1/ So, @TM laid off another 76 people 2 days ago, after having already fired 13. >92% of the education department is gone. https://hyperallergic.com/578201/tenement-museum-education-staff-layoffs/#:~:text=The%20Tenement%20Museum%20on%20Manhattan's,of%20the%20museum's%20education%20staff

2/ It's been said before but is worth saying again: the @tenementmuseum IS the workers. THERE IS NO TENEMENT MUSEUM without these people. Any suggestion otherwise is deeply misguided.

3/ I'm heartbroken over the loss of this vibrant community. Even though we knew more layoffs were coming, it's hard to process now that it's final. But an overwhelming feeling I'm left with is anger and disappointment in the institution.

4/ In just over 2 years, my optimism about the potential power and impact of the @tenementmuseum (which outwardly champions working class immigrant migrant refugee history) was whittled down to virtually nothing.

5/ When @tenementmuseum management was aggressively using union-busting tactics last spring (union-busting! at the TENEMENT MUSEUM!), they didn't give a shit about workers' rights. ...even though we talk about the power of labor unions on tours.

6/ Fortunately we didn't listen to that noise and we won our election with an overwhelming majority. The @tenemuseunion represents the best of what the @tenementmuseum can be. Unfortunately, we still don't have a contract, and now the union is significantly diminished.

7/ Oh, and by the way management called us a "family" in the letter they sent FIRING US. ??? wild.

8/ +++, for a cultural organization that is placed-based, they don't give much of a fuck about the Lower East Side (or the rest of NYC). They are a force of gentrification and displacement, & they're shit landlords.

9/ As many others have pointed out #onhere, senior management boarded up the gift shop and historic buildings as uprisings for Black liberation began swelling across the city and the world.

10/ When workers asked management if they would consider opening their lobby like other museums & cultural orgs had to support and show solidarity with protesters, the answer was a resounding NO.

11/ This is such a clear sign that they aren't materially invested in the well-being of New Yorkers, they don't see themselves as an active part of the community, and they have no interest in being a part of the movement for Black lives and liberation.

12/ Here is the initial statement interim president Morris J. Vogel released on June 2 that says...almost nothing. Pure garbage.

13/ Upon seeing this, a group of workers from the museum's anti-racist caucuses at the museum got together and wrote a letter demanding more material commitments to anti-racist work. Most of the people writing this were furloughed women of color.

14/ After our unpaid work drafting this, here is the result: https://www.tenement.org/about-us/commitment-to-anti-racism/ While the final statement released is way more than the @tenementmuseum has ever publicly committed to re: anti-racism, it was significantly watered down by management in final edits.

15/ If you want you can compare here to our original draft, but to summarize--removal of concrete dates for accountability, deleting explicit mention of NYPD, adding in vague meaningless lingo, removal of important grounding context etc..
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1woV-xim63b1WbQqlZ-y87baWL5f0vMMsnbgN0gQ8D00/edit?usp=sharing

16/ Beyond the present moment, I've witnessed (and occasionally experienced--though FAR less than many of my peers), so much subtle and explicit anti-Black racism within the museum over these last 2 years.

17/ I was so grateful for the space that the POC Caucus created (a worker-led group of 5+ years for staff of color that for the last year @yazzzaayyyy and I helped co-facilitate), yet the work of this POC collective was regularly ignored or met with resistance & derision.

18/ and now, after these layoffs, @tenementmuseum is an EVEN WHITER PLACE than it already was. It feels like so much that was built over years by many people is now being erased. This change also coincides with the museum beginning to tell more Black stories of Lower Manhattan.

19/ Educators in particular have been calling for more Black LES history at @tenementmuseum for decades. Yet when a new walking tour program focusing on Black history was announced, management made sure to tell us that they were using "leftover money" to develop the program.

20/ It doesn't get much clearer that Black history is not prioritized nor seen as central to our mission and historic interpretation. & SMT has been consistently resistant to working more meaningfully with Black educators at the museum who hold so much knowledge & expertise.

21/ Also, the museum plans on calling this new tour "Reclaiming Black Spaces". When I think about how little substantial /material community building @tenementmuseum has done with local Black orgs over the years, this title stinks of neocolonial dynamics.

22/ And whatever the final product ends up being, it's even more likely now that visitors will take this tour with a white educator. The brilliant @rebfulton put it best: might as well call it the "Gentrifying Black Spaces" tour.

23/ Damn, I have so much more to reflect on, but for now hopefully these anecdotes help expose the kind of hypocrisy that fuels the @tenementmuseum. It's time to #shutitdown so they can't keep replicating these inequitable structures. We need museums that actually serve us.

24/ Phew...that's all, folks. If you are able, please donate to the @tenemuseunion mutual aid in hardship fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tenement-museum-union-mutual-aid-in-hardship-fund I'm continuously inspired by how we show up for one another (and not just for workers in the bargaining unit, but all @tenementmuseum staff).