Black Lives Matter! Las Vidas Negras Importan! Justice for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Rekia Boyd, Laquan McDonald, and all Black lives stolen by police.
For the People Artists Collective has just released Brown Artists For Black Power (#BrownArtistsForBlackPower), a rapid-response graphics portfolio curated by Monica Trinidad.
The Brown Artists for Black Power portfolio was generated in immediate response to the blatant attacks perpetuated by some groups of non-Black Latinxs against Black people in the last several days in several Chicago neighborhoods (Little Village, Pilsen, North Lawndale, Bridgeport, etc.). While the uprisings against police/state violence after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis are exploding across the U.S., we are very aware that anti-Blackness has been used as a tool to divide oppressed communities throughout U.S. history.
As a hyper-local grassroots collective of Black & Brown artists, non-Black Latinx artists have heeded the demand to produce/curate visuals of Black & Brown solidarity in collaboration with For the People Artists Collective. This project came at the request of
- Black organizers, community members, and friends in Chicago who feared for their lives during intensified state/vigilante violence and
- non-Black Latinx community members called to de-escalate the violence in the streets.
Unlearning & challenging anti-Blackness is necessary and our duty as non-Black Latinxs. Even those who are already involved in movement & justice work. We recognize that mainstream Latinx media and culture denies and shames our African roots, and we celebrate our beautiful truths and intersections of AfrxLatinx cultures, the African diaspora in Central, South American and Carribean countries, and African immigration to those countries. There is so much work to be done to reverse the harmful homogenization of brownness in our society. We continue to stumble through utilizing a language that does not name Blackness, which is anti-Black in itself. We have a lot of work ahead of us in combating both anti-Blackness and the erasure of Afrxlatinx people. We fully acknowledge the dilemma and messiness, and continue to evolve our language, practice, and even this page, on a daily basis. We are in the process of collecting resources to produce a reading list by Black and Afrolatinx cultural workers across the country on anti-Blackness.
Download a zip file of all 20 graphics from AfrxLatinx, non-Black Latinx and Brown-identified artists in Chicago, the Bay Area, and D.C. Feel free to print, share, and utilize this free artwork on your social media platforms. Use the hashtag #BrownArtistsForBlackPower. Credit the artists in your posts, tag when possible, and try to make image descriptions for people who use screen readers.
All graphics are free and should not be sold or profited from. To utilize for fundraising efforts, please reach out directly to the artist.
For the People Artists Collective is already working on a second batch of new graphics to share on June 10th, 2020. If you are interested in submitting a piece, please email forthepeopleartists@gmail.com for more details.
As a reminder, For the People Artists Collective artist collective is made up of both Black artists and artists of color, so they do not identify as a Latinx organization. If you want to donate to their work, you can here.
—For the People Artists Collective
Artists: Jesus Barraza, Sam Kirk, Unapologetic Street Series, Grae Rosa, William Estrada, Chicago ACT Collective – Silvia Ines Gonzalez, Brian Herrera, Zitlali Yunuhem, Sara Briseño Torres, Miguel Lopez, Jenny Q, Nicole Trinidad, Jose (Lupe) Ortiz, Cristal Alba, and Veronica Giraldo-Puente
Download Brown Artists For Black Power portfolio here or on the For the People Artists Collective website.
Brown Artists for Black Power was originally posted on the For the People Artists Collective website.
#BrownArtistsForBlackPower
