Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, a PhD candidate examining museums and critical race theory, said the issues raised in Lucy Bell鈥檚 farewell speech are not unique to the Royal B.C. Museum.
Museums were built on a foundation of colonialism and continue to engage with culture and history through a white gaze, said Sandhra, who is also a council 颅member of the B.C. Museums Association.
Sandhra gave a webinar on white supremacy in museums in June, which she said became a trigger for museums to look inward at their own role in upholding systems that maintain 鈥渋nherently white鈥� spaces.
After the webinar, Sandhra said she was contacted by people working in museums across the province who told of racism they experienced in their jobs, including staff at the Royal B.C. Museum who called it a 鈥渢oxic workspace.鈥�
Sandhra believes there is hope for museums to address racism, especially as she has seen colleagues recognize their complicity and name tangible steps to combat racism in recent months.
She feels hopeful when people such as Bell speak about their experiences of racism, 鈥渂ecause silence is the greatest power to continuing to uphold systems of white supremacy,鈥� she said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the silence of where we constantly face issues and we just bear with it. 鈥� But the fact that she鈥檚 opened this, you know, can of worms essentially, is not unique to just Lucy.
鈥淚t鈥檚 unique to most [Black, Indigenous and people of colour] experiences within museum spaces. And I think this is going to allow those experiences in the British Columbian context to really come out.鈥�
Change will start with leadership taking responsibility, said Sandhra.
鈥淚t really does need to be Jack [Lohman, the museum鈥檚 CEO],鈥� she said. 鈥淛ack hasn鈥檛 responded to other community emails that have gone out to him. He needs to respond and he needs to take ownership.鈥�
