10/07/2024
📢 A Call to Action: Addressing Negligence and Exploitation in Boston’s Black Arts and Culture Sector
To our community of Black artists, activists, culture bearers, and grassroots organizers in Boston, we feel it is necessary to publicly address an issue that we had hoped to resolve within the confines of our community. For months, Rebel Cause Inc. has made repeated efforts to engage with the Dorchester Art Project (DAP) to resolve issues regarding the exploitation of Black labor and leadership. Despite our attempts at privacy and good faith efforts to seek resolution, DAP’s repeated negligence and failure to follow through has left us with no choice but to take this public.
This is not the first time DAP has been called out for their practices. In the summer of 2021, DAP’s own tenants organized a rent strike in protest of being underserved and overused for clout while the organization failed to provide promised programming and resources . Unfortunately, DAP’s dismissive response to their demands echoed the disregard we have faced in our own efforts for dialogue.
At Rebel Cause Inc., we hold firmly to our grassroots values of mutual aid, equity, and transformative justice. Internally and externally, we believe in healing harm, fostering accountability, and centering the voices of those impacted. This conflict is not about division—it’s about protecting the integrity of our community and ensuring Black labor is treated with respect and dignity.
We are calling on DAP, Boston artists, activists, culture bearers, and peer grassroots organizations to engage with us in a transformative justice resolution. Together, we can build reparative solutions that ensure no more exploitation of Black talent and leadership in our creative spaces.
This is about our future and our community’s well-being. Stand with us.