces for arts organizations. The funding will also help CAST continue its work in San Francisco.
This is a pivotal moment in protecting and strengthening the fabric of American democracy. While we are still grappling with the destabilizing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, we are watching the threat to democracy growing as state legislators in multiple states are pushing for new voting barriers that target Black and brown people, working-class folks, young people, and immigrants.
The COVID-19 vaccine will help keep communities healthy and safe and holds promise to bring an end to the pandemic that has had the most severe impacts on Black, Latinx, Indigenous, AAPI, immigrant, and low-income people. Systemic racism created the conditions that put people of color at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and experiencing more severe health outcomes, and despite this urgency, California’s vaccination effort so far has fallen short of equity goals. We must reach and authentically engage local communities to remove barriers to access and address concerns to increase vaccine acceptance.
The Supreme Court’s decision to federally overturn Roe V. Wade has eliminated a person’s constitutional right to abortion and reversed 50 years of federal abortion protection. States now have flexibility in deciding whether to allow, limit or ban abortions and vital reproductive health. In the 2022 mid-term election voters passing this proposition strengthens California’s infrastructure as a reproductive freedom state for all.
The recently finalized “public charge” rule forces families to choose between basic necessities, such as food, housing, and health care, and their future. NCG is proud to join 25 other California foundations in signing a letter urging the entire philanthropic community in California to join us in our recommitment to creating the inclusive California we know is possible, and to support advocacy and direct services organizations fighting to create safe and thriving communities across our state in the face of this new “public charge” rule. Read the letter, below.