Letters – Read and Act – From Adrienne Pye, Director, Arts Marketing Hampshire

Thank you for giving such prominence to the Eclipse Report (ArtsProfessional issue 24, April 22).
The other week, I found a second-hand copy of Tunde Ikoli?s Scrape Off The Black, and read for the first time Philip Hedley?s preface in which he explains his own commitment to black work and workers in the arts. It reminded me why he is one of the few white British heroes in this arena. There are of course others, like Jude Kelly and Tony Clark, but mostly there is an inertia and an assumption that the occasional piece of programming or project work is sufficient to show willing – an inertia that deserves to be labelled institutional racism. Everyone should read the Eclipse Report, and apply what it says. Don?t leave it to someone else ? look at the BNP, look at Le Pen: the slightest hint of complacency that ?things are getting better?, allows back in the intolerable. I know we all mean well, but there?s a saying about ?good intentions?…