USBC believes that a shared analysis and understanding of racism, its history, and its institutional structure is essential to building and maintaining healthy communities. Institutional racism, as opposed to individual bigotry or prejudice is systemic and is the intentional or unconscious subordination of specific racial groups through organizational practices and norms. This is why we established ARTI, The Anti-Racism Training Institute of the Southwest, to address institutional racism in New Mexico.
The Anti-Racism Training Institute of the Southwest (ARTI) grew out of the work of Albuquerque Project Change, a multi-racial, multi- cultural organization founded in 1991 to address institutional racism in New Mexico.
The work continued in collaboration with the Claremont Graduate College Institute for Democratic Renewal in Claremont, California under the leadership of the late John Maguire, and the University of New Mexico Public Policy Center.
Over the first decade of work it became clear that a major barrier to undoing racism is the lack of a shared analysis about what racism is. Even well-meaning people can’t agree about the basic definition of racism and therefore cannot forge alliances to uproot it.
In response USBC established ARTI as a permanent, community-based organization to take up the challenge through education and training.
ARTI periodically convenes workshops with leaders in five areas that profoundly affect the well-being of all New Mexicans:
Housing
Education
The Legal System
Community and Economic Development
Experts assist workshop participants to examine their institutional policies and practices, develop insights into how these policies and practices may perpetuate racial inequality, and what action is required for change.
ARTI also partners with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) of New Orleans to offer intensive, two-day workshops on Undoing Racism ©. The People's Institute is a national network of seasoned community organizers with decades of experience and an international reputation.
The People's Institute workshops expose the historical roots of racism and its grip on society today, while providing participants the tools for change. The underlying premise of the workshops is that, because racism was "done" by people, it can be "undone." However, racism can be undone only when we understand how it happened in the first place. The workshop unearths the historical origins of racism, teaching explicitly how, when, where and why racial hierarchies have been established and maintained in the United States.
ARTI’s predecessor, Albuquerque Project Change, was awarded the Ron Brown Corporate Citizenship Award by President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony in 1998.
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