SOMARTS STANDS WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER

SOMArts stands with Black communities today and always. We affirm that Black Lives Matter and remain committed to the fight against Anti-Blackness on personal, societal, and institutional levels. We ask that you please stand by Black lives.

As we mobilize for George Floyd and all Black lives stolen by the police, we join the Movement for Black Lives’ demand for elected officials across the country to divest resources away from policing in local budgets and reallocate those resources to healthcare, housing and education. SOMArts is calling on city governments across the Bay Area to defund their police departments and redistribute these funds to social services for Black communities. We look forward to seeing San Francisco’s budget proposal incorporating these priorities.

We are also calling on non-Black people of color, white people, and our fellow arts organizations to leverage their platforms for resource-sharing to amplify Black narratives and histories, and donate to Black-led organizations fighting for liberation.

We launched our Please Stand By campaign in response to a projected $45,000 loss in our annual budget caused by the COVID-19 related cancellation of our spring fundraiser. Funds raised by this campaign were intended, in keeping with SOMArts’ mission, to be invested in the most radical and socially conscious artists in the Bay Area.

However, although SOMArts has always believed in the power of art to enact change, we recognize that there is an urgent need to directly support the Black Lives Matter movement. We have chosen to immediately shift the goals of Please Stand By, our End of Fiscal Year fundraising campaign and, with the consent of our donors, we will evenly reallocate the funds we’ve received to the following non profit organizations:

BLACK LIVES MATTER
The official #BlackLivesMatter Global Network builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe.

TRANSGENDER GENDER-VARIANT & INTERSEX JUSTICE PROJECT
(TGI JUSTICE PROJECT)

Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project is a group of transgender, gender variant and intersex people—inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers—creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom.

For those seeking additional places to donate, please visit and support the following:

Bay Area Community Freedom Fund: Donations will go toward paying bail for protestors in the SF Bay Area prioritizing Black folks from Oakland and SF.

Anti Police Terror Project: The Anti Police-Terror Project is a Black-led, multi-racial, intergenerational coalition that seeks to build a replicable and sustainable model to eradicate police terror in communities of color.

National Bail Out: National Bail Out is a Black-led and Black-centered collective of abolitionist organizers, lawyers and activists building a community-based movement to support our folks and end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration.

Below is a list of Black healing and wellness resources:

Black Girl in Om: Website and podcast focused on meditation, yoga, and holistic wellness.

Black Emotional and Mental Health (BEAM) Collective: Collective of advocates, yoga teachers, artists, therapists, lawyers, religious leaders, teachers, psychologists and activists committed to the emotional/mental health and healing of Black communities.

The Nap Ministry: Online community that focuses on rest as an anti capitalist practice.

National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network: National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN) is a healing justice organization committed to transforming mental health for queer and trans people of color (QTPoC).

Live Another Day: Extensive information on mental health and substance use resources for people of color. Their mission is equal access to life-saving resources. They have guides for black, Latinx, Asian, and native people.


There are many avenues we can take as individuals to support the Black Lives Matter movement; it does not stop at donating. For non-Black POC and white people, it is vital to seek opportunities for education that do not rely on the unpaid labor of Black friends, family, colleagues, and community members. If you are trying to figure out where to begin this process, we invite you to visit the Anti Racism resources document.

We stand together in this fight to create a world that is just and equitable for all people to enjoy and to express freedom.