Ferris State U. Spends $22 Million to Open ‘Racist Imagery’ Museum
“We have been reminded that progress is never guaranteed”
That is one expensive attempt at virtue signaling. Was it really necessary?
The College Fix reports:
Small university in rural Michigan spends $22 million to open ‘racist imagery’ museum
A small public university in a rural central Michigan college town has spent $22 million to open a 26,000-square-foot museum dedicated to “racist imagery.”
Ferris State University’s newly expanded Jim Crow Museum, formerly housed in the university library, was officially opened to the public last week.
The museum is now located at the front of campus to “serve as a visible reminder of the university’s commitment to truth, justice and inclusion,” according to campus leaders.
It features an expanded collection of over 30,000 artifacts, including Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben products and decor, a large collection of “lawn jockeys,” racist items and imagery relating to Barack Obama and his presidential campaigns, “white” and “colored” signs, KKK items, and thousands of other unique artifacts, posters, books, and tchotchkes.
“We have been reminded that progress is never guaranteed,” museum founder David Pilgrim, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion at Ferris State, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“History is never just about the past,” he said. “The injustices of yesterday did not happen on their own.”
The museum is billed by the university as “the only one of its kind in the world,” and aims to “confront painful truths, and to create spaces for honest, healing conversations about race and belonging.”
But the expansion has prompted questions from some watchdogs about why a museum dedicated to racist imagery is located in Big Rapids. Ferris State University, located in Mecosta County, is the fifth poorest county in the state with a population of roughly 42,320.
The museum construction fund of $22 million came from state coffers, the Ferris Foundation, corporate donors, and individual donors ranging in contributions from $5 to $200,000.
Addressing concerns and criticisms, FSU President Bill Pink said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony: “Why not? Why not at Ferris State? … (No matter the pushback we’ve gotten) to having this museum here, it only answers the question of why it should be here.”
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Comments
Just in time for Halloween!
Are there little railcars, or must you walk it?
This seems right out of an early episode of South park featuring “Museum of Tolerance”. (search YouTube if you are curious)
I’m one of the older people commenting here, so, allow me to state some perspective.
1) I never viewed Aunt Jemima as a demeaned person. I saw a black woman with a hair bandanna on a box of pancake mix. Yes, we all knew she was “the help”, but among our neighbors that had help, all were treated with respect, and we kids addressed them as “Miss [name]” as a form of respect for our elders regardless of their station in life.
2) Same with Uncle Ben. Just a kindly older Negro gentleman on a box of converted rice. See #1 about respect.
3) While the radio version of Amos ‘n’ Andy was cringe-worthy, we kids watching the TV show saw a program that happened to have Negro actors. A get-rich-quick failure, his long-suffering wife, a bumbling fool who went along with get-rich-quick because he was easily led, and, finally, the cab driver earning an honest living and keeping himself squared away. In short, a morality play with a cast that happened to be Negro. We thought nothing of it.
(Funny how the race hustlers go after A n A, but remain silent over the bug-eyed superstitious fool parts Willie Best played, like the elevator operator on My Little Margie).
4) Lawn Jockeys. I can recall at least three of them in my old neighborhood, Two portrayed Negroes, the third was White. Again: we saw nothing demeaning, because there was nothing demeaning about them. They were landscape features and nothing more. One was dressed in a Santa outfit at Christmastime.
Will the museum feature a display called “Garage Door Pulls Through the Ages”?
Will there be any notation about how the only personage on a food package now is White?