From the Director

"Musical Chairs"

Richard Kurin, in his most recent book, Reflections of a Culture Broker, states:

"Representations of peoples, cultures, and institutions do not just happen. They are mediated, negotiated, and, yes, brokered through often complex processes with myriad challenges and constraints imposed by those involved, all of whom have their own interests and concerns." (Kurin 13)

Inherent in his statement is a belief that diverse peoples and cultures should be represented in cultural institutions. But which culture is the appropriate one to represent? Not long ago, the answer was African Americans. Historic places like Mystic Seaport, Monticello, Mount Vernon, Freetown Village, Greenfield Village, Shadows On the Teche and Colonial Williamsburg began to follow the leads initiated by other more traditional mainstream museums.

Fath Ruffins would probably disagree. She discusses the emergence of museums like the National Center of Afro-American Artists, the Du Sable, the Afro-American Historical Society of Boston. (Karp, 564) She contends that it was the establishment of museums like the Museum of Afro-American History in Detroit, the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston and the Anacostia Museum that began to argue persuasively for the inclusion of that segment of society in the American Narrative.

To be sure there were bumps, grinds, missed opportunities and claims of marginalization along the way, especially when mainstream institutions also began telling the black story, but a fundamental shift in what was credible, appropriate and integral to the story of America was beginning to take place in history museums.

Now there are new stakeholders on the block who are demanding their piece of the historical pie. They are no longer content to reside in their own ethnic specific institutions and duke it out with similar institutions, in their cultural neighborhood, for funds that are drying up and collections that are being usurped by larger, established institutions with deeper pockets and stellar track records.

So just when African American topics, as well as legitimacy, had begun to move into new and innovative arenas of diversity that challenged institutions to look deeper than the epidermis of tokenism for the stories they tell, a new era has ushered in. Just when the reach for the diversity began to belie a cursory glossing over of the cultural legacy of African Americans, yet another change has taken place. Just when the new scholarship began to usher in concepts like diaspora and recognized the existence of Afro-Cubans, Afro-Haitians, Afro-Puerto Ricans and Afro-Brazilians, another shift took place. Whether it can be blamed in part on the approaching Millennium, the Internet, globalism or neglect, tis here none-the-less.

Many would argue that it has suspended a discourse that was just getting started and replaced it with a civilized series of turf wars that have institutions (who really haven't decided what they want to be when they grow up) now struggling with questions of how Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native they want to be.

Seven years ago Fath Ruffins warned:

"Our task is to take this history into account as we plan the preservation strategies of our time. While the history of African American preservation efforts is quite long, and while there are important collections of nineteenth-century origin in both large and small institutions, we have a strong mandate to preserve twentieth-century African American culture. As we prepare to move into the twenty-first century, now is the time to build the great collections of oral and musical culture, art and artifacts that future generations of scholars will use to understand our own era." (Karp 592)

That thinking has been somewhat muddled at this point. The new kids on the block are saying, "you've got yours, now it's time for us to get ours." Would that the power brokers would enjoin, "we'll make room for all of you, since you are all a part of us." But alas, we are not.

So what does that mean to you and your institution? How will you join the battle? Will you choose to fight for your turf because the history of your site, the mission of your institution and the expectation of your community demand it, or will you opt for what is safe, palatable, fair and balanced?

Whatever your decision, be sure it's one you can live with, in this century and beyond. As museums continue to take long hard looks at their missions, their collections, their increasingly diverse publics, and try to balance it all in a way that assures a healthy bottom line, they will realize that someone or something will most likely go lacking.

In the face of economic realities that shift and change each day, how should museums decide what to focus on? Their collections should lead them you say? And in most situations you would be right. But there are others at the door as well, suggesting that if your collections policy has excluded them over the years, how can it effectively represent them now?

If you haven't decided yet, give it some thought, because as my teachers used to say, "when you least expect it, you'll be tested on it."

Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Steven D. Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.

Kurin, Richard. Reflections of a Culture Broker: A View from the Smithsonian. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.