Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Jim Crow Museum
The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Michigan is a unique museum "using objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice".
While I realize some may find this to be an offensive museum/collection, I think the dialogue this museum is meant to contribute to is more important than our initial reactions of shock and being appalled at the material within it. Below is a quote from the curator of the museum about the collection itself.
"I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades I have collected items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. I have a parlor game, "72 Pictured Party Stunts," from the 1930s. One of the game's cards instructs players to, "Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon." The card shows a dark black boy, with bulging eyes and blood red lips, eating a watermelon as large as he is. The card offends me, but I collected it and 4,000 similar items that portray blacks as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures. I collect this garbage because I believe, and know to be true, that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance."
While I realize some may find this to be an offensive museum/collection, I think the dialogue this museum is meant to contribute to is more important than our initial reactions of shock and being appalled at the material within it. Below is a quote from the curator of the museum about the collection itself.
"I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades I have collected items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. I have a parlor game, "72 Pictured Party Stunts," from the 1930s. One of the game's cards instructs players to, "Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon." The card shows a dark black boy, with bulging eyes and blood red lips, eating a watermelon as large as he is. The card offends me, but I collected it and 4,000 similar items that portray blacks as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures. I collect this garbage because I believe, and know to be true, that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance."
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