On Sunday, two weeks following the shocking killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the city’s leaders pledged to overhaul their entire municipal police department. The move could mark the beginning of a law-enforcement reform movement across the whole United States. This is a welcome phenomenon. Even conservative public figures such as Mitt Romney and George W. Bush are telling America that it’s time for change.

Yet it’s not just America’s police forces that have come under attack. One notable aspect of the response to Floyd’s death is that many of the institutions being assailed most scathingly are charities, media companies, museums, and arts organizations that have no direct connection to the issue of law enforcement. This includes the Poetry Foundation, a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) organization that was established two decades ago by a wealthy heiress to a pharmaceutical fortune.

While the foundation is well-known in poetry circles thanks to its magazine and blog, it’s difficult to imagine any subcultural silo more insulated from issues connected to street violence and police brutality. And yet, in an open letter signed by former awardees and contributors, the foundation stands accused of perpetuating “harm, exploitation [and] even trauma” against “people of color, disabled people, trans people, queer people and immigrants.” On June 3rd, the foundation had issued a solemn public statement announcing “solidarity with the Black community.” Ironically, it was the alleged inadequacy of this very statement that caused manifesto signatories to demand the resignation of both the foundation’s president and the chair of its board of trustees, as well as “a meaningful, well-researched acknowledgment of the debt that the Foundation owes to Black poets, [including] a specific acknowledgment of the harm done in recent years to Latinx poets, trans poets, disabled poets, and queer poets.”