This is the script from which I gave a talk at the Olympic Club last week. The italics are prompts to be emphasized; the underlining reminders to gesture or use voice inflection. 3 1/2 pages, 16 type size. I speak at about 90 words a minute, and this worked out to be about 20 seconds over our alloted eight minutes. (This younger Gen Z speaks so fast! I'm reminded of what Ezra Taft Benson said of Hubert Hunphry: "He speaks at 120 words a minute with gusts up to 200.")
Should Museum Tell Tales?
I grew up in Washington DC. In Jr high, as a member of the Potomac Rocks and Minerals Society, I got to know some curators at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Some Saturdays, I would take a bus and a streetcar down to the Mall and work in the back rooms of the Dept of Gems and Minerals -- puttering about, cleaning, filing and just exploring the thousands, literally thousands, of stored specimens. Pretty relaxed attitude about security at that time: After all, this was 1948 and ’49.
In those
days, museums were three-dimensional encyclopedias – storehouses of objects, facts
on who made or collected them and when, maybe some context but no commentary,
no Op-eds. Like Sgt. Joe Friday said: “Just the facts, Maam.”
In 1995, the
National Air and Space Museum put Enola Gay on display along with an
explanation that between 70 and 100 thousand Japanese civilians were killed
at Hiroshima (the number of deaths is indefinable still.) There was an
immediate outcry from the American Legion and the Air Force Association: how
dare you suggest that America did something akin to a war crime! What about the
millions of American casualties saved by not having to invade Japan’s homeland? Congressmen chimed in; the Smithsonian caved and removed the information.
Fast forward to today, 2023:
How times have changed. On the mall in Washington, along with Air and Space and
Natural History and the National Gallery of Art and all, there are three
purpose-built museums – whose purpose is to tell a story – of African American
Culture and the struggle for citizenship, of Indigenous American tribes -- treaty violations and our
seizure of their Indian lands -- , and the story of Germany’s attempt to exterminate
Europe’s Jews, Communists, Gays and Gypsies.
A couple of
weeks ago, Ann and I visited those three. I found myself deeply moved despite
my familiarity with much of each story:
· ~~ the cynically broken treaties with
Indian nations and our attempts to exterminate both tribes and bison;
· ~~ the story of slavery; of reconstruction,
the KKK and Jim Crow; of the battle for civil rights and murders of Medgar Evers, Chaney, Schwerner
and Goodman; of the stories of Emmett Till and the Pettus Bridge and Letter
From a Birmingham Jail;
· ~~ and lastly, the story of the rise of
National Socialism and Germany’s demonic “Final Solution”.
In the café, after 3 ½ hours of touring the Holocaust Museum, I intruded on and sat down with a group of high school students and asked them “what did you see?” A junior said she had missed seeing many things . . . “because I was crying so much.” Another of her companions said he couldn’t help but think about his small Oregon town as he studied the pictures and artifacts from a Polish shtetl the Germans eradicated – simply erased from the earth.
Those kids got it; they were
disturbed; the stories struck home.
And then I imagined
how Gov. DeSantis would pretend to be outraged at disturbing children. I imagined Governor
Abbott frothing at the mouth for critically thinking about Texans’ violations
of Sam Houston’s treaty with the Cherokee, or both fuming over the “un-patriotic”
portrayal of Pres. Andrew Jackson willfully ignoring Congress’ instructions in
the Indian Removal Acts and improperly assigning the US Army to police the Trail
of Tears -- all to give Georgians and Mississippians more land to cultivate
into cotton fields -- with slave labor, of course.
In my view,
this is history and a challenge to think critically. A Georgian or Texan, however,
might well view it as propaganda.
And that
raises a couple of questions:
· Who decides what story to tell?
· And who pays for it?
When we got
home from Washington, I did some research:
· The Smithsonian Museum of the American
Indian was built 1/3rd with Federal money – taxpayer money -- and 70% from private donations, much of which
were Indian tribal funds.
· The Smithsonian Museum of African-American
History and Culture was built 50/50 with private/public funds; the Federal
budget supports 70% of its annual operating and capital budgets.
· The Holocaust Museum was built entirely
with private funds (Congressional antisemitism at work?) but on land freely
given, valuable Federal property. 57% of its operating budget is subsidized from
Federal funds.
So, while I
endorse the tone and content of the stories being told, not all American
taxpayers would do so. “Whose truth is
being told?” And who decides?
The Museum
Directors are hired by the Smithsonian. So, who and what is “the Smithsonian?”
The
Smithsonian is a unique, independent “Federal Trust Instrumentality”
established by Congress in mid-19thC to administer James Smithson’s
bequest to the United States. It has by statute a nine-person board of Regents chaired
by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; his co-Regents are the
Vice-President, the Attorney General, three Senators selected by the Senate and
three Representatives selected by the House. Under their policy direction, the
Institution is managed by its “Secretary”, what today we’d call it’s CEO.
The
Smithsonian is the world’s largest public education, museum and research
institution, operating 19 museums, 21 research libraries, and the National Zoo.
It is funded by Federal appropriations, donations and grants, and by sales of gifts,
books, and souvenirs. For fiscal 2023, its total budget is a bit under $2 billion
dollars, 62% of which is federally funded, i.e., $1 billion, 144 million in
taxpayer dollars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, what do
you think? Is it worth it? Is it good use of your tax dollars? Is it bringing
Americans together?
Should
Museums Tell Tales?
What is the
value
· ~~ Of presenting history candidly?
· ~~ Of
thinking self-critically?
· ~~~~~~~~~~~~
of ~~ of making a high school girl cry?
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PS
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| African American Museum (mine) |
 |
| Holocaust Memorial Museum (Google) |
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| Museum of American Indian (Google) |
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