Document Type
Opinion
Publication Date
10-8-2020
Department 1
Environmental Studies
Abstract
Museums play a prominent role in crafting racial narratives in the United States, and as evidenced by recent social uprisings, these institutions have come under scrutiny. Take, for example, the statue outside the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which depicts U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt on horseback flanked by a Black man and an American Indian, both unnamed. As National Public Radio reported in June 2020, “The statue was intended to pay homage to Roosevelt as a ‘devoted naturalist and author of works on natural history,’” but, in calling for its removal, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office affirmed that it “explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior.” [excerpt]
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Monani, Salma, and Seymour, Nicole. “How Wendy Red Star Decolonizes the Museum with Humor and Play,” Edge Effects, October 8, 2020. https://edgeeffects.net/wendy-red-star/.
Required Publisher's Statement
Original version is also available on the Edge Effects website.
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Environmental Sciences Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Museum Studies Commons