The Bone Collector

BUT I KNOW A

BITCH

And tbh do they really think a bunch of old white people in Europe should get to decide what happens to important cultural artifacts? How would they feel if someone came into their house, stole all of their old family heirlooms and pictures, and kept them in a museum thousands of miles away where they and their family could likely never see them? And when they protested this theft the museum owners said “Well we are taking care of them!! If we gave them back they would fall apart and be lost!! We know how better to care for your family heirlooms than you do!! In fact you asking for them back is selfish and rude!! Their cultural importance is more valuable than your feelings about them!!”

The thing is, tumblr posts aside, nobody’s actually requesting that museums give everything back. There are plenty of scientifically interesting household items, more secular pieces of art, and other cool archeological stuff that isn’t 1. chunks of dead people or 2. a vital cultural touchstone for an extant, living culture.

Museums are in no danger of being stripped bare. They’re not even in danger of having nothing from those colonized cultures. (No, not even if we gave back every single piece of human remains, the one or two most famous artifacts, and all of the religious objects, which are the only things anybody tends to request back.)

What museums are faced with, potentially, is losing certain key pieces that draw the public. It’s about money and prestige.