Former and current members of the Science Museum Group (SMG) have written to management criticising its lack of public solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, HuffPost UK can reveal.
The three-page document calls upon the organisation to “commit publicly to being actively anti-racist and to acknowledge and work to dismantle the racist structures they uphold”.
It was sent to the London institution on Wednesday after it failed to issue a public statement addressing the Black Lives Matter campaign as anti-racism demonstrations sweep across the UK.
“As past and current members of the Science Museum’s Learning Team, we are very much invested in your work, and we feel it is essential to show our support for their frustration with the museum’s inaction,” the authors state.
Speaking to HuffPost UK, one source said national museums such as the Science Museum wouldn’t exist without colonialism, and another pointed to the fact many early scientists benefited from the slave trade.
The letter also calls for specific support and equal pay for Black employees, in addition to active support of local communities in anti-racist efforts such as the ongoing response to the Grenfell tragedy.
Receipt of the letter was confirmed on Thursday and, amid growing internal backlash, SMG finally issued a statement on Friday – almost three weeks after George Floyd’s killing – announcing a stance against racism.
The museum’s statement read: “We stand against racism and, in response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we are determined to focus on meaningful and ongoing change to our organisation.”
The organisation further explained: “We took some time for reflection before posting because we believed it was important to accompany any public statement with immediate action.”
It also launched a regular blog series, billed as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, by chief executive Sir Ian Blatchford who will detail how the group is focused on meaningful and ongoing change.
One current SMG employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said many of their colleagues are disappointed by the organisation’s response.
“There’s been staff who are upset and angry about this. When the world is at the very least making strong statements against anti-Black discrimination and systemic inequalities, the museum has not issued such a public statement,” the staff member told HuffPost UK before the statement was issued on Friday.
The company sent internal correspondence to employees, seen by HuffPost UK, where it referenced the need for equality and workplace diversity – but did not pledge explicit support to the fight against anti-Black racism or its Black staffers.
“Some colleagues have asked why we have not used our social media channels to champion the Black Lives Matter movement. (...) We are not a campaigning institution,” the SMG correspondence read.
An insider told HuffPost UK: “For the few Black staff who work for the museum there wasn’t a word of support around discrimination or acknowledgement that, at this particular moment, they might be in need of support.”
The source also told HuffPost UK that a second, strictly internal, letter is being circulated calling on the organisation to take a stand against anti-Black racism.
“The response – or lack – from SMG is disappointing,” our source said.
“All of these national museums, every single one of them, wouldn’t exist without colonialism in the shape that they are in even now. That’s where all their collections come from.”
A co-author of the letter, former employee Esther Lie, said SMG has a responsibility to advocate for Black rights.
“Maybe the science museum want to just get on with business as usual, and social responsibility is a separate thing – but it’s not and hopefully people are waking up in certain circles and realising that these things cannot be seen as separate,” she told HuffPost UK before the museum’s statement was published.
“If the museum wants to be taken seriously as a trusted responsible institution and to maintain that position, then they need to act because of these massive inequalities that there are in science engagement.
“By not standing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter it creates an even bigger gulf between Black communities and the museum.
“This is a time to change; there is light and there is hope. It’s a shame that the museum didn’t see how they can use their platform and massive voice to be a part of this global movement.”
Responding to the museum’s statement published on Friday, Lie added: “They haven’t been 100% clear about the actions they will take to raise awareness of specifically BLM, instead focusing it back to their own collections and stories.
“There’s no resources, links to support Black organisations that they’ve worked with, or places where museum visitors could donate if they wanted to. Again it’s a shame as the museum undoubtedly has extensive networks, power, visibility and a giant platform.”
Lie said she wanted to see Black people on the boards of museums and added: “As seen by the energy and determination of the BLM marches I have a lot of hope in the future of our young people in creating an inclusive future. Science Museum could very much do with a youth advisory board.”
As the calls intensify for imperialist and slaver statues to be taken down, the letter asks SMG to call out anti-Black and racist scientists.
One former employee, Eleanor Armstrong – who also co-authored the letter, also hopes that SMG addresses the fact that contemporary science is also complicit in racist structures such as “scientific-technical enabled racist violence” including facial recognition software.
“A lot of the early science from the Royal Society and Royal Institution, these ‘great men of science’ that we laud, became independently wealthy as a result of things like slavery and people who benefited directly from that trade,” Armstrong, a sociologist of space science at UCL, said.
“There’s a possible danger that this becomes entirely a historical thing – and science and tech continue to be complicit in the narrative.”
An SMG spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “We had communicated to colleagues our intention to focus on meaningful and ongoing action in response to the Black Lives Matter movement via a new public blog series, the first of which was authored by our chief executive, Sir Ian Blatchford. You’ll also see there are social media posts on our channels that point to the blog.”