Open Letter from the Staff of the Seattle Children’s Museum to Our Community:
On June 1st, 2020, the majority POC staff of the Seattle Children’s Museum collectively suspended our labor in direct reaction to museum leadership editing posts and deleting the phrase “Black Lives Matter” and all references to anti-racist education from public educational resource posts on Instagram and Facebook.
We conditionally suspended our labor while presenting clear actions to leadership that must be taken to gain any amount of trust with staff and with you, our community of families, schools, and organizations.
In response, SCM leadership cut communication with staff, and then at the end of June required staff to come collect (or have delivered) all of our personal belongings from museum offices.
We have waited until now to inform you, our community, because we first tried every option for internal reform — for leadership to do the right thing — but, sadly, not a single meaningful action has been taken.
It has been 50 days, and staff has been unpaid this entire time. We were also granted no access to unemployment benefits until today’s mass layoff via email.
While SCM leadership’s original deletion of “Black Lives Matter,” on the stated grounds that it would hurt museum fundraising, was the serious inciting incident for our decision to suspend labor — it was also just the most recent in a history of documented incidents and concerns staff have raised about Seattle Children’s Museum leadership. These concerns range from regular indignities, microaggressions, and institutional inequities to museum leadership disregarding our good faith concerns about the security of our facility and our safety.
Each of us care deeply about the families in our community, and we have put that love into our many years of collective work at the museum.
You know us: the floor staff, education team, and the rentals and outreach team. We greet you by name when you walk in the front door. We dance, and laugh, and sing with your children. We create the programs, and then teach them too. We cook with kids every Wednesday afternoon. We clean up the messes and always have a band-aid ready. We schedule your school and group visits, and we work hard to make sure everyone in the community has access to the museum. We set up your birthday parties, and we love it when you invite us to share a slice of cake with you. We care for your children in camps on holidays and all summer long. We invite and take care of all the wonderful guest teachers and performers.We listen to your children, and we ask questions.We speak up for what is right, and we always try to do what is right. We do this for our community, and because of our community. Community is what matters.
Despite our intentions and efforts, there is a limit to what the Seattle Children’s Museum can accomplish without serious changes made to leadership and institutional culture.
We are concerned that no changes will be made to address the failings of the museum, and instead, the loss of the museum staff will be attributed to the pandemic.
We have each taken great risk and made difficult personal sacrifices to hold the Seattle Children’s Museum and its leadership responsible for its stated mission, and as it stands today, we feel the Seattle Children’s Museum and its leadership are failing to do what is right for the community.
Our hope in speaking the truth publicly is that the Seattle Children’s Museum will become and remain a space that is truly safe, accessible, and welcoming for all children and families in our community.
Black Lives Matter yesterday, today, and always.
In solidarity,
The workers of the Seattle Children’s Museum
