For many people, NIAD continues to be their ‘happy place’ – we’re still working with our contemporary artists pursuing exceptional careers.

However, this week, we’re also contemplating our role as advocates, activists, and organizers in the midst of undeniable truths. For our staff, artists, families, and care providers, it is a moment of action, as the California State Senate rejects budget cuts to our system. In the wider world, we must recognize the violence being done to our communities as our systems of power continue to brutalize black men and women. And in the Bay Area’s art world (and far beyond), we’ve seen a week of organizing to counteract anti-Asian discrimination in the time of COVID-19 – we hope, a time of learning for all of us. 

Now is the time to communicate with your elected officials to support the system of providers to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Please take action with the organizations that are mobilizing around the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, and Ahmaud Arbery – and let’s remember their lives. And join us in educating ourselves about how we can continually reinvent our approaches to race and class bias, recognition of discrimination and de-escalation of violence in our communities.

NIAD’s community is organizing to learn how we can do better in these roles all the time – we’d love to share in this with you. We don’t only have ideas to share, there’s a lot we can learn too – a newsletter with resources goes out to staff each week, and it would be easy for us to send your way.

Yours in action,

Amanda Eicher, Executive Director