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This is my last week as Curator of the Indigenous Collection at the @RoyalBCMuseum. I am happy to leave that wicked place behind. Yet, as long as the museum continues to possess my family’s sacred items that were taken from us during residential school, I can never truly leave.
As Curator of the Indigenous Collections I wholeheartedly support, agree, confirm and share the experiences that former Indigenous Collections and Repatriation Head Lucy Bell expressed last summer. #IsupportLucy I challenge other current staff to publicly express their support.
The @RoyalBCMuseum has outright discrimination, white privilege, bullying, micro aggressions. This has been my experience as an Indigenous staff person at the museum. I echo and support Lucy Bell's call for zero tolerance policy towards racism within the museum.
The fact is that things have gotten worse since last summer when Lucy Bell raised her concerns. All of the actions claimed to be taken by the museum have done nothing to make the worksite safe for Indigenous staff, including myself.
When the museum says it is taking action to address racism accusations it is pure gaslighting- an alchemy of smoke and mirror actions and fundamental denial. The museum has yet to publicly acknowledge systemic racism at the museum and this is seven months since Lucy's departure.
The truth is that the Royal BC Museum is established as a bastion of white supremacy, whose Indigenous collections are a gargantuan repository of trauma and violence. The vast majority of that collection was taken during the potlatch ban and residential school.
Aside from the collection, the permanent gallery within the museum still depicts Indigenous peoples as a backward, socially stunted, and perpetually time stamped on the cusp of extinction. The Vanishing Indian is still on sale at the museum. The province of BC profits from this.
The province is responsible for the museum and has committed to implementation of #UNDRIP through its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples legislation. But what does that mean?
Article 17.3 of the Declaration states that “Indigenous individuals have the right not to be subjected to any discriminatory conditions of labour, and, inter alia, employment or salary.” The museum is failing this standard & the province is doing nothing to hold it to account.
I ask that the @jjhorgan take immediate action to hold the @RoyalBCMuseum to account for routinely discriminating against Indigenous staff. Either the commitment to #UNDRIP means something or it is just more gaslighting and violence.
And one final note- no matter how much the museum claims to respect Indigenous peoples, a statute of Dr. Helmcken continues to be displayed on the @RoyalBCMuseums' precinct. Helmcken's racism toward Indigenous peoples is well documented:
"Socially, probably, their death is of little consequence; politically, it may be of more importance, although it does not seem as though they were intended to set the world on fire" John Helmcken. That statue is a commitment to Indigenous genocide and white supremacy.
Here is to Indigenous peoples across the lands setting the world on fire. taxas
