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PERSPECTIVE
Quote: “Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”
New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, which gets 4.5 million visitors annually to see the squid and the whale, closed two galleries as museums around the country work to comply with new federal regulations requiring them to get consent from tribes before displaying Native American objects.
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@Madken65 yes, this is overdue, although that never would have occurred to me when I visited the museum at the age of five or six, or even 16. They never did seem to be strong points of the museum though, which they might have been if native Americans had been consulted in their development.
The museum’s president, Sean Decatur, told staff the two exhibits, which focus on the Eastern Woodlands and the Great Plains, were “artifacts of an era” when museums did not respect Indigenous peoples’ values and perspectives. He said some objects might go back on display, while others may not.
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S: Morning Brew