busby

Let’s celebrate that.

I usually walk everywhere with my headphones on, but I had them in my bag and I was reading a book on my phone instead (I do that when the foot traffic is light).  A young Latina was coming down the street as I was coming up the avenue, and when she got to the corner a few paces ahead of me, she turned to walk in the direction I was going.  We were traveling at the same speed, but since she was like ten paces ahead and it’s bright outside in the middle of the day, I didn’t feel the need to fall back or slow down to give her more space. At night, I try not to walk too close behind women just so they don’t feel like I’m any sort of threat.

We got to a corner and this dude standing outside of the bodega was like, “Slow down mama where you goin? You don’t have to work today, you can stop and speak.”

She didn’t break her stride. “I’m going to the gym.”  The Walk sign was on, so I didn’t break mine either.  

A block later, a young guy was coming toward us on the sidewalk riding his bike.

“What’s good shorty?”

She didn’t respond.

“Well you was lookin, you can say something, stuck up bitch.”

We kept walking.

In the middle of the next block, an older man was walking toward us and he put on a friendly smile and said, “Smile young lady, it’s a beautiful day.”

I don’t know if she smiled, but we kept walking. She went into the gym and I kept on toward where I was going thinking about how that was just five minutes of her day.  How many other blocks of five minutes are just like that?  

Only one of them was truly aggressive. The other two guys seemed nice enough and it felt more like a pleasant compliment. It felt like the kind of thing a guy says who argues with women online about catcalling. “We’re not all bad guys. We can’t even compliment women? We can’t even say something nice?”

No.  You really can’t.  I was annoyed in that five minutes and I just happened to be walking behind her with no headphones on.  Can you imagine those five minutes over and over every day of your life?  Nobody wants to be spoken to by strangers day in and day out forever regardless of what they’re saying.  

in the red dress

 Don’t Stop Believing 

Bohemian Rhapsody 

Living On A Prayer 

Come On Eileen 

Sweet Caroline 

Shot Through the Heart 

Pour Some Sugar on Me 

Sweet Home Alabama 

Under Pressure 

Shook Me All Night Long 

Ice Ice Baby 

Cotton Eyed Joe

500 Miles

Wonderwall 

Buddy Holly 

A Thousand Miles 

Teenage Dirtbag 

Red Solo Cup 

Mr Brightside 

Never Gonna Give You Up 

Eye of the Tiger 

Chicken Fried 

American Pie 

I Love Rock and Roll 

Dancing Queen 

Don’t You Want Me

We Will Rock You 

The Time Warp 

Hey Jude 

Piano Man

This Is How We Do It

Drops of Jupiter 

Hey Soul Sister

In The End 

All The Small Things 

Stacy’s Mom 

Kryptonite 

All Star 

You Found Me

Bad Day 

Bring Me To Life 

Dance, Dance

Sugar We’re Going Down 

I Write Sins Not Tragedies 

All The Small Things 

Ocean Avenue 

Dirty Little Secret 

Margaritaville 

Sk8er Boi

Brown Eyed Girl 

Life Is A Highway 

Some Nights 

Little Lion Man 

Breakeven

Hey There Delilah 

Viva La Vida

Use Somebody 

Carry On My Wayward Son 

Take On Me

1985 

Iris 

I’m Awesome 

Seven Nation Army 

September 

Since U Been Gone

Skinny Love 

Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)

Bye Bye Bye 

Say It Ain’t So 

Somewhere Only We Know 

I’m Yours 

Last Resort 

My Girl 

Tiny Dancer 

Roxanne

Shout 

I’m a Believer 

Soul Man

Feel Good Inc 

Check Yes Juliet

Walking On Sunshine 

MMM Bop

Pumped up Kicks 

Hooked On A Feeling 

It’s A Beautiful Day

Summer Girls 

Before He Cheats 

Happy Together

You Make My Dreams Come True

Build Me Up Buttercup

Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

DONTTRUSTME

Shake It (Metro Station)

Juke Box Hero

The scene takes no more than five minutes of the movie, and the tension between colonial history and race only escalates from that point on. However, we as museum professionals need to talk about the inclusion of this scene, especially regarding its function in a film that was cut from nearly four hours long in its first iteration to a solid two, a film that so many young people will see and one that is poised to become a cultural touchstone. The museum is presented as an illegal mechanism of colonialism, and along with that, a space which does not even welcome those whose culture it displays.

And is there anything incorrect about that?

It is worth considering the aspects of the scene that are realities in the modern museum. African artifacts such as those shown in the film’s museum are likely taken from a home country under suspicious circumstances, such as notable artifacts in real-life Britain like the Benin bronzes which now reside at the British Museum. It is often the case that individuals will know their own culture as well as or better than a curator, but are not considered valuable contributors because they lack a degree. People of color are less represented in museum spaces, and often experience undue discrimination while entering gallery spaces. Finally, museums are experiencing an influx of white women filling staff roles, leading to homogenized viewpoints, and lack senior staff with diverse backgrounds. With these truths represented in such a short but poignant scene, the tension between audiences and institutions is played out to the extreme.