"Racist" Canadian Museum Exhibition Controversy Revisited -"Into the Heart of Africa" (1990)

[Der Eisbär]

*These events took place from 1989-1990*
_____________________________________________
So I'm currently in the process of writing my final paper for this class on museum history and theory. For this final paper we got to choose from a list of controversial museum exhibitions and after doing some research I settled on the Royal Ontario Museum's "Into the Heart of Africa" because the controversy surrounding the exhibit is the exact same bullshit we're dealing with today.

I'm not going to bore you with a long drawn out post, I'll just distill what I've learned on the matter from reading a half dozen or so scholarly articles covering it.

-ROM (royal ontario museum) announces it will host an exhibit using the 375 african objects that had been collected by canadian colonialists and missionaries over a number of years
-The intention of the exhibit according to the curator and the museum director is to critique the world view (racism, bigotry) of white colonialists. To do so, they integrate post modernist presuppositions into the display style of the exhibit primarily the deconstruction of truth claims.
-The ROM hosts a reception for the toronto black community to review the exhibit before it's official opening. They aren't happy with it. They feel it glorifies colonialism and promotes white supremacy.
-The ROM agrees to change the name from "into the heart of darkness" to "into the heart of africa". In addition they hire an African historian to run art and education programs that will run alongside the exhibit.
-The black community isn't satisfied with these changes. They demand the ROM yield institutional power to them.
-The guest curator responds saying that only curatorial expertise should determine what the exhibit should be about.
-A group called the coalition for the truth about africa protests outside the museum every week during the spring and summer of 1990. Violence breaks out between police and protesters on two occasions. After the museum wins an injunction to keep the protesters away from the museum, 11 protesters end up being arrested by not abiding the court's ruling.
-The director and the curator abandon their postmodernist discourses on the deconstruction of truth claims by asserting to the press that the exhibit does not glorify colonialism or promote white supremacy.
-In the end, postmodernism is deployed to protect institutional authority.
-27 years later the museum issues an official apology to the protesters and acknowledges the exhibit was racist (lmfao).

TL;DR
-Progressive Canadians host an exhibit to critique the racism and bigotry of Canadian colonialists
-Toronto black community calls the museum, the director, the curator and the exhibit itself racist, and that it glorifies colonialism and promotes white supremacy
-the coalition for the truth about africa forms and protests outside the museum constantly
-the museum wins an injunction against the protesters
-11 protesters end up arrested. Violence between the protesters and police breaks out on two occasions
-The guest curator ends up leaving her teaching job after the protests follow her onto campus
-27 years later the museum officially apologizes and agrees the exhibit was racist


My take -
apparently the lunacy of the far left in it's current form has been going on for three decades.

sources

Spoiler

Cannizzo, J. (1991). Exhibiting Cultures: "Into the Heart of Africa". Visual Anthropology Review, 7(1), 150-160. doi:10.1525/var.1991.7.1.150


Hong, J. (2016, November 10). ROM apologizes for racist 1989 African exhibit. Retrieved April 13, 2018, from https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/11/09/rom-apologizes-for-racist-1989-african-exhibit.html

Mackey, E. (1995). Postmodernism and Cultural Politics in a Multicultural Nation: Contests over Truth in the Into the Heart of Africa Controversy. Public Culture, 7(2), 403-431. doi:10.1215/08992363-7-2-403

Ottenberg, S. (1991). Recent exhibitions: Into the heart of Africa. African Arts, 24(3), 79. Retrieved from http://libproxy.boisestate.edu/logi...isestate.edu/docview/220954745?accountid=9649


Rankin, E. (2009). Contested Representations: Revisiting Into the Heart of Africa. Journal Of The Polynesian Society, 118(4), 385-387.

Schildkrout, E. (1991). Ambiguous Messages and Ironic Twists: Into the Heart of Africa and The Other Museum. Museum Anthropology,15(2), 16-23. doi:10.1525/mua.1991.15.2.16

Young, T. C., JR. (1993). Curator, 36(3), 174-200. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from https://illiad.boisestate.edu/illiad.dll?Action=10&Form=75&Value=382627.

 

[Der Eisbär]

Bump

 

[tramendous]

Into the heart of darkness is pretty racist. Ya i get its from the title of a 19th century novel but that novel wasnt too kind toafricans.

 

[Der Eisbär]

Into the heart of darkness is pretty racist. Ya i get its from the title of a 19th century novel but that novel wasnt too kind toafricans.

The original title was meant to be ironic by borrowing from that book but using it to portray "into the heart of darkness" as "into the heart of colonialist racism and bigotry"

 

[1.11]

Into the heart of darkness is pretty racist. Ya i get its from the title of a 19th century novel but that novel wasnt too kind toafricans.

The title is just "Heart of Darkness" and is that what TS is even talking about?

I have 3 copies of that book too.

Edit: My bad.

 

[The ScorpioN]

Any examples of what specifically was considered racist?

 

[Der Eisbär]

Any examples of what specifically was considered racist?

It relied heavily on irony by putting words like "savage" and "barbaric" in quotes. There was a painting of a British soldier stabbing a Zulu warrior through the heart. They felt that image promoted violence against black people. They museum said it exposed the ugliness and racism of people from that time.

 

[Der Eisbär]

@Trotsky thoughts?

 

[Trotsky]

@Trotsky thoughts?

Hard to have any from such a brief summary. There are obviously well-established sensitivities to colonialist-centric renderings of this sort that frame the white colonialists as civilized spectators to the exotic peoples of the uncivilized world and sterilize it as triumphant conquest of the civilized, instead of traumatic slaughter of the indigenous.

Of course, that's making some wide suppositions. All I can see is your post and the Star article.

I hope you do realize, though, re your historicizing of this controversy, that unless Canadian race relations are just on a different planet than the United States', the black North American community was hardly some powerful counter-cultural cabal, demanding unreasonable concessions from a guilt-laden white majority, in 1989 (or now, or ever, in my opinion). I can't make any definitive statements on the matter, other than to advise you try your best to understand the community's perspective. Did they act irrationally in indignation? Maybe, I couldn't say.

Anyways, I thought this article gave a more sympathetic view of the dissenters' outrage:

The exhibit, called Into the Heart of Africa, took place in 1989 and featured objects and images collected by soldiers and missionaries — including one highly contentious magazine cover showing a British soldier plunging a sword into the chest of a Zulu warrior.

At the time, museum staff said that the show was intended as a critical view of Canadian missionaries and soldiers who went to Africa in Victorian and Edwardian times.

But members of Toronto’s black community denounced the exhibit as racist, saying it brought pain to black Canadians because of the way it portrayed Africans while glorifying imperialism.

At an event Wednesday evening, the museum’s deputy director of collections and research expressed “deep regret” for the exhibit and its impact on black Canadians.

Mark Engstrom said the exhibit inadvertently “perpetuated an atmosphere of racism and the effect of the exhibition itself was racist.”

The apology was welcomed by the Coalition for the Truth about Africa, a group that initially formed to protest the exhibit. Spokesman Rostant Rico John said it took persistence to come to an agreement after 27 years.

The group nonetheless said some of its members still feel “vilified and hurt” by the exhibit.

The exhibit is now held up in classrooms as an example of what curators should not do, said Matt Brower, a professor of museum studies at the University of Toronto.

“It was an enormous failure,” Brower said of the exhibit. Curators meant for the exhibit to show that the things being presented “were not being endorsed.” It was supposed to be an ironic look at how the items exhibited entered the museums — through damaging colonial relationships.

“And yet when people came in, they saw the Zulu warrior being impaled. They saw the missionary woman teaching Africans how to wash, and they didn’t see any irony,” he said.

The exhibit prompted protests at the time, during which three people were hurt and eight people were charged in a dispute between demonstrators and police.

Protestors demanded that the exhibit be shut down, but the ROM refused.

“Every museum in Canada would hit the roof if we closed the show because it would mean that any group could close a show,” said then-museum director Cuyler Young in 1990.

Didn't it say somewhere that the title was originally "Into the Heart of Darkness"? Honestly, that may be the most inappropriate part of it all.

 

[Der Eisbär]

Hard to have any from such a brief summary. There are obviously well-established sensitivities to colonialist-centric renderings of this sort that frame the white colonialists as civilized spectators to the exotic peoples of the uncivilized world and sterilize it as triumphant conquest of the civilized, instead of traumatic slaughter of the indigenous.

Of course, that's making some wide suppositions. All I can see is your post and the Star article.

I hope you do realize, though, re your historicizing of this controversy, that unless Canadian race relations are just on a different planet than the United States', the black North American community was hardly some powerful counter-cultural cabal, demanding unreasonable concessions from a guilt-laden white majority, in 1989 (or now, or ever, in my opinion). I can't make any definitive statements on the matter, other than to advise you try your best to understand the community's perspective.

Anyways, I thought this article gave a more sympathetic view of the dissenters' outrage:




Didn't it say somewhere that the title was originally "Into the Heart of Darkness"? Honestly, that may be the most inappropriate part of it all.

Specifically I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the fact that these were highly progressive people running and designing the exhibition and they created the exhibit with postmodernist deconstructions of truth in mind. This approach was supposed to be the most effective "anti racist" approach possible and it completely back fired.

As for the original title, as I explained itt, "into the heart of darkness" was supposed to be something like "let's go on this journey back in time to the darkness of the racism and bigotry of our ancestors". I don't kniw if you care enough to read it but for a more thorough breakdown here the Mackey article in my sources is a 29 page masters thesis covering this.

 

[Trotsky]

Specifically I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the fact that these were highly progressive people running and designing the exhibition and they created the exhibit with postmodernist deconstructions of truth in mind. This approach was supposed to be the most effective "anti racist" approach possible and it completely back fired.

Well, people get stuff wrong and, particularly, well-meaning liberal white people get stuff wrong. A lot to be honest. It doesn't make them bad people or make their intentions any less virtuous, but being "progressive" should never be presupposed to inoculate someone from the effects of their actions. You would hope their good intentions would kind of soften the reception, and they probably did, but that doesn't really end the issue.

I think you're probably well attuned to the fact that wealthy, educated people can sometimes be more out of touch than they realize when talking about people from other walks of life. And that often comes from kind of the paternalistic presumption that power relations (ethnic, sexual, racial, class-based) should be unilateral, like charity from the powerful to the less powerful: when, in reality, those unilateral actions can be really pretty fraught and even insulting. And that can be prevented by by working with the person you're supposing to help, not at them, presuming that you have all the information that they do. You can probably think of plenty of times a well-meaning old person tried to do something meant to show tolerance or friendliness to a woman or person of color and it came off poorly. It's just kind of the way things are.

And, of course, that's not a white/black thing. Black American celebrities do the same type of thing all the time when they go to do work in Africa and end up committing some faux pas. I'm sure the same type of stuff happens in Europe with Jewish and Romani people. I can think of two of my personal heroes doing things like that. Che Guevara did some really selfless, admirable work in the Congo but spent a fair amount of time with his foot in his mouth. Similarly, Nas did a music video way back in the day that shot in Africa and was supposed to analogize his struggles to those of Apartheid Africa and it was....not ideal. But I'm ranting.

As for the original title, as I explained itt, "into the heart of darkness" was supposed to be something like "let's go on this journey back in time to the darkness of the racism and bigotry of our ancestors". I don't you care enough to read it but for a more thorough breakdown here the Mackey article in my sources is a 29 page masters thesis covering this.

Haha, I appreciate the link, but I don't quite have time for that at this moment.

 

[Der Eisbär]

Well, people get stuff wrong and, particularly, well-meaning liberal white people get stuff wrong. A lot to be honest. It doesn't make them bad people or make their intentions any less virtuous, but being "progressive" should never be presupposed to inoculate someone from the effects of their actions. You would hope their good intentions would kind of soften the reception, and they probably did, but that doesn't really end the issue.

I think you're probably well attuned to the fact that wealthy, educated people can sometimes be more out of touch than they realize when talking about people from other walks of life. And that often comes from kind of the paternalistic presumption that power relations (ethnic, sexual, racial, class-based) should be unilateral, like charity from the powerful to the less powerful: when, in reality, those unilateral actions can be really pretty fraught and even insulting. And that can be prevented by by working with the person you're supposing to help, not at them, presuming that you have all the information that they do. You can probably think of plenty of times a well-meaning old person tried to do something meant to show tolerance or friendliness to a woman or person of color and it came off poorly. It's just kind of the way things are.

And, of course, that's not a white/black thing. Black American celebrities do the same type of thing all the time when they go to do work in Africa and end up committing some faux pas. I'm sure the same type of stuff happens in Europe with Jewish and Romani people. I can think of two of my personal heroes doing things like that. Che Guevara did some really selfless, admirable work in the Congo but spent a fair amount of time with his foot in his mouth. Similarly, Nas did a music video way back in the day that shot in Africa and was supposed to analogize his struggles to those of Apartheid Africa and it was....not ideal. But I'm ranting.



Haha, I appreciate the link, but I don't quite have time for that at this moment.

Pretty much agree with everything here. You're not such a douche after all