A key adviser in the Labour mission to make Wales “anti-racist” has claimed that racism is when “white people hold negative views” of other ethnicities. The Telegraph has more.
The devolved Government has pledged to make Wales anti-racist by 2030, and museums are now obliged to present the “right historic narrative” in their displays.
Taxpayer’s money will fund work which ensures the mandated narrative, and cash has gone to the “Re:Collections” project, which takes a leading role in this work by instructing Welsh museums on how to become “anti-racist organisations”.
The project has provided a “resource” which sets out a definition of racism.
Written by Maya Sharma, a strategic adviser for the programme, it claims that: “Racism is, fundamentally, the belief that white people and their ways of thinking, culture, political systems and histories are superior to that of other ‘races’.”
She has claimed in a set of resources for the Re:Collections project to make Welsh museums anti-racist that racism as a whole is based on a power imbalance, wherein “white people, institutes and nations hold far larger amounts of power”.
The overview of what racism is, and how to mitigate it in the museum sector, makes it clear that there are both interpersonal and institutional variants of racism.
Interpersonal racism is “where white people hold negative, stereotypical or discriminatory beliefs about people from other ethnicities”, according to the resource for museums.
Institutional racism she has defined as an institution having policies and practices “that work better for white people”.
The writings are presented online as a resource which curators can use to help their work in making museums anti-racist, whether based in Wales or not.
It states that diverse histories can be relevant to many communities, and “a country often thought of as ‘white’ both in terms of its history and population, has a wealth of fascinating international stories to tell”.
Ms Sharma works with the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust in Manchester, which focuses on the study of race and anti-racist activism and has worked with the Re:Collections project.
The Re:Collections project was launched by the Association of Independent Museums in 2022 to help Welsh attractions meet the demands of the Government’s “Anti-Racist Action Plan”.
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