Museum Workers Must Listen Carefully to What Our Community is Saying During Demonstrations and Unrest

The author discusses the ongoing disturbances around the USA that have come about since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, the latest in a long line of similar cases in recent years that has inflamed sentiment about the need to reform policing around the USA. This letter fro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curator (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2020-07, Vol.63 (3), p.311-319
Main Author: Jackson, Reggie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Museums
Police brutality
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The author discusses the ongoing disturbances around the USA that have come about since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, the latest in a long line of similar cases in recent years that has inflamed sentiment about the need to reform policing around the USA. This letter from a docent advocates for museums to take on the role of storyteller to help their publics understand the connections between past oppressions and current police brutality. The author claims that museums play an essential role in public education and a vital role in the formation of visitor identities. Museums have always been places for learn about ourselves and contextualize the past while understanding the present. Museums are now well placed to provide the information that their publics miss in traditional formal school history curricula, and are ideally suited to provide safe places to tackle difficult discussions around race.
ISSN:0011-3069
2151-6952
DOI:10.1111/cura.12378