Dear Carolyn,
As you know, one year ago I was assaulted outside my studio at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. On February 22, 2020, four African-American boys verbally and physically assaulted me. The experience was traumatizing and frustrating, but I was fortunate to get out of the situation without much physical harm. That night I chose not to call the police on the 11-12 year old boys who attacked me, because they were Black children, and I live in America. I know better.
That night, before the boys moved from verbal to physical attacks, I tried to convince them to leave the scene so that they wouldn’t have the police called on them. They were carrying a very obviously fake gun (grey plastic with an orange tip), shouting obscenities, and clearly trying to start trouble. I was afraid for myself that night, but I was more afraid for them. I worried that they might come across someone in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that we were in who wouldn’t just roll their eyes at their bad behavior. I worried that someone would see four threatening monsters instead of four obnoxious kids, and call the police on them. I worried that those boys would be murdered before they’d have a chance to learn from their mistakes.
I spent about 10 minutes confronting the boys, yelling at them with my best “Black Auntie” voice, trying to convince them to leave. They did, but not before two of the boys threw rocks and a brick at me, while the other two looked on nervously. Once they realized that they’d been seen physically assaulting me, they all ran away. The rocks and brick hit me on the chest and legs, causing minor bruises and a lot of anger. I was freaked out, but ok.
I reported the assault to the fellowship, and as you know, I found your response to my report deeply troubling. In addition to a surprising lack of an immediate compassionate reply from the Executive Director of the program, I was told that I was at fault for causing the attack on my person. This egregious act of victim blaming occured after I approached you in the hallway of the fellowship building to inquire about the fellowship’s plans for addressing what had occurred. You refused to speak to me in that hallway, and immediately thereafter sent me a series of emails and letters indicating that I’d violated fellowship policies by approaching the boys before they attacked me, and for speaking to you about my concerns in a manner that you found threatening and hostile. You had the fellowship’s lawyer summon me to a meeting to discuss my contract violations, giving me no time to acquire my own legal counsel, and threatened to remove me from my fellowship position if I did not comply.
I attended this meeting on March 2, 2020, without my own legal counsel present, and was subjected to further accusation. During that meeting, attended by you, your lawyer Carolyn Janney, and the fellowship’s Communication Director, Abbey Mashunkashey, I was chastised for various contract violations. In addition to making you uncomfortable by speaking to you, I hadn’t given enough glowing praise to TAF on social media, and I’d “endangered myself and other fellows” by confronting the four boys instead of calling the police on them. When I reiterated that I made the choices I’d made because I was dealing with children, Ms. Janney told me that in her professional experience working with youth offenders, she had found it best to not consider children as children.
I’m writing you this letter, Carolyn, knowing full well that you won’t reply. I know this because I haven’t heard from you, or your lawyers, since I left the fellowship in August of 2020, several months before my contract was due to end. I moved my studio and apartment, and left behind my primary source of income in the middle of the pandemic because I’d spent the previous several months since that March 2 meeting trying to get you to take the slightest bit of accountability for your actions. I wrote lengthy letters about my concerns to you, the rest of the staff, and your supervisor, Stanton Doyle, at the George Kaiser Family Foundation. In those letters I outlined my frustrations about this series of incidents, as well as the repeated poor treatment I’d been subjected to at your hands since starting the fellowship. You’ve persistently responded to my concerns about your behavior and leadership by accusing me of unprofessional, inappropriate, bullying, aggressive behavior. You’ve gaslit me about your troubled leadership and deeply disrespectful behavior towards me as well as towards other peers within the program. This includes incidents of censorship, inconsistent communication about funding allocation, nepotism, favoritism, and attempts to change, damage or destroy artists’ work.
You targeted me for ongoing poor treatment because I was unwilling to capitulate to your lies and gaslighting. I wasn’t willing to pretend that you were doing a good job or that your actions weren’t harming me. I wasn’t willing to pretend that I didn’t see your actions harming my peers and friends. I wasn’t willing to take whatever treatment you felt I deserved in exchange for the housing, studio space and stipend that the program offered. I was lucky enough to have enough savings and a grant from another regional arts organization to support me when I left. You should be deeply ashamed knowing that others in my position might only be sticking with you because they don’t have any other choice.
I finally decided that I was done dealing with your constant abuse and lying when I watched the Tulsa Artist Fellowship make public gestures of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. You weren’t the only organizational leader making vague public pronouncements about solidarity with Black people during June and July of 2020. I wasn’t the only Black person to roll their eyes at their white boss or director as they capitalized on the deep cultural and political work being done by Black activists and their allies. However, I simply couldn’t stomach watching you make claims about your desire to “do better” while you were actively punishing me for my attempts to protect Black children from police violence. I have too much self respect for that.
Carolyn Sickles, you have continually abused your power and done deeply harmful things to me and other members of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship community. Your actions are deeply racist, and your profound inability to have any accountability for the harms you’ve done make you unsuited to a position of leadership. However, thanks to the white supremacy and lack of integrity demonstrated by the people who enable you (Stanton Doyle, Ken Levitt, and the rest of the George Kaiser Family Foundation) you won’t have to apologize or make any sort of amends. At best, you’ll continue to ignore and deflect responsibility. At worst, you’ll use your position of power to attack me and accuse me of participating in “cancel culture” because I’m speaking publicly about your shameful behavior.
I’m not worried about your ability to ruin my reputation locally or nationally, because despite your best attempts to pretend nothing is happening, your terrible leadership is the worst kept secret in the art world. I’m not perfect, and I know that there are people who find my willingness to air dirty laundry unacceptable. However, that hasn’t stopped me from collaborating with many amazing artists and arts organizations in Tulsa and beyond. If anything, leaving the Tulsa Artist Fellowship has opened me to more opportunities for connection. I find it so much easier to authentically engage when I’m not contractually obligated to pretend that the organization I work with is run ethically and competently. My appreciation for Tulsa and Oklahoma has deepened since leaving, so I guess at least one good thing came from your unrelentingly racist and unprofessional behavior.
I’ve written a variety of versions of this letter before, trying to capture the depth and breadth of damage that you’ve done to me. It was incredibly difficult because there are so many different incidents to choose from, and that doesn’t even include the horrific things that I’ve seen you do to other people. By speaking out, I also risk alienating myself from peers who are still in the program who may feel implicated or threatened by me calling out your bad deeds. That is incredibly sad to me, because the BEST part of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship was the connections I forged with other artists and writers. Being in that program with you felt so much like living in an abusive household. All of the kids figure out ways to survive; some capitulate, some dissociate, and some run away.
Carolyn, it is incredibly cathartic to finally be able to say these things to you, despite my suspicion that you won’t take any of this to heart. I’m not sure what happened to you that makes you so profoundly and deeply insecure, that you can’t simply admit to making mistakes. You’ve been so unwilling to admit even a modicum of responsibility for your actions that you’ve ignored petition letters from my peers attesting to their concerns for my well being. When my lawyers filed a federal employment discrimination complaint against you, citing Americans With Disabilities Act violations and the hostile workplace that you created for me, you refused to respond on grounds that I was an independent contractor and not an employee. I haven’t heard a word from you about this, or anything else, when I left the program. You didn’t invite me to do an exit interview or even acknowledge that I was leaving, other than to ensure that all of my belongings were removed before any of the new fellows arrived at the studios. You didn’t even give me one of the Rose Rock paper weights that all other departing fellows were offered at the end of their term. I can only presume that this is because you knew that if you confronted me again, I would continue to demand that you acknowledge the damage that you caused. I suppose this is my exit interview.
Owning our mistakes and making real commitments to change is one of the most satisfying and worthwhile things that anyone can do. I made the mistake of taking a wealthy, top-down, white led organization at its word when it claimed to be interested in my growth and wellbeing as an artist. I am learning from that mistake, and putting my best efforts towards moving forward with new insight and commitment to do better the next time. I hope that eventually you’ll learn to do better too.
Yours Truly,
Naima Lowe