Barbara Mumby, born of Native American heritage and migrant farm workers, is an artist and social justice and equity advocate. As a 2019 Open Society Racial Equality Fellow, Barbara has worked closely with experts in the arts and culture field to develop a soon to be released toolkit, entitled, “Dismantling Racism in Public Art.” This toolkit will support Indigenous communities as well as other communities of color as they seek redress for harmful imagery in the public realm.
In the following article, Barbara Mumby provides a brief introduction to the framework and the importance of municipalities to work in partnership with community to develop an ethical and equitable approach to addressing the authentic and respectful representation of Native Americans in the public realm.
Background
In recent years, the United States has seen a growing movement to remove memorials and other public art that glorify and uphold the tenets of white supremacy. Predominantly relegated to Southeastern states, removal efforts have often been rife with contention and occasional violence instigated by those who cling to what they believe are physical representations of the cultural heritage of the United States.
As this movement has accelerated and flowed towards the western states, the efforts for removal have also shifted from confederate symbols that reflect Jim Crow laws to those that continue to silence and degrade Native Americans and perpetuate a false narrative that Native Americans have vanished. Erected during the same era, these ‘pioneer’ monuments glorified the subjugation and genocide of Native Americans and established dominance over an ‘untamed west.’ The intent of the benefactors of these monuments, whether located in the South or the West, were the same: to legitimize the white ruling class while using intimidation to educate whites and non-whites alike as to their ‘appropriate’ place in society.
During the process for the removal of pioneer monuments, comparisons are often made to confederate statuary. Many express the belief that the confederate memorials should be removed due to the history of slavery, while they viewed pioneer monuments as a token of appreciation to an ‘uncivilized’ and ‘extinct’ Native American population. There is a prevalent lack of knowledge and education around the true United States’ history of slavery and genocide against Native Americans, which has worked against Indigenous communities and allies as they have argued for many decades for the removal of public symbolism that upholds the dominant narratives of racism.
Governmental Responsibility
In response to public demand for the removal of offensive public art, various governing entities have undertaken efforts to create ad hoc advisory groups to establish guidelines and frameworks to assess contested artworks. Many of these advisory groups are populated by affluent community figures who have minimal connections, if at all, to those communities most impacted by the racist imagery. Community representatives are seldom authentically embedded in the process, indicating that these advisory groups are curated to maintain the status quo, rather than to truly consider ways in which some public art can be detrimental to the health and well-being of marginalized communities. When community is embedded in the process, the decision outcomes are sometimes challenged and met with threats of litigation or are blocked through various legal maneuvers.
For public institutions to ethically represent all citizens, it is necessary to create a transparent, consistent, and trauma informed approach to determine what should be removed or recontextualized. To do so, it is necessary to challenge the current frame of white supremacy embedded in bureaucratic processes and how this stands to perpetuate dominant historical narratives. The process should embrace a framework for equity while incorporating considerations for reparations.
The Framework
The soon to be released “Dismantling Racism in Public Art” is a framework designed specifically to support Indigenous Peoples as well as allied communities as they seek redress for the perpetuation of false narratives and harmful stereotypes within the public realm. By laying the foundational work, the goal of this framework is to make efforts to educate and advocate for removal clearer and simpler while reducing the instances of re-traumatization that this work inflicts upon Indigenous Peoples and communities of color. The intent is that public institutions will use this toolkit to take the initiative around removals, thereby shifting some of the heavy burden of responsibility from marginalized communities to culpable public institutions and modeling new pathways to community building and restorative justice
In Conclusion
As a former governmental employee, Barbara Mumby understands the complexities of bridging partnerships between bureaucracy and community. The “Dismantling Racism in Public Art” toolkit was created as a roadmap and informed by her own personal experience in mobilizing community around the removal of San Francisco’s “Early Days Statue” in 2018. She firmly believes that public institutions have an ethical responsibility to review their collections and ensure that public dollars do not support the traumatization of communities.
