The row centres around the exhibition ‘This is Colonialism’ and the museum’s decision to restrict white people from entering a small section of the display
Police officers are gathered in front of the Zeche Zollern museum in Dortmund, the focus of what social networks are describing as a racism scandal.
The row centres around the exhibition ‘This is Colonialism’ and the museum’s decision to restrict white people from entering a small section of the display. For several months now, Saturdays at the museum have been reserved for black people and people of colour to explore a colonialism exhibition
The museum claims the objective is not to be discriminatory, but to reserve a safe space for reflection for non-whites.
I would have been much more sympathetic if it was to prove a point, ie “This is the sense of exclusion experienced by those under colonial oppression”, but no, it’s just some real yikes-worthy stuff 😬
The museum claims the objective is not to be discriminatory
discriminatory
“treating a person or group differently from other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.”
that’s… the sole subject of the article.
the museum’s decision to restrict white people from entering a small section of the display
Ok, so? They arent treated differently. They are just not allowed to access a certain space at a certain time because the business owners said so.
Can they now not get a job because they couldnt access the space at that certain time?
Thats not treatment. Thats just business.
How could they think anything good would come out of doing that. All they do is give ammo to the other side.
There’s no good answer to the problem and the far-right uses that to always “win”.
The museum creates a space for people of color to view the displays without having to worry about angry racists threatening them with violence. This makes racists angry and violent.
If you buckle and open up the space, who moves in? Why, the racists of course! The space is no longer safe and people are intimidated out of it. The racists don’t want them seeing it, so now they don’t get to see it.
If you don’t buckle, what happens? You get 600 “the left are the real racists” comments on social media from people privileged enough to have never been pushed from any space.
Its the same formula whenever schools have LGBT spaces without homophobes or gyms and trains are “women only” to avoid being leered at and sexually assaulted.
If anyone reading is having trouble relating to these feelings, imagine watching pornography with the actors parents standing behind you – whatever their feelings may be towards their daughters work, you’d definitely be more comfortable if they weren’t there.
The museum creates a space for people of color to view the displays without having to worry about angry racists threatening them with violence. This makes racists angry and violent.
If you buckle and open up the space, who moves in? Why, the racists of course! The space is no longer safe and people are intimidated out of it. The racists don’t want them seeing it, so now they don’t get to see it.
… have you ever been to a museum before?
They’re usually pretty prompt in firmly asking you to leave if you make other people uncomfortable with your behavior.
It’s worth considering that it’s not always about behaviour. Presence is also a factor. People are going to act and speak differently depending on who is around. This is especially true for charged topics such as discrimination and colonialism. I wouldn’t be surprised if people affected by colonialism engage with the exhibit differently during the times where they’re alone in the space.
A parallel experience I can relate it to is being in LGBTQ spaces. When I’m with other LGBTQ people, I express myself more openly. In mixed company, I’ll keep things to myself. Because I’ve learned that that is what is safest. And it’s not the behaviour of the specific cishet people in the company causing that discomfort, so there’s no behaviour to call out. But nonetheless their presence still has an effect because of a lifetime of previous experiences.
Been kicked out of a few have you? Or have you just happened to have repeatedly seen unruly people in them often enough to be able to confidently say they’ll promptly be removed?
Sounds like it isn’t a very safe place for some people.
I kinda wish people cared as much about the actual discrimination minoritised people face that affects their ability to live their lives fully, as they do about restricting entry to a single museum exhibit one day a week.
I don’t care about the actual act itself of restricting white people from some museum for a day. In a bubble? Who gives a shit.
But this kinda stuff just diminishes the credibility of legitimate movements meant to actually improve equity and equality. It sways the general public into thinking that rights activism is immature and unreasonable.
It gives the AfD sort of parties of the world really easy ammo and is basically just handing them red herrings served on a silver platter.
Shit is dumb and counter productive.
I strongly disagree with the argument that we should moderate our behaviour based on what the people who hate us might say about us.
Bigots and fascists don’t need to be “given ammo”. They just make up their ammo no matter what we do. They lie, all the time. It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do, they will find a way to feel aggrieved. Changing our behaviour based on what they might say only allows them power and control over us. And it limits what we can do to actually help the marginalised people they target.
We need to be better about where we spend our efforts. We should focus on helping people, regardless of what bigots say. It’s a bad habit of moderates, to spend all their time arguing and negotiating with bigots, rather than supporting the people bigots target.
Regardless of what right wingers say, people in the middle – who frequently sway elections – look at news like this and I don’t think it paints the left in a positive light.
Ah. Tokenism at it best.
Tokenism (n): The policy of making only a perfunctory effort or symbolic gesture toward the accomplishment of a goal, such as racial integration.
You get a news headline and feel so good that you did something…