 So I think we can get started. Danielle already did it, but I'll do it verbally. Thank you all for joining this session. This is part of an arts, culture, and creative economies track at the SOCAP conference. We're thrilled that you have this at your conference and that we have the people participating here to listen to the stories that we're going to hear today. This particular session in that track is Artists as the Essential Healers of Truth and Reconciliation Work. There's been a lot of racial turmoil and discussion and protest and growth happening this summer, but there always has been really. And there has been work that's been going on for years. And in particular, there's work, Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Work that the Kellogg Foundation funded a few years ago. And both Jerry and Liz are participants in that cohort. And so they've been doing this work for two or three years. And we're going to hear from them about what that's meant in communities that they're working in, the differences in the communities, the similarities, why arts are central and why it's important to really recognize the historical context of any community that you're in, whether you're living in it or investing in it. So I have Jerry Hawkins and he's the Executive Director of the Dallas Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Organization and Liz Medicine Crow, who's a president and CEO of First Alaskans Institute and who I have the privilege of really being a colleague to and I'm inspired by her and my work in Alaska as many are. And so I'm hoping that this will be a conversation by being part of a cohort. Liz and Jerry have really interacted with each other quite a bit. So they are going to also have conversations with each other. And I'd like you to post questions in the chat and then at the end we'll try to go back and give you an opportunity. But it should be a pretty free flowing conversation. But just to be a little formal in the beginning to set out some structure, I wonder, I'll call on Jerry first, if you would just talk about the project itself, the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation just so we can kind of ground people in what started the journey that both of you are on and then I'll turn it over to Liz to do the same. So Jerry. Yeah, a lot of that should be introduced and it's just been part of a lot of the longer than I have, but I can definitely talk about my involvement from the TRST perspective. Just really gives TRST as an initiatives based on the work that has happened all around the world under TRCs, which are Truth and Reconsidering Commissions. And they happen usually when a country and the leadership wants to, you know, spend under an ethnic conflict or a civil war or harm that has been done to the indigenous relation of a country. We know very, very, particularly the rules that happen in Canada and Africa. And the local TRST, particularly the 14 cities and the 13 cities in the state of Alaska that are part of racial healing and transformation are attempting to do that work here in the United States. Right, another settler colony that is on land and it was built by stolen people. So we have never grappled with these. And, you know, from a TRT perspective, it is our opportunity to do that in a very local and a very local sense. You know, Alaska is statewide, so it's a different type of local, you know? But we're able to do that. And I think the other really important thing is that we're able to focus laser focus on our communities and into, you know, the free from indigenous times to present and also our community creative vision for ending racism very locally and also partnering with our TRT communities to think about that on a national perspective. And this global perspective is a global system of anti-racism work, so. Thank you, Jerry, that's great. And I'll turn it over to Liz and maybe you can talk about I guess you have been with this project longer. And I think that Jerry is referring to some of the kind of sessions they had in, whether it was in South Africa or in Canada and really kind of truth and healing sessions that really dealt with underlying, the same underlying issue of kind of power and the community that was there and how to get through that. But anyway, and then I'll turn it over to Liz to talk about your experience and maybe Andrew gives a little bit about Alaska. And to show, thank you so much, Alex for the invitation and to my brother, Jerry. This is like an action-packed day for him and I because we were doing another presentation earlier together. And, you know, I really just, I just really wanna go back in time a little bit for us here in Alaska. My name is Lagunae, I am Haida and Shinget. I am from Keith Kwan, the village that never sleeps. If you look on the map, Southeast Alaska and we're right about there and we're in the hearts of Southeast, Ani and also I just wanna acknowledge the virtual space that we are in, this unceded indigenous territory of virtual space. When we think about those land acknowledgements we also need to think about the virtual space that we are occupying as we come together. And so I just recognize that, that ancestral pole, that ancestral territory and the territory of our native peoples. And taking it back for us in Alaska, you know, this is intergenerational work. Truth, racial healing and transformation as an endeavor is the most recent manifestation of what our ancestors have been fighting for for the last couple of hundred years. And for us taking leadership from our community, from our elders, from our people as they continued to try to have people hear and see them for what has happened. And, you know, our people were calling out over the last 13 years through our racial equity dialogues that centered healing and policy shifting. They called out for, at the time, the common language was truth and reconciliation. Well, reconciliation is a false narrative because in order to reconcile we would have had to have started with good relationships but that's not the history of this country. That's not the history of Alaska. That's not the history of Texas. Both Jerry and I come from states who are outsized in their thirst for being the biggest. And the issues of race and racism are also part of that equation for both of our states. And for Alaska, about 13 years ago, we hosted dialogues asking our native people because it was the 50 years of statehood for the state of Alaska, the government of Alaska, the state government. And we would travel around the state to ask our native people, is this, you know, what are your perspectives on statehood? And they said, racism, bigotry, discrimination are still alive and well here. And we need to talk about it. We need to do something about it. And so we began this work of racial healing and racial justice. And again, now manifested as truth, racial healing and transformation which doesn't include the language of false narrative but does include the language of what we want to see as an outcome of creating spaces for truth telling, of writing wrongs, of intergenerational healing and then transforming systems so that they actually can support an equitable space for our humanity to prosper once again. So that's how we came into the work. And it's been awesome to do it with people like Jerry and others around the country who were in this work but also there are so many others who are doing it. They may have a different name for it but they're seeking justice and we can't have justice without healing and we can't have healing without truth. And so that's the focus of the work. So I'll finish to you, Shawa. Thank you for that. I think that with this audience and we just love that you're here to think about this if we're investing in communities, as I am, I'm sorry, I didn't actually introduce myself. I'm in charge of programs and grants at a family foundation in Alaska and we're really place-based in one of the largest, we are the largest foundation in Alaska. So we also invest in communities. And I think that we've seen in, definitely in recent time that if you don't address sort of what's happening in the place and what needs to be healed and how to move forward or including the people to move forward, it's just simmering there and it's ready to go because people do want justice. And I think, and I'll just share, I always do, it's one of my favorite quotes from the writings of Martin Luther King and he said, I went to law school so I really think about justice a lot. And he said that justice is the nation of love and it's only applied when love has failed. And so I think that if we remember that justice in itself is a part of it but if we can get in front of that and actually really look at people and really connect with people, then we don't need justice. Then there's not something to seek. But in the absence, we need to go for both. And what I'd like to do is hear from Jerry or Liz, how have you engaged communities? And I know you have several different projects, both of you, and maybe I'll just go back and forth and I'll just start with Jerry. How have you engaged people in communities to kind of hear what they have to say, kind of about the past, about recognizing now and then maybe we can talk later about how we're imagining a new future. If you talk about kind of just how it began. She has a lot of guiding principles. The first guide principle is that there must be an accurate and complete and very expansive retelling and recounting of three. That was the first step. We did what's the TRST guide because a community racial history or historical analysis of policy in place, race from indigenous times into present. And obviously what we found was stories that were not even just not told, but really erased particularly starting with our native communities, right? Our American communities in Dallas, Dallas is on the land of the cattle and the Wichita on the command. And you will find no sign of these nations existing in Dallas at all. There's no plaque, there is no memorial, there's nothing, but there are these stories not only from the community, but also in some of the texts that are saying that the same people who colonialized this space were responsible for the genocide and removal of the cattle nation out of Dallas, Texas. So, and then changed into Texas Indian Troubles is one of the names of the books or Texas Savages, right? It did not only them, but created narratives to erase. So that's the most important part for us, for our community is to start to capture and recapture and share the stories that the people have that they've been waiting for us to talk about. The second is a community vision. The second guide in principle says be aware of the kinds of community vision that is measurable. And so we wanted to find out what our community was thinking about. Number one is what is our, what are our histories? And everybody is very different, right? We have a team framework that tells us that these immigration and migration stories are linked, right? Everyone has an immigration or migration story, right? From the beginning of time, right? From the first person born in Africa, right? And migrated from this place, right? Everyone has one of those stories. And so we capture some stories. We also needed a story, because we all are human. We have a human shared story when it comes to a, right? In Dallas, there's a cowboy story, right? The Dallas Cowboys story, there's a state fair story. And a lot of these people in our community relate to the stories. And then we have to do some imagine to work. And this is really hard sometimes for some of our elders who have been dealing with the traumatic and very disparate effects of racism is to imagine a Dallas without racism and what it'll look like and how it would feel. Some of their responses was that I can't imagine Dallas racism. A couple of joke, go to the next question, you know? But we had some of our young folks in the room who were saying, let's think about this and let's work through this. Partner with the Dallas Public Library who has infrastructure in every community. And we held 11 sessions over 200 folks who gave us input on, you know, the Dallas would look and feel like without racism, what it'll take, who do we need to have in the room? And then we started at work. So that was the two things that we knew we needed to do before we did any programming or any type of partnership is to get those two things done. Thanks, Jerry, I love that. Particularly the idea that there's always been a migration and immigration story. You know, that's sort of the story of all of our land. I know I feel it in Alaska and it'll go to listen a second. But you know, I'm African-American and Korean but I was born and raised here. And you know, this is an ancient land and it's an Alaska native land in a very young little state, big, big state, sorry, big state, but anyway, we don't wanna, we always have to acknowledge how large our land is. But I know when I leave, my shared story is, you know, I went to college and everyone would say, do you feel more black or more Korean? And I would say right now I feel Alaskan because I don't relate to that. So I think there is sort of that individual story, kind of recognizing the past and then sort of what is that shared story? Anyway, I wanna turn it over to Liz and maybe you could talk also about how you've engaged communities. You talked about it already, you know, 13 years ago, sort of around state to 50 year statehood, but maybe you can elaborate a little more on share. Yeah, but you know, we take our leadership from our people. And so when we started to think about what does your HT Alaska look like, we went to our community and we held multiple different kinds of dialogues. And we asked, you know, what would a truth in racial healing process look like for Alaska? What would you want it to include? What wouldn't you want it to include? How do we go about doing this? Are people ready? You know, just kind of like really opening it up. And we held these in multiple different forums, places we got invited, conferences, native policy forums, you know, just within the community, all over the place where we could, so that we could get the benefit of their wisdom and experience to inform the way that we shape it. The other group that we really worked with were of course at our own elders and youth conference where we asked them the same thing. And this is, you know, 2000 elders and youth from around Alaska getting a chance to tell us what they think these things look like, what they should reflect, what they should be centered on. And as always, our people give us guidance, really good advice and guidance. The other is we tapped into our native healers and we asked them, how do we prepare a place for the truth to be shared? How do we take care of people so that we are uplifting intergenerational healing and not just causing intergenerational trauma and then taking their advice and guidance and shaping and creating forums that are created for us, by us, about us? And placing as central to that the people themselves as the receivers of the testimony that's shared in what we have crafted to this process, which are tribunals. Other processes seek to, and we learned this from going around the world, right? In the formation stage of what TRHT could look like, the Kellogg Foundation did some analysis of quote, unquote, TRC is around the world to get a sense of what worked, what didn't work. And really thinking about, you know what we need it to be is not political because racism and the things that have happened because of it, colonization, all of these kinds of things stemming from that original stem of this country. These are not political issues. These are social issues deeply rooted and seeded in the very foundations of this country. And so we have to figure out a different pathway. And so we centered our native values and our native people's wisdom, ancient wisdom and figuring out processes that can support that coming together in that uplifting and really centering on the ability to listen and to feel and to connect that heart and mind space so that we can actually transform and not make it centered on what political group is in leadership and placing that leadership within our community. So that's another way that our community leads is that they're the ones that are sitting around the table bearing witness and receiving these testimonies. And then they're going to be part of helping to shape how do we write these wrongs? How do we address these things? How do we create curriculum to steer us in a different direction? How do we create policy to transform these things? How do we intervene in the ways that we treat one another as people within our social systems? And so we're really taking a lot of guidance from our people at the same time. Some of those things that they have said to us is we have to lead with love. And Alex, to your point earlier in the absence of love is justice, right? We think about equity not as a subtractive or like Heather McGee was saying this morning, Jerry, not as a zero sum game, but actually it's additive and it's exponential and it's expansive just like love is. There's no end limit to it and what it can create. We have to do the work of dismantling those things that shackle us to this belief that in order for one to move forward somebody else has to suffer because that's not part of our narrative. That's not part of who we are. And we know that if you place native people, people of color and all of those expressions of the strength of that wisdom that we bring, we will completely transform the world, not just for us, but for everyone. That's beautiful, thank you Liz. So again, kind of speaking to the audience just to kind of remind you. So again, this is the art, culture and creative economies track and the session is where artists are the essential healers of truth and reconciliation work. And so you're hearing a lot about what that work is and I want to bring in the artist part. And I believe that many of us and in earlier conversations with the panelists, artists are seen as decorative and rather than really central. And in many of the projects when I came to the foundation I'm at now there is an artist component but there are components that have to do with recognizing the past, the future and imagining or the present and imagining the future. And I'm wondering if maybe I'll go back over to Jerry. Do you have any, could you comment on that and why artists are central rather than being sort of entertaining or decorative? Although often it is decorative but that's not the point. Yeah, particularly in our work in Dallas, the RHT art is central. Our first program initiative called Racial Equity Now. We just had our graduation today and Liz was so gracious to speak in our event. We had art at every session. And we just didn't have artists at every session to show their work and to have people auction off their art or to have a singer perform a song or a theater playwright act. We wanted to talk about connections between the real world and their art particularly around racial equity, racial justice and racial healing because that is our mission. And not only did they do that but they were able to talk about real things that were happening in our community and what that means for their art. One of our artists who was presented, Ari Briel did a series of paintings called Safe Place. And what she talked about was she felt that she wasn't doing enough for Black trans. Dallas, if you all, is the epicenter of the murder of Black trans, more Black women have been murdered in Dallas than any other city. She felt that she had to address that very important central topic when it comes to intersectionality through her art. We didn't just go and gawk and let her pictures. She actually gained somehow, the lack of protection to lack of vulnerability and a lack of being. It was amazing to have an artist express in very, sometimes difficult social problems through her artistry. And an artist there every time. So we had Angela Fahs, who was a great screen printer and artist, talk about Herbert and actually had our cohort members create their own art pieces. And so we view is not just performance but art is practice and it's like part of being human. And it's also a part of how we express and share our voice, particularly for people of color. So it's an important part of the work. It is not an additive, it is the culture, the way that we talk, the way that we express ourselves. I mean, I have art back there. It's our album cover, right? But it's graphic design. So it's part, literally part of our lives. We can't, it's the air we breathe. Yeah, that's great. I think also it's, you know, you were talking about kind of the shared narrative or sort of a shared vision of community. And sometimes the art actually just captures that and it's a way to do it. And also, to use a word that we use a lot up here, there are people who are culture bearers who are kind of maintaining the culture of the past and sort of making sure that stays present. And I wanna turn it over to Liz and see if you can address the same question about why art is central in communities or community building. Yeah, I'm gonna teach. I have a sister. Her name is Kate Charrington and she's a Maori from Aotearoa. And when I had a chance to be in her homelands and we were talking about these issues, she said something that has always stuck with me. And she said, art is the first revolution. And it's always been a pillar for me as I think about what that responsibility means. It is a responsibility for us to cultivate and uplift and affirm and strengthen and challenge the creation of art, especially by our people because it is that first revolution. It is the way of us. It is a portal. It is a portal to the truth. When we can't see it ourselves, it is a portal to the sacred when sometimes our lives lack it so much. It is a portal to connecting with our own spirit sometimes and driving us and seeking to share the world that we live in. I am Kutch Adi. I am a Yeik which means I come from the Raven people clan and my real clan, my true clan is Kutch Adi which is freshwater marked Sakai Salmon. We literally are Sakai Salmon. The expression of what that relationship is comes in the form line of our people. The art of our people expresses our identity. It makes us real. So when we think about the importance of art to what drives our ability to perpetuate ourselves despite all that has been done, it has helped keep us alive. When so much has been focused on us to destroy everything about who we are, our art gives us something to hang on to. And has carried our knowledge through that devastation. We look at our Ravens tale. People credit our Ravens tale with coming back through a non-native woman. And she was really important and she was a good person and she did good work. But you know who carried that on? Our ancestors carried it on because they learned how to translate that from that weaving into basketry because basketry is what the tourists collected. Basketry was the language of how to create our survival through time intergenerationally. Without our art, we would not be here. We would not know how to define ourselves or express ourselves. And so when we say it's the first revolution it's because it's the first thing that helps us know how to stand on our feet and know how to walk on our land and know how to be in relationship to our relatives, the other animals. And so when she told that to me it just was like a lightning bolt in my heart because she expressed something that I had lived. And Oscar Cawagli, who's one of our now ancestors a Yupik man who was a prolific artist, amazing artist as well as philosopher and storyteller and trickster. I had the chance to get to know him when I was in art school and I went to him just to learn from him and he was giving me some guidance about my own work and where I was at and the things I was struggling with to understand about our culture, our spiritual forms, how it comes into form line, all those things. And one of the things that he said, learn everything you can. He said, but never forget something really important. And that is, if all you ever do is copy what your ancestors did, you are practicing a dead art. That cut me, that cut me deep because at the time I was struggling to just copy what my ancestors did to just learn how to do their mastery. And what I finally understood when he said was we're responsible for carrying this forward. We have to know it, breathe it. It has to be part of us and then we need to add to it. It's our responsibility to challenge it and push it and grow it and express it and breathe life into it. And so when I think about how do we integrate that into the work for equity and justice? It is central and it is a pillar and if we cannot express ourselves through art then we're not gonna be able to seek and achieve that transformation that we have in the center of this work, that racial healing and moving into the building of a system that actually reflects what we want. Thank you, Liz. There's so much there that's really profound. I think for everyone right now, going through while we're in this pandemic and everyone's really thinking about community and what does that mean and how do you connect? I think it's a really great time for reflection and kind of grounding yourself in what is your community? So in a way, this is a great time to be thinking about these things. I think that people are gonna be thinking about things in a fresh way. And I'm wondering if Jerry or Liz, you could talk about, and you touched on that, Liz, what is the way forward and how do we ground ourselves in today and move forward because our communities do matter, whether it's the building, the gathering place, the park, whatever it is that's been funded or developed, it's a place there, it's a gathering place, it's a place for the people and how do we actually move forward? And you could answer this in any way. It could be an example of a project, a story. It could be just something you're working on right now because I think that out of this work that you're doing, the truth, racial healing and transformation is a way forward. So I don't know if either of you wanna answer that or you can talk with each other as well and ask. Answers, Laganiah, what are all the answers? Tell us all the answers. No, I think because, and Liz put this beautifully, because our ancestors have done so much, we don't think of that art that survives and that people pick up as a way of not just only resistance, but as a survival, but folks have went through so much and I don't think that we as a people understand the so much that our ancestors have been. And I think honoring it is to finding it and sharing it, amplifying the stories of resistance. We need inspiration during those times and I think those stories are inspiring and not only that, but they give us a blueprint for the way forward. None of these things are new that we're going through. We had a pandemic a hundred years ago and our people had to get through that. How did they get through that? So many people don't even know the story of people of color during those times, right? How did they get through these issues? And so it's really finding stories of our ancestors and doing that as well. I think another way to also think about it is, we have like, I think time is over for, you know, status quo type things. You know, we need very bold, imaginative ideas and nobody can do that better than artists and art. But I think we have to, like artists, you know, we have to stop thinking about what is here, I think about what is to come and what is not here. This world that we created or that it was created for us that we're living in, we all didn't put art in it and designing it. I know I didn't design the street outside my house that doesn't have a sidewalk, because I, right, so somebody can walk or maybe not have a sidewalk at all, covering up the ground and the ground can't breathe, right? So these things that we have here are not even created by their effort of people. And so what does the world look like where women are participating in the leadership in creating this, right? What does the world look like where black people are designing cities or black next people are designing bike lanes, right? We have no idea what that looks like as it hasn't happened before, but we can make it happen, you know? And we can do that now, we don't have to wait. So I just think, you know, finding those stories in history, because I'm a historian, and finding the blueprints, because there's a lot of blueprints that we haven't discovered. And then there's also blueprints that are being hidden from us very intentionally. Dallas is one of those places, it's a very historical place. You won't find many old buildings in this city at all. And definitely the stories of people who lived before this place was called Dallas. And so there's a group of us, particularly our American Indian Heritage Day, Angela Fahs, who was the artist, and some other people who are on this Arca Coast project. That is the original name, Arca Coast is the original name, the cattle name of the Trinity River. And we're trying to reclaim the name, particularly for Dallas. It's a lot of different ways of moving forward. And the main is the indigenous wisdom and practices and names. We claim in those for the places that we live in. Yeah, it just sparked an idea, just a thought in my head about all of that creative thinking that isn't being used really to design things or lead things. And we have all of these classes now, and especially in Silicon Valley on design thinking, and actually trying to untrain people from just following what was before to open and be expansive. And really there's so much design thinking that isn't being accessed in a lot of indigenous and communities of color. That's interesting, but that's a resource actually that isn't being utilized. Liz, do you have any thoughts you wanna share about that? You know, one of the things that I think about in terms of where we are now within the quote, unquote art world is, you know, and it's so funny to say it because it seems like it's something that has been being worked on for a long time, but the notion of what it means to decolonize art and to de-center Western paradigms of what art is and who are makers of art and who gets to define what it is and who gets to set the value, the worthiness of it. And as I think about that, one of the things that I'm really struck by, and this happens in so many areas of our lives, is that our native people are called on to do anything. And they have to wear so many hats and they get so overwhelmed and they're bandwidth so stretched. And so they're just constantly trying to chase, you know, all of these things to get them done because they just have so much work to do on behalf of our communities. And I think about that pivotal and central role for our communities. I wonder about how we can actually support our artists in the same way we support others. You know, there's in Alaska, there's the Alaska native science and engineering program ANSEP, which has been lauded as this really amazing program. We need an arts equivalence, you know. We need our people to know that their push for art, their centering of art in their lives and their communities is essential to our wellbeing and it needs to be supported. I think about how we tax our artists with being also small business owners and with also being marketers, which is completely antithetical to our value system. And to be able to have people like I see Lori Poirier here, you know, I see Anami on here commenting who are people who are walking the talk and trying to make this stuff happen. And we need to de-center the way that it has been set up now because it doesn't function that way for our people and their art gets buried and their art gets utilized as a co-optation of their voice instead of the intrinsic value it has for the shifting of policy and the changing of the narrative. And that's the piece that I'm super excited about seeing how that can get supported in the work going forward. So within TRHT, for instance, in Alaska, and I've loved seeing this and learning from Jerry and what they're doing in Dallas is about how you center that voice, that leadership without then making it their responsibility to also become policymaking advocates. Like we all have different roles and strengths and skill sets. So how can we have our artists like set forward really important like to our hearts and then have the policy wonks get in there and figure out what is that policy solution that they have just kind of reflected for all of us through their art expression into policy that actually is transformative within systems that would otherwise oppress them. And I think that that's not working within the system. That's creating what we want. So it's both an intervention and then also a creation of something that we... That's great. So I know we're getting close to our time. We have about 15 minutes. Danielle has invited people in the chat to raise questions or if you wanna make a comment and let us know in the chat. I think that for people who are investing in communities right now, so many kind of projects or maybe community buildings or it could be malls, it could be whole neighborhoods are strapped. Everyone's having to be resilient. Businesses are being asked to close, to open. But how do you tap in really, if you tap into the community and they own it, they're gonna transform it and they're gonna hold it and keep it moving forward. So what is it you would want funders to understand about community and investing in community? And that's something for you to think about. And what is it that artists need? I think that Liz started on that as well. And so maybe you two can just take a minute to think about that or if you have an answer already. I'm going off script. I think funders, an important, it's very important during this time for funders to realize that we're in as well, you know? I saw for the first time, some of the most old and wide ranging statements against racism that I've ever read, right? And these are from not only funders, but from businesses and corporations, from everywhere, right? Holding true to those statements, the hard work, take even harder work than what folks think they need. The race wealth gap, for instance, is so much that it's not only gonna take federal repair, like thing like reparations and healthcare for everyone that is not linked to your job, but it's gonna take local reparations. It's gonna take a reformation, right? A reformation of what we know to be true about everything. And so I think for funders to really start to invest in folks who are doing directly work on a very local level and not making them jump through rings of fire and spike pits and poles in order to get funds. And when they do have access to those funds to not restrict something that the funder thinks is important, I think that the people on the ground know what's important to their communities and to let them share freely with the work that they're doing because they need to do their work, buyers. Not only, I think we talked about this, Alex. There's a lot of investment in the medical field, right? And what we call it is R&D, right? This research and development. But that type of investment should also be done in the social sector, particularly with people who are doing work around racism. And artists especially, there's an artist on here with us too from Dallas, his name is Darryl Radcliffe. They're talking about how artists are so underfunded in Dallas, even though Dallas has an arts district. Dallas has a district that used to be the Freedmen's Town in Little Mexico. Supposed to be about art, but has no artist in it, right? No artist live there, you know? Yeah, press out. Right, these big organizations and so. It's really important that folks are funding people on the ground, people who are producing art that tells us what time it is and where we need to go, but also the people who are doing true anti-racism at a racial record working in indigenous communities. Working with black indigenous people of color organization that are led by those folks and just opening up the faucet, so to speak, and not putting those barriers in front of people. You know, as an artist myself in business and art as well, I was trained at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, right? One of the, what we call it, the premier institutes for art that has all the stolen art in it, right? I'm just thinking about the, you know, all of the art that belongs to all these indigenous people that are there that I studied. I had to go and draw these stoches of art. But what I thought about was that as an artist, why did I have to go here to have my art validated, right? For our communities, art, particularly like music, you know, visual things is really our basis of survival. My ancestors literally like escaped slavery through, right? Used, you know, drawings in the ground to direct themselves north or south or west or east, right? Off of these plantations. And so I think folks don't understand the centrality and if we can continue to invest in artists, particularly artists are addressing these issues that we're dealing with like health, race and culture that we can really like see a way forward. Some amazing artists out here that are really doing that work. Darrell Rack, who was here introducing to artists in our community called David Jeremiah. And his work is just sort of just smacks you in your face because he deals with, he doesn't hold any punches, right? And I think that is the power of art that can wake us up or slap us or hurt you though. But so it's a lagoonized point is that lighting both in our heart, right? So it's really important. That's great. So maybe building on that Liz, and I also wanna include a kind of expand on it a little with the question that Colin Stewart is asking about work that's been happening in his community in North Vancouver, decolonizing the school curriculum and how do we accelerate this happening everywhere? And I was going to also ask, what would we say to people? The first part of the question is, what do we wanna communicate to funders during this time? The second part is, what is the advice that people wanna start this conversation or start this process in their community or in their project? And if you have any thoughts about that? And I'll go to Liz first and then Jerry if you have something you wanna add to that. I would say for funders, one of the biggest challenges we have as funders and this is something, Jerry and I are both working in organizations that do fund work within our communities. And one of them is to realize that our communities know what's best. And if designing a partnership with a community means finding someone who's a right fit for your agenda is the process you use by which to fund into their work, to get those funds out of your institution and into that community, then you need to take a really hard look because that's the opposite approach to what is actually valuing and centering community leadership. What is the community's priorities? Fund them. Instead of funding them on a one year, two year, three year cycle, make a commitment to be a good relative and fund them for 20 years. Don't chase the new hotness, build relationship and allow them to pursue and do the work that they have identified as their priorities. Any other way is the same status quo that we have now and that's not getting us the results we want or aspire to or espouse. And so if you really wanna walk the talk, you gotta get the money into the hands of the people who know what's best for them and let them lead, let them decide how to spend it, where to spend it, when to spend it, what projects to create instead of driving it through your own agenda filter. And the same can go with artists. How can we actually fund our artists so that they can do their work? I heard recently about San Francisco starting to do like a monthly support mechanism for artists, what and how can we make sure that we're actually supporting artists so that they can continue to expand and deepen their work? We have to figure out ways of allowing us to trust them and invest in them without it being a hierarchical built on your status, selling yourself. Because if that's the case, so many of our most incredible artists will not be even looked at or noticed until too late. And so we have to figure out a decolonial structure for investing in our artists. And I think that also gets to how do you decolonize a curriculum because it's the same thing. Let your community lead you and push for it and don't operate at the speed of the system's comfort level because the system's doing what it's supposed to do. It's creating the results it's supposed to create. It's not invested in transformation. And the only way we can make that happen is to drive it. Yeah, I think, I mean, you've really hit on something. I'm Jeremy Gregg in the chat was asking if either of you'd seen any more participatory grant making where donors are entrusting their funds that people they seek to support, which is really exactly in a way what you're saying. Through a grant making one, let the people who you're trying to benefit make the decisions. And I also wanna notice I'm not may wrote, being a good relative and having relationship based outcomes and that's not something that we do. We have numbers based outcomes and the numbers aren't based on relationship or connection. We only have a few more minutes. And so I'm just gonna open it up to Jerry and Liz if there's something you wanna say in closing or if you wanna respond to any of those comments and I'll go back to Jerry for a couple of minutes. I think that, you know, I'm just really honored to be supporting the TRC work in Dallas, particularly as the one who is a native to another city. I'm originally from Chicago, Illinois. And I knew as soon as I landed in Dallas that this place was different than the place that I grew up in. And then I get to respect the elderly already here who are doing work by learning very deeply about the place in which I live. I committed to that wholeheartedly. And in Dallas we have a project that we were working on with our American Indian Heritage Day folks. It's called ARTICOSA. And one part of the, another part of the ARTICOSA project is we are all indigenous. And what that meant was that, you know, everyone is indigenous place, right? But we all don't respect the people who are indigenous to the place in which we live. How do we create a respect for indigenous people period, right? But also how do we create a respect for the people who are from a place and that are responsible for keeping the wisdom and the knowledge of the people who are now in share. And so it's really important for us to think about new and innovative ways to do these old things, which are solidarity with each other, right? To build our common humanity, right? One of the cool things that we did with that project was that we had kids' law colors take pictures with these ARTICOSA, we are indigenous, right? What it meant was that folks learned about the place in which they were from, right? That means white folks learning about Ireland or where, you know, because when you become white, you have to get rid of cultural heritage from the place you're from, right? It meant that, you know, folks who are from El Salvador started to learn more about history, right? And then they also learned more about the people who are from here, which is ultimately what we want to do, right? We want to respect each other's culture and respect each other's human beings and break down, you know, what Kellogg and folks like Laguna and other people created, what is this breaking down this hierarchy of human value that puts up these categories based on race and gender and class. And we only do that by being in a relationship with each other and learning about each other. And I think those are the most important things. I think if you are in a community and you don't know about that community, you have to do that work. That is personal work, but it is community. So that's my field, do that work for yourself. That's beautiful. Because it isn't about these other indigenous people, it's really about all of us being recognized for our own indigenous nature past and so that we can be present. I think that's great. That's sort of what takes away everyone's individuality when you're part of a system and hierarchy. I'm going to give Liz the last word, but first I also want to thank your Boine Center for the Arts for putting this whole track together. There's so much work going on behind the scenes. Really appreciate all of you in the chat. They also mentioned, you know, anyway, specifically Deborah Penelope Daniella and Deborah mentioned, you know, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts announced an investment of 250,000 and artist-driven given circle. So with that community having the artist actually making all the decisions, which I think in the first meeting people are a little bewildered. It's like, what does that mean? We get to do whatever we want. And so it'll be exciting to see. And I think somebody, Doug Schaefer, also shared the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking for people to take a look. Anyway, so Liz, I'm going to give you the final word. It's an honor to host you two and to moderate and have you share your stories. So I turn it over to Liz. And Cheshawa, I was thinking about two ways that I think would transformational. One is to make access to language learning as Indigenous people, as Native peoples of this country, make language learning and cultural learnings, the practice of doing our cultural work or artwork, make those free and accessible through every educational system that we have, including the university systems. Our language and our cultures are birthright. They were taken from us. They need to be given back. And the way that you do that is to make it accessible to everyone and allow them to be able to tap into it. Because when you invest at that level of learning all the way through our lives from birth to ancestor, we are going to create a regenerative impact that is intergenerational and that is actually going to make our artwork and our expression that much more powerful. And so I think that that is one place to definitely start. And as we think about how we can continue to uplift our artists to create that expectation that they're best and their continued perseverance despite everything is absolutely necessary, but not at the expense of their ability to also participate in the healing that they're helping bring to others through their work. So we need to be able to also create space for our artists to heal. That intergenerational healing is incredibly important. And to invest in them, taking that time to do that, but also to then offer the challenge of support so that they can then drive their art even further beyond anything that we can even comprehend. And that's what I'm really excited about because as we seek to create that space, it also helps us broaden out what we think about in this expansive territory of what equity will truly mean for us. So I'm going to choose how well for inviting me and giving me a chance to be with both Alex and Jerry who are two of my favorite people. So I'm going to choose how well. Thank you both. That was really wonderful. And I hope people are really inspired. Your personal story and your personal journey is part of your work. It's not separate. And it's not going to be really great work unless it really connects. So anyway, thank you everybody and we'll close out this session.