Black Lives Matter.
Black Music Matters.
Idaho ACDA believes music-making and choral music is a universal human experience and that choral music and education should be inclusive and equitable for all. We stand with our Black community members in opposing systemic racism and institutional violence in all its forms. We are listening. We see you. We are here for you. You matter. Idaho ACDA pledges to listen, learn, grow, and create a just and safe space for all. We all have a stake in this and acknowledge that we have not done our best to serve, uplift, and uphold the Black community.
Moving forward, we commit ourselves to:
- Embrace community and culture within literature selection, rehearsal rooms, performance practice, and score study
- Have the courage to engage in critical, meaningful, essential, and difficult conversations
- Amplify the voices that have been dampened over our country’s history
- Acknowledge when we have failed to be an inclusive community and to strive to reach out to those we have isolated within our choral organization
- Create regular opportunities to educate and program music of all styles written by Black composers
- Educate ourselves to the practices, compositions, and traditions of all styles
- Recognize it is not the responsibility of the Black community to educate White people about racial injustice
- Reject any acts of microaggressions; including hate, privilege, limited access, ignorance, and apathy – both conscious and unconscious.
We applaud the action and leadership of ACDA and NAfME, as well as our neighbors in Washington ACDA. Idaho-ACDA joins their stand with the Black community in opposing racism in all its forms.
Resources for membership
Recognizing Race in Language: Why We Capitalize “Black” and “White”
Ted Talks to Help Understand Racism
- Talks to help you understand racism in America
- The Danger of A Single Story
- Racism Has A Cost for Everyone
- Race: The Power of Illusion (PBS / Youtube)
Books to consider:
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
- How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- White Supremacy and Me by Layla Saad
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- So You Want To Talk About Race? By Ijeoma Oluo
- We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers in Multicultural Schools by Gary R. Howard
- Unchosen Me by Rachelle Winkle-Wagner