Anti-Racism: Beyond Allyship for Cultural Leaders
// creative industries // Creative UK // Diversity & Inclusion // Thought Leadership
Following the publication of Creative UK’s Diversity Leaders Report: Benchmarking Leadership Diversity in the Creative and Cultural Industries, Keith Saha, Artistic Director and co-CEO of Creative UK member 20 Stories High, reflects on the state of allyship within the arts.
Keith Saha
The recent Creative UK report on the lack of diversity in arts leadership makes for grim but familiar reading, but for many global majority leaders, it simply confirms what we already know – that power in the creative industries still sits in the same white, London-centric circles, and that progress has stalled.
If anything, the mood has shifted to one of quiet apathy, which feels like a full handbrake turn on all those post-George Floyd promises, despite the hope and practical guidance offered by brilliant initiatives like Inc Arts’ Unlock Toolkit, which showed the sector what real anti-racist action could look like.
The last 5 years has seen a startling rise of the extreme right in the UK – with race riots in major towns and cities and increasingly tribal and polarised conversations. The rise in racist and religious hate incidents is not just the result of a right-wing agenda, but also by the inaction and silence of the left, which has allowed these attitudes to spread through every fibre of our society, which of course includes the arts.
At 20 Stories High (20SH), we have been on a long journey with our anti-racism strategies.
Since 2006, we have made work with and for global majority/working-class young adults and their communities, both in Liverpool and nationally. Like many global majority-led organisations, many of us have been doing two jobs at once: making the art and being activists, pushing the arts sector for cultural and structural change.
So, what have we discovered over this time? What are we still learning? And what does “doing the work” really mean in practice?
Back in 2021, after the release of Unlock there was a definite change in the air, many artists were speaking truth to power, most notably with the landmark publication of Barbican Stories. Many organisations, leaders, and boards were in a state of flux which resulted in many changes across the sector.
Inspired by this, 20SH convened a group of global majority artists and led a Truth and Reconciliation process with the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse where global majority staff and artists from the past 20 years shared their stories and challenges and held others accountable for their part in institutional racism. This helped shift significant cultural change and a change in leadership; something I wrote about in the anthology My White Best Friend – North.
After this episode, we felt emboldened, but also exhausted from years of carrying the emotional and mental load that anti-racism work demands.
So back at 20 Stories High, we began to look hard at our own practice and our own bumps and challenges with how we have conversations and offer support. The first thing we did was take a hard look at allyship: how white leaders in our company could lead or co-lead on anti-racism. This work was guided by two influential texts: The Good Ally by Nova Reid, and Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad.
As the work developed, our culture began to shift in tangible ways. Something lifted and I felt incredibly fortunate to work alongside such a committed board and colleagues as we re-examined our practice. How we support our global majority board, team, artists, production teams, audiences, and of course participants, began to radically change (it is also worth noting that we continue to learn and build on that foundation, embedding structural and cultural change and deepening our understanding of intersectionality across our female, d/Deaf/disabled, and LGBTQ+ stakeholders).
These might sound like obvious strategies to some, but from our partnership work and conversations with freelancers, it is clear that often Global Majority leaders and staff are still carrying the mental load, and that there has been a painful backsliding on anti-racist commitments.
In recent months, publicly funded arts spaces have become uneasy stages for old patterns to resurface. We have witnessed comedians telling racist jokes, left-leaning experts using racist language on post-show panels, and global majority artists, staff and other stakeholders feeling unsafe and unsupported to work with specific venues in predominantly white communities.
All the while, white leaders have struggled or failed through a mix of paralysis, indifference, or collusion, while Global Majority leaders have been left feeling stranded by their teams and boards.
So, what should happen next? What needs to happen in terms of Anti Racism, Allyship and Action?
The first step is for boards to step up and hold themselves and their executives accountable.
At 20 Stories High, we’ve also been exploring how white leaders can move beyond allyship into direct action.
Nova Reid reminds us that this means moving from performance to partnership, where white leaders share power, risk, and responsibility. It means forming accountability circles where white leaders hold one another to their commitments. It means intervening when racism shows up, not interpreting it later.
And above all, it means building multicultural coalitions that centre joy as well as justice.
The arts is a place where stories are shared, where people seek belonging, and we need safer spaces more than ever, experiencing and taking part in the arts in ways that help us process the world with care, rigour and joy.
As I come to the end of my 20-year journey at 20 Stories High, I want to thank an amazing team, board and community of young people and artists who have been on this adventure with me, and who have always given me hope and I know will continue to do so.
