backstory: Risk and Bravery
I’ve mentioned here before my work for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, for which I serve as Vice President of Programs. On Monday, we opened our annual conference, virtually, and on that first day, I spoke about our theme this year of risk and bravery. For this week’s backstory, I’d like to share those remarks with you.
Video released with the permission of AAMG.
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My name is Tracy Fitzpatrick and I am the director of the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase and the Vice President for Programs of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries. Welcome to the 2020 AAMG Conference.
I’d like to talk a little about this year’s conference theme.
Almost exactly a year ago at our annual conference in Minneapolis, I returned to my hotel room after a heated game of air hockey with Alison Gilchrest. Alison, who is a speaker at our conference and is one of our great minds, always inspires me to think deeply and broadly. I went to bed and then a few hours later, I woke up with these four-in-the-morning thoughts: The academic museum must take risks and be brave, which means a willingness to say ‘yes’ to new things and to the possibility of failure, and a willingness to say ‘no’ to things you know will hurt your organization, things that your parent institution, donors, advisory boards, or other organizations may be asking of you.
Little did I know, writing those words on my laptop in a Minneapolis hotel, how important the ideas of risk and bravery would be a year later as we navigate new ways of thinking and being for ourselves, in the midst of a pandemic from which millions have been affected, and powerful protests as millions show their outrage in response to the murder of George Floyd, the multitude of lives lost, and the underlying systemic racism revealed by these losses.
Finding a cure for the coronavirus and finding solutions to structural racism, particularly the latter—which is hundreds of years in the making, won’t happen quickly. The virus may shift and evolve, decline and increase. It affects people disproportionately in accordance with the color of one’s skin and one’s socio-economic status. Black and brown people, who in large part are doing the work of essential personnel in many areas of the country, are exposed every day in places like grocery stores and transportation hubs far more than white people, who, like me, by percentage,were better able to pivot to remote work and are still employed without having had to choose between income and health. Structural racism takes different shapes and forms, and can affectpeople in different ways disproportionately in accordance with the color of one’s skin. Black and brown people are afraid of being killed by people paid to provide protection. They fear for their children in ways white people can’t experience and, even with lots of listening and learning, can’t truly understand.
As academic museums professionals we can’t solve pandemics or racism, but we can stem both through our actions. One of the ways we can do that is to be brave and take risks by looking closely at the ways in which we—our institutions, and our field—participate in and perpetuate the elevation of whiteness. We can think forward and act, rather than spending time searching our souls. We can use all the tools we have at our disposal to identify areas of needed change and make those changes. We can do this in many ways but most broadly in our roles as educators, a role that goes to the very heart of both afflictions at a very basic level, whether it’s learning that a mask can help reduce spread or learning not to judge people by the color of their skin.
This is the heart of what we do, each in our own ways, each at our own institutions. We teach. We inspire. Diverse as we are, under the umbrella of academic freedom, a principle now more imperiled and precious than ever before, we can teach people to think differently about their learned experiences and to learn from the experiences of others. This is where we can make a true and lasting difference, particularly in the ways we can provide learning opportunities to young people … because what young people learn today directly affects the actions they will take later.
So, take risks and be brave in the ways in which you utilize the resources you have at your disposal to stem racism, and to make the world a better place.
Be well.