Article By Kerry Downey
This article offers a gender/queer, first-person perspective of the
necessary role educators play in the link between museums and
local communities who have been historically and systemically
oppressed (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and
intersections therein). By linking racial and labor equity, this
article argues for a deeper consideration of the ways museums
are activated and transformed through educators’ labor and
praxes. In order to create greater equity and to achieve museums’
missions, we must look to educators as leaders in the work of
transforming white supremacy culture. This article offers the
“handle” as a model for political understanding of how
relationships are structured through power and oppression,
thereby locating ways we can radically transform our institutions
by centering equity, anti-racism, and education. Critical to any
social justice work, art is the active space that is essential for
creative expression and our holistic well-being.