Sierrea Kinsey-Lawton argues: Museums and art houses have never acknowledged that the living descendants of enslaved Africans are, themselves, looted cultural heritage. Solutions for stolen people are not analogous to solutions for stolen bronzes. You cannot deaccession a person.
Sierra Kinsey-Lawton takes the Musauem of Us in San Diego, California, as a case study: the Museum of Us hired a decolonization team because it was fashionable. Every museum was doing it. But the moment the team pushed for something larger—a major repatriation, a public apology, a shift in governance—the discomfort became too great. The team became a problem. And problems are easier to eliminate than to solve. Budget shortfalls became the perfect excuse. They are neutral and impersonal. They allow the museum to avoid saying what it really means: we no longer wish to fund this work.
