Racism and the Canadian brand
The consequence of knowing so little.
These days, every organization and every branding agency talks the talk about storytelling. Stories are powerful tools if they engage us. If we learn from them they can be a force for good. If we don’t know the stories – or if we can’t see something related to ourselves in them – the truth becomes inconvenient. These days we are learning what we haven’t previously accepted: that the story of our country is deeply flawed.
That’s the gist of Mark O’Neill’s recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail, which reminds us racism abounds in Canada’s history, and persists. This country has a history of slavery, racial segregation, and marginalization of African Canadians, Asian immigrants – among others – and a legacy of racist policies and practices that have devastated Indigenous people. O’Neill reminds us that knowledge of these stories isn’t widespread; many Canadians do not know the darker chapters their own history. Really, we know so little. Consequently, we tend to bury our heads in the sand. Lacking knowledge of these stories means, says O’Neill, that “the entire concept of Canada as a racist society is antithetical to the mainstream notion of Canadian identity and values.” The result is that our carefully nurtured “self-mythology” – the idea we’re different, if not better, than Americans because we didn’t emulate their forms of racism – has become central to our national brand.
There is much to do if we are to change this self-mythology. Acknowledging the darker chapters, and being acutely aware of our individual and collective wrongs, is a necessary part of creating a better society. But who will lead the teaching?
As CEO of the Canadian Museum of History, O’Neill’s team is well-placed to ensure Canadians engage and learn. He feels, justifiably, that his museum has started well, noting the Canadian History Hall “lays bare our history” by providing “a comprehensive, artifact-rich visitor experience.” Those museums like O’Neill’s are – within their four walls – very good storytellers. But the mission of these places as communicators is too-narrowly defined: they need to be broad-minded storytellers, with a more expansive sense of the opportunity if they reach-out to engage more people.
Writing in the New York Times, Holland Cotter alleges big museums have responded awkwardly to the human rights movement emerging from George Floyd’s public killing. They want to assert their solidarity with the movement, but Cotter says it feels self-aggrandizing because there’s been no thought behind the response. They’ve been “scrambling to find ways to join” the protest: Cotter describes impassioned website statements pledging future change, and seemingly random postings of work by African-American artists “pulled out of digital storage mostly to demonstrate the inclusiveness of a collection.”
One success is a new web portal, “Talking About Race,” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Stimulating and accessible, Cotter says it is the only focused take on the subject of race he has found in a museum since the protests began. Its weave of video lectures, digital animations, instructional exercises and texts of varying density is designed with an audience of “educators, parents and caregivers” in mind. The content is topic-driven, the subjects are broad, and it successfully conveys the message that racism is a foundational part of what we are.
It’s time to address how little we know; time we started talking and teaching a more realistic story. Acknowledging our mistakes, and building awareness of the stories that have really shaped our country is one step toward building a better society. Museums can help us learn but it requires them to be better, more engaging, more effective communicators. Their content is, so often, static. Cotter advises them to “Rewrite the stories your collections tell, and plan to rewrite them again, and again.” And to get the message out he suggests starting with low-cost, no-risk tweets to showcase artists of colour, present and past, known and unknown – something that doesn’t have to wait for the lockdown to end and doors to reopen. Good advice: start with a small footprint, then let it grow. Maybe then people won’t know so little. Good content will help acknowledge the problem behind our brand and lead us toward fixing it. Helping that process along is a museum’s real mission.
Mark O’Neill. “Canada has a long, documented history of racism and racial discrimination. Don’t look away.” The Globe and Mail, 13 June 2020
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-has-a-long-documented-history-of-racism-and-racial/
Holland Cotter, “Museums Are Finally Taking a Stand. But Can They Find Their Footing? As cultural
institutions scramble to declare their support for Black Lives Matter, their gestures have felt both self-
aggrandizing and too little too late.” The New York Times, June 11, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/arts/design/museums-protests-race-smithsonian.html
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