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Exhibition Reviews
"RACE: Are We So Different?" Exploration Place, Wichita, Kans. http://www.understandingrace.org/.
Temporary exhibition, Sept. 22, 2007–Jan. 1, 2008. 5,000 sq. ft. Opened at the Science Museum of Minnesota, Jan. 2007; traveling exhibition through 2011. Mary Margaret Overbey, principal investigator and project director; Yolanda Moses, advisory board chair; Robert Garfinkle, project leader.
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| "RACE: Are We So Different?" is an ambitious project, involving both a traveling exhibition and an accompanying Web site, that wrestles with what remains one of modern society's thorniest subjects. Sponsored by the American Anthropological Association in collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation, the program has three interlocking segments. One explores how the biological foundations that supposedly define racial categories are much less precise than many believe. The second examines race as an issue in American history. The third features discussions of contemporary issues, with individuals talking about how perceptions of race have impacted their own stories. |
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The historian Robin D. G. Kelley has argued that race and racism "is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look" (http://www.understandingrace.org/). At its heart, the exhibit is about the assumptions and preconceptions that we impose on the people we see, hear, and interact with. Displays and interviews raise questions about what constitutes a legitimate racial category, showing that racial groupings often result as much from power relations and legal standings as from "scientific" evidence. Classifications often emerged to support and perpetuate established hierarchies. Displays contrast, for example, the one-drop rule that was part of the American South's support for slavery and segregation with the equally tenuous Brazilian categories based on subtleties of skin color. The exhibit explores the ways racial classifications have been used in American society, including laws against intermarriage, official segregation, racial restrictions in the housing and educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, and the role of race in the controversy about equal-opportunity hiring practices. |
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This is more than just a story of black and white. Stories, discussions, and activities explore the Native American, Latino, and Asian experiences of racism. Today race has become more complicated than ever. While it still carries baggage of inequality, race is also now a source of identity and pride, as Latino activists support "La Raza," the black liberation movement gives rise to traditions such as Kwanzaa, and Native Americans insist that tribal members stand up and be counted in the latest censuses. |
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In recent years, Wichita's Exploration Place has become notable for hosting thought-provoking, even provocative, exhibits, and it was proud to be one of the first institutions in the country to host "RACE." At Exploration Place, the exhibition had two entryways and was arranged so that visitors could wander from display to display without following a specific sequence or order. Each exhibit was a self-contained unit covering one of the three main themes of the exhibition. In general, the outer perimeter consisted of displays about contemporary issues such as linguistic profiling, census categories, and housing segregation. The center displays included panels, artifacts, and computer terminals with activities that help visitors explore race in American history, from the creation of racial categories in the 1600s through the eugenics movement and anti-intermarriage policies of the turn of the last century to the segregation legacies of recent decades. Several seating areas allowed visitors to view short films, usually featuring interviews in which people talked about their racial experiences. In one corner a series of interactive displays showed the complexities of scientifically defining racial categories. An interactive map illustrated the expansion of various genetic groups across the planet during the past several thousand years, reminding each visitor that, ultimately, we are all Africans. |
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