A prominent museum in the United States has revealed its decision to remove all “human remains” from its displays, while also condemning the “deeply flawed” practice of exhibiting such artifacts.
In a letter obtained by the New York Times earlier this week, the president of New York’s American Museum of Natural History, Sean Decatur, addressed the museum’s staff, stating, “Human remains collections were made possible by extreme imbalances of power.”
Decatur explained that during the 19th and 20th centuries, many researchers used these collections to further “deeply flawed scientific agendas rooted in white supremacy, particularly the identification of physical differences that could reinforce models of racial hierarchy.”
This significant announcement entails the removal of approximately 12,000 human remains from the museum’s collection, which includes the skeletons of indigenous and enslaved individuals who were not interred in graves. As a result, the museum is embarking on a comprehensive reevaluation and revision of its entire collection.
Additionally, the collection comprises the remains of around 400 New Yorkers, some of which were apparently collected as recently as the 1940s.
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