There's a fascinating case study inside the museum as well. Just inside the door they left up an old diorama of early European settlers meeting the natives. They've annotated it with a raft of reasons why it's misleading: all of the natives look alike, they're dressed alike, they don't show any of the richness and diversity of culture that the Europeans have. It certainly doesn't give even the faintest hint of what was to come after, which is that there aren't any of the natives in that area any more.
They've removed a lot of similar material throughout the museum, but they left this one as a reminder of why and how. It's pretty cool.
I'm glad they're removing the Roosevelt statue, which is pretty egregiously imperialistic. It was intended to be kind of egalitarian for its time, and perhaps it was, but only because its time was so explicitly and wildly racist.
We don't need to preserve every instance of that just to remind ourselves of what that was like. That diorama on the inside is much more interesting, and directly informative.
1 comment
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 15.2 ms ] threadThey've removed a lot of similar material throughout the museum, but they left this one as a reminder of why and how. It's pretty cool.
I'm glad they're removing the Roosevelt statue, which is pretty egregiously imperialistic. It was intended to be kind of egalitarian for its time, and perhaps it was, but only because its time was so explicitly and wildly racist.
We don't need to preserve every instance of that just to remind ourselves of what that was like. That diorama on the inside is much more interesting, and directly informative.