Racist Artifact Museum

Saw this on Yahoo news.

Racist Artificat Museum in Michigan.

http://news.yahoo.com/newest-michigan-museum-showcases-racist-artifacts-070835385.html

Enjoy,
Unionblue

Not exactly my cup of tea. But someone will go there.

I probably wouldn't go cause I'd start giggling when I got to the tree and they would throw me out.

The Jim Crow Museum of Racism Memorabilia. I thought we were 50 years past the Jim Crow era, yet anti-Obama tee shirts are featured. Someone needs to remind the collector that we have a black President and that those shirts are pretty mild compared to some that depicted GW Bush? Sounds more like politics to me.

Race baiters gonna bait. Black visitors will get angry. White vistors with no connection at all will look appropriately appalled while wringing their hands. And the beat goes on.

Jpeter,

This is something I've been noticing in the last few years. Seems, at least to a certain segment of the country, that racism is increasingly applied only to blacks as practiced by only whites. I can make a museum like that about Indians that would turn up your toes - but I've never seen anyone do this, or any Indians do it, or want to. Is racism being redefined as meaning whites vs blacks, blacks being the eternal victims? Have you noticed no one seems to be sufficiently outraged about, say, Chinese exclusionary laws and lynchings to make a museum of it? Catholics? Japanese farmers?

Does such a specific museum have a real place?

So that makes it OK, and throw some Hitler mustaches in for kicks.

I thought the exhibit was Jim Crow racism, excuse me.

JP, where are the museums for Native American, Jewish, Chinese, Irish, Eastern European and Hispanic racism?

And how many White, Hispanic and Asian people do you think are going to visit that museum? Very few, so what's its real purpose? How many CNN programs on 'Black in America' do you have to watch before you say, 'I get it, OK.' With all due respect, apparently you can't get enough of it.

That was my next question! There's been a lot of discrimination against whites who are a wee few shades too dark - as if they might have non-white. Arabs, Greeks, southern Italians, Basques etc. (Edgar Allan Poe had a problem with his 'dark' looks - he decided he was Italian but his real fear was that he was black!) So, do you then get down to WASP authority?

Something to keep dividing the races in America and try to give minorities the excuse to riot and loot businesses. The core black groups that are run by the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and the reverand Wrights ,etc. do not want racial divide to go away. They make too much money on the issue.

Jpeter,

Thanks! I'd never really thought about that origin and I have to say it's a bit ironic. A lot of Indians thought the white people needed the same governance. Somebody ought to help these folks...!

From the article linked in the OP, it sounds as if the museum grew out of the founder's personal interest in collecting anti-black racist artifacts. I don't think one can read too much more into the motivation than that, other than the fact that he also thinks the racist views they promoted were wrong. Even if he were a virulent racist himself and trying to honor the original people who made the objects, most who visited the museum would still react with the idea that racism is bad; that's just the demographics of today. To expect the museum to include other things, or not exist at all, would be like saying a gun collector had to include slingshots when he opened a museum to showcase his collection, lest he give a distorted picture of weaponry, or that he shouldn't open a museum at all, lest he glorify violence.

People collect stuff. They can branch out if they want, but there's always going to be a line they'll have to draw somewhere, and leave other items for other people to collect.

The collector turned it into a museum with the help of the Detroit utility company DTE, who no doubt wanted to score brownie points with federal regulators. Any reasonable person would think that burned out city would have more pressing charitable needs than displaying Mammy dolls and Little Black Sambo books. But that's just my opinion.

It's on my bucket list.

The museum is named the 'Jim Crow Museum of Racisim.." so I wouldn't expect it to contain any memorabilia that would be connected with racism towards Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc, though I think it's a shame that these other ethnic groups were not included in a more well-rounded, comprehensive display about racism in America. Clearly the museum is designed to showcase only a certain part of racism in America, and perhaps to target a specific audience, which of course is the prerogative of the school. Just my thoughts.

Lee