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White supremacy is not something easily solved in our society, with millenia of problems to counteract. Yet, the scale of the problem should not be a deterrent to action. A previous post helped set up the meaning of the phrase white supremacy, but it is useful to continue to discuss the term.
Most of the actions that support inequity and the power position of white society are subtle and constant. Inaction is a form of action. For example, when museums do not discuss race, they are choosing to maintain the current order. Museums have a great opportunity to help increase equity in our society.
What types of actions are white supremacy?
This diagram can help clarify the types of issues that contribute to the culture of white supremacy. Many more actions occur daily at the lower level of the pyramid. Those actions create the foundation of society, and in many ways, form the culture upon which the more overt actions occur. While the overt actions are shocking, the covert actions are often more pernicious. Understanding these covert actions, and then need to subvert them, is the first step in transforming white supremacy. After all, as many protest signs have stated, white silence is white compliance.
What are some examples?
Communication & Signals: Sharing ideas that ignore race or imply issues about race
Most institutions have a style guide that (hopefully) ensures communication consistency. These documents are the organization’s linguistic choices codified and formalized, servings as the editor’s measuring stick for all textual output. Organizations often focus on certain elements of the style guide, like brand issues, but ignore cultural competency issues.
For example, many organizations continue to use the word “slave” over “enslaved person.” Any long-time label writer can attest to the horror of wasted words. But, at organizational level, this choice places the need to maintain word count over expressing a nuanced understanding of the humanity and horror of the state of enslaving people.
Solution: Work with bias trainers to refine your style guide.
Writing about collections is enormously challenging. Writers are working with limited space and unlimited possibilities; visitors are completely variable in their desires and needs. Every exhibition is mounted as a good faith effort to balance the organization’s need and the visitors. Yet, very often, exhibition planners (curators, educators, designers, etc.) do not consider cultural competency issues, like race, when working through their installations. When space is at a premium, intellectually and physically, interpretation often decides to focus on the issues that can be tackled easily. Avoiding issues like race, colonialism, etc. only serves to support the status quo.
Solution: Lead conversations during interpretation planning to discuss the ramifications of decisions.
Marketing photographs are usually chosen to project the ideal audience demographic, a visualization of the diversity the organization seeks. This racial diversity is often unfulfilled dream. Visitors attending the organization, expecting a certain audience demographic, find themselves amongst a different audience entirely. Using images that misrepresent the audience is dishonest. They set up expectations for the incoming visitors. If the organization is not actually prepared to make those visitors comfortable, for example if security and front-line staff have not had extensive cultural competency training, visitors will suffer.
Solutions: Be purposeful in your imagery choices, and ensure your staff is prepared for changes to your audience demographics
Gallery sequencing might feel easy, following a canonical path. Art museums might choose to set things up according to the chronological march of time. Natural history museums might choose to split organic and inorganic specimens. But, every choice is imbued with cultural norms, often dripping with white supremacy. Natural history museums, for example, often hold collections of native American art, though don’t hold corresponding collections from other American cultures. The placement of these galleries can project uncomfortable and inappropriate meaning. Placing native American collections near collections about the evolution of man, for example, can imply Native Americans are less “evolved.” Certainly, curators might not believe this, however the space juxtapositions can still imply this to visitors.
Solution: This problem can be incredibly hard to solve. Gallery cannot easily be moved without massive financial ramifications. If you are in the position to do a resequencing, spend time talking through the choices, ideally with a bias consultant. However, if not, then find ways to communicate challenges with your visitors. Meet any possible misunderstanding head on with your interpretation.
Decision-making: The business of running museums can maintain the current status quo
Tokenism: Hiring practices in museums can certainly be a full blog post. But, in short, the credentialing-based hiring and unspoken requirement of unpaid internships ensures that staff positions are drawing from a small privileged group of applicants. Museums often expand their applicant expectations, say for community engagement positions. In other words, people of color are being relegated to a few jobs associated with working with people of color. Basically, these hiring practices bring a few individuals into the existing culture, all but maintaining the current order.
Solution: Again, this could be the subject of a blog post. But, internally, the issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access need to be considered thoroughly and thoughtfully. Hiring in staff without internal change only exacerbates the problem.
Community Engagement: Engagement programs can be incredibly transformative for organizations, but only if they allow for the transformation. When such programs are siloed, their impact on the organization is localized. In other words, community engagement often supports the status quo, creating a culture of special interest (segregated) programming that runs in parallel with the general programming. For community engagement to truly transform white supremacy in an organization, it has to become central to all work and the job of everyone.
Solution: Leadership needs to make transforming the audience everyone’s job, then they need to increase internal capacity across the board to do so.
.@NewarkMuseum making the choice to show that artists matter even if culture and colonialism have helped history lose their names. Good job curatorial and Interpretation teams. #MuseumsareNotNeutral https://t.co/V8CjWUSi6K
— seema r (@artlust) August 5, 2018
Thanks to Hrag of Hyperallergenic on his post about Newark Museum’s labels that got me thinking about this topic. The Newark Museum is obviously doing something right, as they have made the decision to move away from anonymous.

domain: sociology


A $4 million government subsidy will help the Waitangi National Trust survive the effects of Covid-19.
The trust is responsible for managing the historic Waitangi Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands.
It is believed to be the first time the trust has received government funding for its baseline operations since it was established in 1932. The funding comes from the Arts, Culture and Heritage Budget.
Trust chief executive Greg McManus said the funding was a huge relief, because it had relied on tourism revenue.
"With international tourism gone for the foreseeable future, the trust faced some stark choices, including closing to the public and laying off most of our staff," McManus said.
"With this funding, the trust can continue to operate and play a leading role in the recovery of the tourism sector in Northland."
The trust kept permanent staff employed during alert levels 4 and 3, but paid out seasonal staff until the end of April.
The Treaty grounds reopened to the public last Saturday.
Trust chairperson Pita Tipene said he was grateful for the funding.
"Our mission is to demonstrate the ongoing promise of Waitangi to the world and this funding will enable the trust to continue to deliver on that mission," Tipene said.
"I encourage all New Zealanders - Māori, Pākehā and new New Zealanders alike - to visit Waitangi during this time, when the usual crowds of international visitors are absent.
"It is a perfect time to reconnect with Waitangi and with our shared heritage as citizens of Aotearoa."