How Are We Centering Equity in this Time?
The past few weeks have been an intensely confusing time. The rapidity of the progression of COVID-19 and our understanding around it guarantees that every new day seems like a new year. I’m sure, like many of you, I have been feeling a roller coaster of emotions—anxiety ranging from personal to global to concerns, tempered by the kindness I have seen in communities coming together to support one another.
The one solace I am finding in these times is in maintaining connection with family, friends, and colleagues virtually. So it is in that spirit that the MASS Action network gathered last Wednesday as a space to discuss concerns, needs, and resources. And to remind ourselves that we are not alone, and we are in this together.
We gathered around a question proposed by Cris Scorza: What does equity look like in a time of museum closures? Many in our network have been asking: How we can support and advocate for colleagues through layoffs? How can we continue to approach our work from abundance even as resources are scarce? Our group came together online to discuss where we feel supported in this, and where we feel challenged. Here are the high level takeaways from our call, which we’ve anonymized in order to preserve the safe space in which our conversation took place. (Thank you to ALL those of you who were on the call and contributed your insights to the following post.)
Uncertainty & Grief
There was an overwhelming sense of uncertainty. When can we reopen? And when we do reopen, when will we feel financially stable again? When we will be able to bring staff back on, restart programs and partnerships? We heard museum staff describe living in this wait-and-see situation, and the frustration of this compounded by the isolated from colleagues, particularly those who are making decisions without us, on our behalf.
One of the call participants introduced the emotion of Grief into the space. Grieving for loss of income, for partnerships interrupted, for programs ended, for ground and momentum lost, for colleagues going through layoffs, for communities suffering. How do we give ourselves space to grieve while also being a support for staff, colleagues, community members who are feeling these emotions? We are not alone experiencing this emotion. I have seen several articles on the topic of grieving in this time from NPR to Harvard Business Review.
Responses/Resources/Reminders
There was also concern for our myriad communities. How do we still support our youth, our teachers, artists, and community members? How can we center those who were already living in precarity?
Feeling the need to “respond” quickly and immediately was a big topic of conversation. Many museums are producing a large amount of digital content. One museum described their ability for rapid response, shifting resources from physical space to public/outdoor spaces that are them posted digitally. This allows them to pay honoraria to freelancers and artists, while also offering an opportunity for their audiences to stay connected virtually. Art museum participants on the call also shared a list of “artist relief funds” that have been generated all over the country, such as Portland Area Artist Relief, Columbus Artist Relief Fund, Springboard’s Emergency Relief in Minnesota. (There are some really creative responses being generated making museums more accessible than ever—so how can we sustain these even when we are reopen?)
The idea of real-time response feels urgent and necessary, but it is also a source of frustration for some staff who have already experienced budget cuts, or for those in larger institutions whose bureaucracies slow response time. Kaleigh Byrant-Greenwell chimed in to remind us to take a breath and be gentle on ourselves because, as one of her colleagues says, “No one is going to win quarantine". This is a good reminder that urgency many of us feel to quickly produce the most digital museum content the world has ever seen is causing stress and strain on staff who are already feeling stress and strain from the reality of the global situation we are in. Our urgency around productivity is not helpful, and as my colleague Alice reminded me, it is also a characteristic of white supremacy—now it’s just remote.
Institutional Health & Stability
This urgency around visible productivity may also be a symptom of the inescapable reality that most museum workers are feeling intense job insecurity. News of museum hardships was heavy on our minds, as colleagues shared stories of layoffs at MOCA, Science Museum of Minnesota, Tenement Museum, Portland Children’s Museum, OMSI, and many others. A spreadsheet circulating on social media details the Museum Staff Impact during Covid-19 and how far-reaching it is.
Participants detailed the various approaches their museums are taking towards staff during this crisis, of which the vast majority fell in the category of:
Financial. Most museums are looking at this as a bottom-line issue. Where are the budget shortfalls, and where/how can we make them up? For many institutions, staff salaries and benefits comprise half, or more than half, of their total budget. [AAMD 2019 Salary Survey] When looking to make cuts, it is often most expedient to look first at the human resources.
But are there other ways to approach this crisis? Some other ideas for approaches that were much-discussed, with few examples, were:
Ethical / Values-Based. A few museums talked about centering their values, making sure they were making ethical decisions, and doing what they needed to prioritize staff compensation, committing to keep everyone on payroll over the next few months.
Creative. There is a real need to be creative in this time. If we are truly in an “unprecedented” situation, should we not be looking at unprecedented approaches? Could this be a time where we work together creatively to find innovative solutions?
Empathy. Gretchen Jennings of Empathetic Museum pointed out the deep divide museums who are going straight to the bottom line for mass layoffs versus those who are trying to “divide the pain” or share the burden. How are museums thinking about staff? What is the intention? How could we use an Empathetic Framework for decision making, and work together to keep going? And, when we can’t keep going anymore, how is the news shared with staff—how is an empathetic approach used in communication?
Equity. Obviously MASS Action participants are thinking about and asking how we can shift the conversation towards equity in all of this. The idea of pay cuts and layoffs, as necessary as they might be, are challenging at any time. But a layoff resulting in the loss of health insurance, which is more critical than ever right now, could be devastating. Pay reduction is also difficult in a field that is already known for underpaying its workers, so how can a pay reduction now be more equitable moving forward?
How do we keep EQUITY at the center of our discussions?
A few people pointed to the NY Times article about the Met’s financial loss as a missed opportunity. While the conversation around finances has primacy right now, and yes, institutional fiscal health is important, there are impacts beyond financial. As we are seeing all over the country, this crisis is exposing underlying structural inequities. People are feeling unimaginable stressors and communities experiencing trauma—but also (pause for a moment of joy) people are coming together (at a safe 6’ distance) to support each other in ways I have never seen in my lifetime through community organizing and resource shares. So, how can museums step up to this more intentionally? How can we talk about our losses in a broader way, beyond the financials; and then foreground some of the creative, human-centered solutions folks are finding to support one another through this?
Time is a Construct
Okay not really, but hear me out. On our call, someone asked if there were any lessons we learned from 2008 financial crisis that could be applied here? Respondents to this question shared that, while there are some parallels, the current situation feels much more severe than 2008. The huge list of unknowns (When can we reopen?) make it much more challenging. But the biggest differentiating factor is time. In 2008, there was time to make some strategic decisions then that we do not have now. The speed at which this is progressing makes it difficult to act slowly and deliberately. And when you are operating out of urgency, making snap decisions, thinking about cash flow over humans, then you may not be taking empathy into consideration; you may not be thinking about equity.
The writer adrienne marie brown reminds us, “If you are not holding on to your values in a time of crisis, then they are not really your values.” So slow down for just a second. Say the word empathy, say the word equity. Write them down. Keep them in front of you. And ask yourself how you are going to apply these values to any decision you have ahead of you today. This is also where that abundance mindset is more important than ever. If we operate from a place of scarcity (“there’s not enough to go around”) and resource-hoarding, it will lead to decision-making that disproportionately impacts those who already have less. If we operate from abundance, then we can make more equitable, empathic decisions.
Leadership
Leadership, from all of us, is critical right now. We are all leaders, whether for our peers or from structural positions. So now is the time for all of us to model inclusive leadership. Talking to your colleagues, bring in multiple perspectives, offer transparency around decision-making. In a series of viral tweets (well, viral for museums), Christy Coleman gave the following advice to leaders:
I would add to this: Hold tight to your values and keep them at your center as we move forward together to find radical possibilities and solutions to these challenges.
Moving forward
I got off our call feeling the heaviness of so much uncertainty, but truly grateful to work in a field with such thoughtful, caring, supportive and brilliant people. There was so much support and solidarity. As one participant wrote, it’s easier to have an abundance mindset when we are in community with one another, remembering all we have built and are building together.
So we will continue to meet every other week to discuss these issues, share resources, and strategize for how our network can be a field. In the meantime, if there are resources that we can share and help amplify, please let us know.
(Speaking of which, please check out and share & support our colleagues at the Tenement Museum via their Mutual Aid in Hardship Fund.)
Written by Elisabeth Callihan