For Immediate Release
September 20, 2021
Contact: media@colorofchange.org
COLOR OF CHANGE ANNOUNCES FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND HUB OF RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY TOWARDS RACIAL JUSTICE
#ChangeHollywood Writers’ Room Database of Experts and #ChangeIndustries’ Directory of Anti-Racist Trainers Are Critical Tools to Help Entertainment Companies Move from Words to Concrete Action
TODAY – Color Of Change, as part of their #ChangeIndustries initiative, is launching a first-of-its-kind hub with critical resources to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion in the entertainment industry. The hub includes the #ChangeHollywood Writers’ Room Database of Experts and the #ChangeIndustries’ Directory of Anti-Racist Trainers. The Writer’s Room Database is the first database focusing on increasing momentum toward racial justice, equity and making sure there are experts available to consult on any storyline that includes Black people. The #ChangeIndustries’ Directory of Anti-Racist Trainers is designed to help organizations truly change the status quo, break patterns and set new norms that empower, finance, and reward Black people and creatives of color in the industry.
Writers need to tap into a much wider range of perspectives to inform their storylines, characters, narratives, and dialogue. The #ChangeHollywood Writers’ Room Database of Experts is a resource to meet this need — at scale. These individuals and organizations have deep expertise across complex subjects, including police, prisons and the law; science and technology; social science, history and culture; government policy, advocacy and activism; health and medicine; and more. The experts in the Database include people who have worked across the criminal justice system, tech experts, formerly incarcerated people, academics, social issue advocates and more. Each expert is ready to help writers create accurate, authentic, balanced, and forward-thinking representations of Black people, communities, and culture through sharing real-life stories, surprising insights, technical knowledge and information.
Color Of Change’s comprehensive analysis of portrayals of Black people on television and their impact, particularly on Crime TV, Normalizing Injustice, revealed that inaccurate and incomplete portrayals of Black people in the media put Black communities in harm’s way. A major reason is writers’ rooms often lack the perspectives of people from these communities. In order to remedy this, producers and writers in Hollywood must bring in those with deep knowledge and firsthand experience.
“The legacy of racism in the entertainment industry is long and unforgivable,” says Amity Paye, Interim Chief Marketing Officer at Color Of Change. “With these resources, we are working to change this legacy of excluding Black talent, silencing Black voices and derailing Black careers by creating resources that empower industry allies, support interventions, establish new metrics and incentives, and create new accountability measures. Generating thriving Black futures in our country must include winning systemic changes in policy, culture, and practices that increase equity and reduce harmful impacts on Black people. The Directory of Anti-racist Trainers and Writers’ Room Database of Experts are resources that we created to help achieve this culture shift.”
Alongside the launch of this resource, Color Of Change has released a video, featuring experts Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey, Dr. Ruth Arumala, journalist Josie Duffy Rice and TV writer Sunil Nayar. The link can be found here.
In recent years, increased calls for racial justice have prompted workplaces in every industry to seek diversity training, making it an $8 billion-a-year industry. However, recent reports have shown that not all training is equal, with some vastly more effective than others. At the moment, there is no systematic way to distinguish between the many offerings.
To fill this void, the hub also includes the new Anti-Racist Trainer Directory — a comprehensive list of individual consultants and firms that Color Of Change believes can handle working with large business organizations and lead the type of work that truly results in meaningful change at those organizations. Available services include identifying and increasing awareness of racial inequities or unfair dynamics in a writers’ room, department or organization; leading workshops and developing recommendations to improve organizational culture; collaborating on the development of new organizational policies and practices; advising on hiring policies and searches; helping to establish accountability measures; and leading investigations of specific incidents or claims related to inequity, exclusion and wrongful treatment.
These tools are part of #ChangeIndustries, an accountability initiative from Color Of Change that secures commitments from cultural production companies in Hollywood, Music, and Fashion to embark on roadmaps for change and hold these companies accountable to those commitments to advance Black empowerment, safety and culture change. By providing a roadmap with five universal steps and industry-specific subcategories, complete with milestones, KPIs, resources and reporting, Color Of Change is empowering industry leaders to advance racial justice, change culture, and take action to ensure the industry is working toward racial justice rather than against it. For more information, visit changeindustries.org.
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Color Of Change is the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. We help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by over 7 million members, we move decision-makers in corporations and governments to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in the United States. Visit www.colorofchange.org