Artful Rebellion: The Transformative Power of Artivism in the Struggle for Racial Justice for People of African Descent

UN Women has embarked on a global process of assessing and deepening its anti-racism work toward developing an intentional racial justice approach throughout its programmes.

Part of this work is approached in the context of its new 2023 – 2025 strategic plan, which identifies a new imperative for UN Women’s areas of focus: the need for “integrated approaches to address the root causes of inequality [including racial inequality]… by supporting positive social norms.”

The relationship between dismantling systemic racism through promoting positive social norms is a direct one, as described in the 2021 Human Rights Council conference paper1 related to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. There, special mention is given to the importance of dismantling one of the chief drivers of the structures that shore up systemic racism: the racial stereotypes and false characterizations that are embedded in social norms.

In other words, harmful racial stereotypes are foundational to the harmful social norms that perpetuate racial injustice.

In this regard, in its racial justice approaches, UN Women recognizes and pays particular attention to the critical role of the creative arts and “artivism” in changing the social norms and stereotypes that drive racism, as it has been well-established that deeply held beliefs and practices – the space in which harmful norms and stereotypes being perpetuated - are not easily changed by rational discourse. Artistic expression - from film to novels to poetry, visual art, music and song and dance and theater - is where profound shifts can take place, because they are acting on senses and emotions - those beliefs absorbed through the senses at early ages.