When the Staff is All White: Building an Anti-Racist Curriculum for Part-Time Gallery Educators
By: Naea Museum Education
Tags: Museum Education, Anti Racism, Professional Development, Mindfulness, Museums

Amanda Tobin, Associate Director of School + Community Engagement, MASS MoCA

In June 2019, MASS MoCA’s Kidspace gallery opened Still I Rise. The exhibition examines the misrepresentation of women of color in art history and offers counternarratives (1) through contemporary work by Gustave Blache III, E2 — Kleinveld and Julien, Genevieve Gaignard, Tim Okamura, and Deborah Roberts. Before the opening, we invited our Gallery Teachers — paid, part-time tour guides — to meet some of the artists for an informal conversation. Gaignard, whose photography practice centers around her mixed racial identity and the complexities of passing (2), looked at the group assembled and said, “I’m seeing a group of people who is pretty white, and I need you to get this right” (personal communication, 6/13/19).

What does it mean to “get it right” when displaying and teaching works about race by artists of color? How do white museum workers hold ourselves accountable to artists of color and their goals for their work, particularly when museum audiences are still predominantly white (“Active Visitors,” 2019)?

This article examines an experimental training model that supports museum guides (3) in critical self-reflection to better lead culturally responsive tours. MASS MoCA is located in North Adams, a post-industrial city in Western Massachusetts with a population of roughly 14,000, 22% of whom live below the poverty line. Exhibitions regularly feature artists of marginalized backgrounds who address issues of power and privilege in their work, particularly through the lens of race — but the museum’s staff is 95% white, much like the surrounding area (93% white). For myself, a white woman from an upper-middle class background who is a transplant to North Adams, this presents a number of challenges to “getting it right” in my teaching, as I continually work to navigate my own privileges. As an educator, I place great importance in acting from a place of openness and humility with students; this is all the more important when crossing racial, class, or other social divides.

In grappling with these challenges personally and with the cohort of Gallery Teachers whom I manage, my colleagues in the Education Department and I have instituted a pedagogy for ongoing professional development. This pedagogy incorporates lifelong learning centered in the arts, mindfulness, and ongoing reflection in a peer group based on trust and accountability to build capacity for minimizing microaggressions (4) and normalizing discussions of race in museums. Though this program examines wide-ranging issues of power and oppression, for the purpose of this article I will focus on our efforts relating to race for two primary reasons. The first is that the overwhelming majority of the art on view at MASS MoCA emphasizes the role of race and racism in society more than other systems of oppression, such as class or gender. The second reason is that despite the persistence and pervasiveness of racism in American society, white people often have the most difficulty engaging with this issue.

Why Anti-Racism in Training?

Racism is the system of economic, political, and social structures that advantage white people at the expense of people of color. Anti-racism, then, is an active dismantling of these structures, paired with an honest acknowledgment of history — in contrast with passive attempts at neutrality, which merely serve to support the status quo (Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Kendi, 2019). Museums, in reckoning with their histories of supporting and disseminating racist rhetoric and colonialist enterprise, are taking steps towards equity, with a roster of exhibitions that grow increasingly diverse. Across the field, however, internal efforts at inclusion have lagged, with the majority of museum staff still overwhelmingly racially homogenous, giving museums the critical challenge of white people presenting and facilitating discussions around art about race. In 2019 at MASS MoCA, for example, curators opened twelve temporary exhibitions, six of which featured artworks that directly or implicitly highlighted race: the aforementioned Still I Rise, in Kidspace; Cauleen Smith: We Already Have What We Need; ERRE: Them and Us/Ellos y Nosotros; Suffering From Realness; Rafa Esparza: Staring at the Sun; and Trenton Doyle Hancock: Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass. In spite of internal efforts to increase staff diversity, only Esparza’s exhibition had a curator of color, who was a graduate intern at the time and not full-time staff.

Whiteness is itself a barrier to facilitating these discussions well, because it is fundamentally invested in denial. White people are often socialized to believe that not discussing race is the respectful way to be “not racist” (a fallacy that anti-racism addresses), and that racism is limited to extremists with hateful attitudes, rather than an organized system of oppression that infiltrates everything from housing policy to standardized testing. Irving (2014) articulates many factors within white culture that serve to insulate white people from understanding or even thinking about race. These are systemic and pervasive barriers that require persistent and patient dismantling.

While much attention is — rightly — being paid to the question of representation in museum leadership (“Latest,” 2019), particular attention is also due to the museum workers who have the greatest exposure to our visitors. How are tour guides being equipped to facilitate conversations around race? How can they work to reduce harmful behavior resulting from unexamined implicit bias (5) (such as singling out a student of color on a tour to speak on behalf of that student’s race), and also manage difficult moments that come up during tours (as when a visitor makes racialized assumptions about artists or their subjects)? Arts educator Marit Dewhurst (2018) argues that “Although educators do not swear to any kind of Hippocratic Oath like our colleagues in the medical field, we still need to seek to do no harm as we teach students how to make sense of the world. This means moving beyond surface understandings of identity to critically analyze the ways in which our identities are nuanced, complex, and shifting” (p. 69).

Strategies for Building an Anti-Racist Gallery Teaching Community

This article highlights one small effort in this ongoing dilemma. At MASS MoCA, most tours are facilitated by paid, part-time Gallery Teachers (GTs), a program established in 2015 to meet the needs of our growing school partnerships. We crafted the position with an emphasis on inquiry-based educational pedagogies, often recruiting individuals with experience in K–12 education. We also made a commitment to compensating GTs as a way of valuing their labor and expertise and to attract competitive candidates. Because the irregular tour schedule does not, however, provide consistent income, and in light of the racial homogeneity of the local, rural area (Berkshire County, with a population of roughly 130,000, is 92.5% white), GTs are typical of the average museum docent in terms of demographics: the current cohort is comprised of a group of 15 individuals, of whom 14 are women, 13 are white, and more than half are over the age of 60.

The most important aspect of anti-racism training, which has been a growing focus at MASS MoCA since 2016, is that this needs to be ongoing, regular engagement, rather than any single event. To use a metaphor that resonated with our GTs, “[I]t’s not like getting your tonsils out — ‘I’m not racist, I had that removed three years ago.’ Rather it’s more like daily dental hygiene. Cleaning off the gunk that accumulates every day is just part of our regular routine” (Smooth, 2011, as cited in Benson & Fiarman, 2019, p. 48). Ongoing trainings, including our annual summer “Boot Camp” intensive and monthly gatherings, have begun to weave these habits into our teaching culture. During these sessions, I introduce reflective activities around identity through three primary elements: using the artworks themselves, mindfulness, and peer group learning.

1. Leading from Strength: Teaching with Art

Focusing anti-racism efforts around artwork provides natural entry points into difficult conversations. Beginning where GTs feel comfortable — interpreting works of art from an open-ended, inquiry-based mindset — leads directly into unpacking their own identities. As with students, focusing on artworks with educators can: build awareness and comfort with ambiguity; pave the way for respecting different perspectives; support reflection; and help participants connect across racial, generational, or other dividing lines (Davis, 2008; Dewhurst, 2018).

At our Boot Camp this past summer, I spent a session in focused inquiry around Titus Kaphar’s Monumental Inversion: George Washington, 2016. The piece consists of a charred wooden mold of an equestrian statue of George Washington, with glass pieces at its base arranged as if they have tumbled out. The work sparked discussion around the fragility of monuments, the removal of Confederate statues, our perceptions of national heroes, and the realities of how slave labor built the foundations of this country. The conversations during trainings serve a dual purpose: they provide entry points into topics of power and oppression, and also help GTs practice holding conversations around new exhibitions.

Installation view of Titus Kaphar, Monumental Inversion: George Washington, 2016, in Suffering from Realness. Photo: MASS MoCA.

Another memorable discussion took place around Tim Okamura’s The Expectant Guard, 2019. Okamura paints portraits of Black women, casting them in powerful positions. GTs considered questions of representation and the Western art history canon, and also got into a spirited debate about whether Okamura, who is Japanese-Canadian, was appropriating Blackness and whether he was objectifying his subjects in an over-sexualized vision of Black female strength. Several GTs struggled with the piece, but the conversation instigated ongoing dialogue, leading some to feel not just comfortable but eager to facilitate visitor conversations. I encourage them to be transparent with visitors, sharing their own journeys, thereby modeling how our relationships to artworks can shift over time and how discussions of race and representation are neither tidy nor definitive.

Monthly trainings offer regular opportunities to expand on past conversations, share newly discovered resources with one another, and sort through ongoing questions. One such question includes how to examine race (and the invisibility of whiteness) in the work of white artists as well as artists of color. Other conversations seek to unpack the intersection of race and class, particularly among the varying dynamics and levels of privilege on public tours (mostly comprised of tourists who skew white and middle class) and school tours (which serve our local low-income, majority white community).

A Gallery Teacher leading a school tour in front of Tim Okamura’s Expectant Guard, 2019. Photo: MASS MoCA.

2. Turning Inward: Mindfulness

It was working with Nick Cave: Until, a 2016 exhibition on police brutality, when I began implementing mindfulness (which we have used in school programs since 2012) to support anti-racism. Cave’s installation featured a field of 12,000 garden spinners, which glittered and sparkled, obscuring the darker elements within: among the innocuous designs hid images of guns and bullets. Encouraging participants to monitor their physical reactions as they silently navigated the space in a walking meditation helped build awareness of the undercurrent of discomfort. It became a metaphor for white privilege: just as white people can avoid the realities of racism in our daily lives, visitors could experience the spinners as merely a beautiful work of art. It requires focused, mindful attention to see the pain and violence underneath the surface.

Classroom educators participating in a walking meditation through the spinners during a professional development workshop in January 2017. Photo: MASS MoCA.

Additional research, combined with GT feedback, led to further experiments with mindfulness. We begin and end each training session with focused, silent breathing — which, in the words of one GT, helps “establish presence and attitudes of acceptance” (personal communication, July 2019). Feminist scholar Beth Berila (2016) emphasizes the importance of mindful non-judgment in exploring issues of power: “If we make ourselves the enemy by condemning what we feel, we have a much harder time unlearning oppression… It is no accident that virtually all mindfulness practices guide practitioners to meet their experiences with curiosity and compassion” (p. 52). Separating character from automatic thoughts addresses the fear many white people hold in discussing race, giving permission to mess up and still hold compassion for oneself to stay in the conversation.

Non-judgment has been a helpful lens when exploring implicit bias. In July, I asked GTs to complete Harvard’s Implicit Association Tests on race and gender. One GT reflected: “The Implicit Association Test results seemed to be disappointing to many of us, but after our discussion & [Ijeoma] Oluo’s writing about systemic racism, the results are not surprising. This was challenging, but is a crucial first step in doing this work” (personal communication, July 2019). Mindfulness builds awareness of such patterns of thought, separate from intention, allowing practitioners to interrupt these patterns and choose new behaviors.

Bernie Rhie, an English professor at Williams College and Zen priest, facilitated mindfulness sessions during Boot Camp, which another GT described as: “[o]ne of the most impactful elements, to connect mindfulness practices with conversations on race. It is important to remember that this work is not about our comfort, and Bernie’s lessons solidified that. This work will require persistence that can be similarly expressed in mindfulness” (personal communication, July 2019). Comfort is a frequent and fraught topic in conversations about race, and mindfulness helps GTs sit with discomfort, rather than disengage.

3. Reaching Out: Peer Group Learning

GTs themselves have been incredible resources for each other in committing to anti-racism. Meditation teacher Ruth King (2018) describes the importance of racial affinity groups (6), defined as “intentional spaces with people of our same race, where we can be safe enough to be vulnerable, challenged, and unedited” (p. 165). It has been a pleasure to see relationships build into a network of communal support, in which GTs have established a level of trust that is critical to vulnerable, brave conversations.

We established group conversation protocols that we periodically revise, such as remembering that intent does not equal impact, and the “1/n rule” (where n = the number of people in the room) to ensure equal participation. These guidelines support respectful, productive conversations, generated using reflective prompts gathered from external sources, such as Alyssa Machida’s Dreamspace Project Workbook and Multicultural Critical Reflective Practice activities from Crum & Hendrick (2014), which contain helpful tools for supporting individual and group reflection. Through these activities, GTs incorporate race into their own personal narratives, sharing stories about early encounters with race or moments when they have struggled with or celebrated elements of their identities. Sharing is key: as Benson & Fiarman (2019) posit, “hearing others’ personal experiences sparks insights into their own” (p. 65).

Initial Findings

“One thing that I feel more prepared on following Boot Camp is knowing that we will all make mistakes when talking about these topics, and that it is important to not get defensive. These conversations are not about our comfort or our emotions, but about making the museum a more inclusive and welcoming place that is open and prepared for discussions on race, among other things” (personal communication, July 2019).

Over the past several months, I have noticed that race talk now has become a common part of the “water cooler chit-chat” in the Education Department. GTs pop into my office to talk about a moment on the tour when race was discussed, and how they have been managing feelings of awkwardness. One GT mentioned framing her comments with “As a white woman, I…,” saying, “That would never have occurred to me before. Now it occurs to me often. And it opens it up!” (personal communication, 1/8/20). They have also shared experiences outside of the museum where their assumptions were challenged or their interactions with others have shifted. One GT, for example, spoke about returning to her previous social circle in Florida and realizing how differently she saw this group, who had never interrogated “anything structural in their lives — still!” (personal communication, 12/5/19). Several have described feeling as if they had been “in a bubble,” and express gratitude for structured, dedicated space for these conversations and this learning.

Limitations

My own identity — as a white woman with many privileges and advantages — is of course a factor in leading anti-racism work. I have my own unconscious biases that lead to omissions and misinterpretations. My strategy is to model openness and humility as much as possible, and sharing my own ongoing, messy process of unlearning has been helpful in engaging people who are very much like myself, a few generations removed.

I also incorporate the voices of educators, artists, and activists of color wherever possible. This ranges from assigning book chapters to read (Ijeoma Oluo’s (2018) So You Want to Talk About Race was the foundation of this year’s Boot Camp) to watching videos together (e.g., “How Microaggressions are Like Mosquito Bites,” or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essential talk “The Danger of a Single Story”). Most critically we have also engaged outside experts to lead annual trainings (cultural strategist and museum educator Keonna Hendrick in 2018 and local racial justice organization BRIDGE in 2019), soliciting those who can speak to life experiences beyond those represented in the room. Our budget only permits these kinds of trainings to occur once per year, however, which risks tokenizing presenters.

Because the position is part-time, we have regular annual turnover of 3–4 GTs, meaning that new hires do not have the same shared experiences, which may inhibit vulnerable conversations. The extent to which paying guides fosters accountability and buy-in is another question; though when asked, GTs overwhelmingly state that it’s not about the money. Rather, a common thread throughout the group is the desire to have a positive impact, particularly in the current political climate. One GT states, “People in general want to be part of the solution, which means of course not ignoring the problem and becoming more educated about it. Why are we at MASS MoCA in the first place? We’re interested in contemporary art, contemporary issues. It’s deeper than ‘I like it!’ and has to do with why people are here rather than at [a more traditional museum]” (personal communication, 1/8/20). Additional refrains include a recognition of responsibility, both in terms of working with students and being a public face of the institution.

Even as I write this article, I struggle with the worries of hubris and false confidence: this is a work-in-progress, for myself and for the GTs. No specific curriculum can be a one-size-fits-all solution, and no anti-racist seal of approval can tie this work up neatly. Yet my GTs and I remain committed to sustaining this learning together, discovering new strategies, implementing skills, and sharing moments of success and failure along the way.

Moving Forward

At the end of last summer’s Boot Camp, I asked participants to set personal intentions for continuing with anti-racist work. They outlined concrete steps to take individually and collectively, including: “I am actively reading a lot about race and power, I am conscious and ready to interpret the art in new ways. I am open to perspectives I may get from visitors and staff, and I am actively feeling educated about race and power in ways that will surely enhance my success in addressing visitors in opening to the voices of the art,” and, “Giving tours will be an important way that I continue this work. The opportunity is a big responsibility, and remembering that this work is never finished will motivate me to continuously educate myself” (personal communication, July 2019). Capturing these intentions has become its own tool; I revisited them with the group in November to orient future conversations and reflection.

But one GT summed it up best: “I never thought I’d be in this place now — I thought, well, I’m retired, so that’s it, it’s over. I was stifled then, and now I’m like, let’s GO, let’s do it!” (personal communication 11/14/19).