Boston Museum of Fine Arts Apologizes for Alleged Racist Behavior Toward Black Students [View all]
Source: ABC News
12 hrs. ago. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is apologizing after a teacher posted publicly that her middle school students were the subjects of racist behavior during a visit last week.
Marvelyne Lamy, a seventh-grade teacher from Davis Leadership Academy in Dorchester, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, posted on her Facebook page on Monday that the school group was "racially profiled" during a trip to the museum on May 14. The class was made up entirely of black and brown students, she wrote.
"At the very beginning of the tour, one of the staff gave an overview on what to expect and told the kids no food, no drink, and no watermelon," Lamy wrote, saying chaperones were not aware of the watermelon comment until after the visit. "Throughout our walk through, they followed us. Many of our students grew agitated. At the end, we went through the gender bending exhibit where the security guard followed our every movement."
"It got so bad that I started gathering our students so we could leave," she added. Lamy said she spoke to staff as they were leaving, but "they just looked on with pity." She said all they were offered were tickets to return to the museum and did not receive an apology. -MORE...
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/bostons-museum-fine-arts-apologizes-alleged-racist-behavior/story?id=63249160
The museum did give that apology two days after teacher Lamy's post; it addressed the incident in a letter to the school, posted on its website, on Wednesday. "Last week, a number of students on an organized visit encountered a range of challenging and unacceptable experiences that made them feel unwelcome," the museum wrote. "That is not who we are or want to be. Our intention is to set the highest of standards, and we are committed to doing the work that it will take to get there."
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- BBC, "Boston Museum Sorry for Racist 'No Watermelons' Remark," May 24, 2019.
Why is 'watermelon' a racist term in the US? When slavery was abolished at the end of the 1860s some black people grew and sold watermelon to provide for their families. The fruit went on to be used as an excuse to characterise an entire section of the population as being lazy and content with simple pleasures and, therefore, flaunting their independence. Minstrel shows, caricatures, songs and cartoons were used to used to dehumanise and denigrate the black community.
In 2014 The Boston Herald was forced to apologise for a cartoon after an intruder broke into the White House during Barack Obama's presidency. The cartoon showed a man sitting in the bathtub referring to "watermelon flavoured toothpaste". In another separate incident in 2014 an American football coach in South Carolina was first fired and then re-instated for allowing players to smash a watermelon while making ape-like noises in a post game celebration https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48402601
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
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