Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism

The Berkshire Museum is committed to taking action and making changes that will bring racial equity to our workplace, our leadership, our programs, and our collections. We stand against all forms of hate, and racism and stand with our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) communities in and around Berkshire Country impacted by racial oppression.

We acknowledge that The Berkshire Museum, like museums in general, has been a part of a history of structurally racist systems and systemic inequality. We commit to challenging and dismantling systems of oppression that harm BIPOC communities. The Berkshire Museum stands committed to being a meaningful ally to fight against racism in all its forms in a society where racism is embedded and reinforced throughout our media, culture, social systems, and institutions.

The Berkshire Museum understands that it is not enough to state that we are “not racist”, but to be actively anti-racist means standing committed to dismantling the institutional racism in the policies and practices within institutions that benefit white people or prioritize the voices and experiences of white people to the disadvantage of people of color. Being an actively anti-racist museum means identifying those inequities in our structures, ideas, behaviors, systems, and policies and changing them so that they are equitable for all people.

We acknowledge that the Berkshire Museum, like museums generally, has played a role in a structurally racist system, and that the museum sector has thus contributed to inequalities we now seek to rectify.

We Commit To

In our ongoing commitment, the Berkshire Museum is trying to push for change through critical analysis of our collections, policies, public programs and hiring practices—while recognizing our responsibility to do more and do better. Learn more about some of our commitments below:

• Continue to diversify our staff, board of directors, and senior executives. Review staff and organizational structures “through a lens of racial equity”.
• Amplifying BIPOC perspectives and voices in galleries at the Berkshire Museum, exhibitions, and other platforms, onsite and online.
• Create an inclusive environment for visitors to attract and engage diverse communities to the Museum.
• Acknowledge and dismantle any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, hiring practices, and services and how these systemic inequities impact our work, and how best to address that in a way that is consistent with our mission.
• Being transparent and open about Berkshire Museum’s history and collections.
• Foster teamwork and employee participation, encouraging the representation of all groups and employee perspectives across all lines of business at the Berkshire Museum.
• Prioritizing and institutionalizing anti-racist staff development and education.
• Institute additional anti-racism and unconscious bias training.
• Practice supplier diversity with vendors.