EDMONTON -- There is no doubt in Georgina Lightning's mind that had an organization like Creatives Empowered been there when she first started acting, “intimidation and fear” wouldn't have been what controlled her life then.

Creatives Empowered launched late November. It's a collective of Alberta-based artists and creatives who are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) who empower each other as an allied community.

“Creatives Empowered would have been so valuable. It would have blown my mind,” said Lightning who has built a career as an actor, director, writer and producer in both the television and film industry. And all of that in spite of Hollywood.

In 1990, Lightning, a member of the Samson Cree Nation, left Edmonton to attend a three-year prestigious acting academy in Los Angeles. She graduated top of her class, won awards and was ready to take on any acting role.

“But once I got to Hollywood, I was completely heartbroken… I can play anything on the planet, but Hollywood didn't see me as that. The second I walk in they see an Indian. They see a race before they see talent. They don't even look at talent. They see a race. They see `She doesn't fit.' That's how racist it is,” said Lightning.

She soon learned that there were two seasons for Native Americans to audition. In spring, they auditioned for the western movies that were shot over the summer. Late in the year, they were called on for American thanksgiving productions.

In response to these lack of opportunities, Lightning eventually co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions and Native Media Network.

“I trained at a classical school so I could play any role, be considered an actor. I didn't want to be an Indian actor. I wanted to be an actor. I really truly believed if I worked hard enough, excelled, was a cut above the rest, I could make it. That would be my ticket… I was qualified, but they still didn't let me in. It did not matter what kind of credentials I had. So it was colour before talent,” said Lightning.

That is a story far too often told by non-Whites in the entertainment and media industries, says Creatives Empowered creator Shivani Saini.

“I think it's safe to say for anyone who is Black, for anyone who is Indigenous, for anyone who is a Person of Colour, that we would all collectively agree that this equity is long overdue. Now is the perfect time for us to start,” said Saini, who is South Asian.

Saini has worked in both professional media and the arts for 25 years. Among her work is marketing and communications director for the world premier of Making Treaty 7, and associate producer for the first seasons of the TV drama Blackstone.

Inequity, she says, manifests in a variety of ways: negative stereotyping; lack of acknowledgement of the talent of BIPOC; always being considered “emerging talent” even after years of experience; and the belief that hitting a “diversity target” means a mediocre project or result.

“Anyone who is Black, Indigenous or a Person of Colour who, for example, has found themselves to be fulfilling a diversity target somewhere can probably relate to the experience of being tokenized. And tokenism is in and of itself really discriminatory and racist.”

“I think it's safe to say it's just time for this to start to change. It's so exhausting for us to be walking into rooms, walking into spaces and for us to be tokenized, for us to be stereotyped, for us to be viewed differently because of these mindsets that exist about BIPOC or IBPOC talent,” said Saini.

It's an exhaustion that Lightning can relate to.

She remembers always having to work harder, always being worried about being seen as a failure, always pushing herself to be a better actor. And she remembers keeping her silence when she was the target of abuse.

“When you do speak up about assaults and abuses against you, they turn against you. It's like I'm the one who's punished. You learn (to stay silent),” she said.

Saini had been thinking about Creatives Empowered since 2019 as she had a “mixture of professional experiences within that year that were both really empowering and some of which were really disempowering.”

But it wasn't until the coronavirus pandemic hit that she had the time to develop the concept further.

And then there was the building awareness of inequalities, awareness sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, other Black people and Indigenous people.

“We really are living in an unprecedented time right now. I think there's just a tremendous opportunity we have to leverage what's going on to really create true equity within Alberta's arts and culture sector,” said Saini.

“We all know it's a necessity. The work has to be done,” said Lightning, who is back in Alberta working on a number of projects.

Creatives Empowered is an opportunity for BIPOC to support and encourage each other emotionally and financially, she adds.

“Now is the time for change. What are we going to do with a platform for moving forward? This initiative with Creatives Empowered it's about bringing Indigenous or People of colour into the fold, and not just exploiting them. It's empowering them, letting them be intellectual property owners and that's where the value is,” said Lightning.

Longer term goals, Saini said, is having Creatives Empowered serve as an organization that can find ways to work with key stakeholders in the Alberta cultural sector. It would become a resource or a point of access for the larger communities to tap talent.

“I think there is a tremendous opportunity to do a lot of the advocacy work by building those relationships,” said Saini.

Already Creatives Empowered has attracted a large number of members and that base keeps growing.

“I really do believe that if we can develop a really strong membership base then it's going to help to dismantle a lot of those negative stereotypes, because we're going to be able to show the cultural sector that we do, in fact, exist and that our talent is beautifully potent. It's really important, I think, for this space, this community to exist,” she said.

Membership for BIPOC individuals and BIPOC organizations is free and open to Alberta-based artists and media professionals. There will be a fee for ally organizations based on their annual operating budgets.

At this point, says Saini, Creatives Empowered remains a collective. That may have to change in order to access government funding or donations.

Saini and Lightning understand there is much ground to be broken down before equity for BIPOC is achieved in Alberta's cultural and media sectors and that it's going to take time.

“With the dialogue with racism and the global discussion on inclusivity and with all that's happening… it's time now. It's being shaken up by force and now everyone is forced to look at reality,” said Lightning.

“What I think is very exciting about the time we're living in is that I think we're actually going to be able to make some real significant progress even within my lifetime… I never thought I would see the kind of time we're living in right now where there's this level of awareness, this type of conversation happening around equity,” said Saini.