“I got a call Thursday from the Seattle Symphony. It’s their annual fund drive and I’ve been donating every year for several years now. I like the symphony, unapologetically and lavishly,” writes Erica L. Gomez, a Seattle-based software engineer, in her blog on Saturday (1/16). “I wasn’t feeling well when the fundraiser called. … She gave me the usual spiel about how … they do lots of community outreach… I decided to be a bit combative and ask, ‘So does this outreach affect communities of color at all?’ … She paused and said, ‘You know I’ve been told I can say this, because this is very important to me’ … The Seattle Symphony provides classes, instruments, and teachers to schools in Rainier Valley, Othello, Columbia City, White Center, and other historically black and brown neighborhoods that wouldn’t otherwise have music education of this caliber…. [The fundraiser] is black and her husband is Latino and their daughter is part of this program now.… We talked about how very very few people in the audience look like us, and how we want to see more people who look like us. … I’ve never met another person who understands how much the symphony can mean to us personally, and how much we want to see it be accessible to people of color.”
Posted January 21, 2016
