Two museums, one trigger warning
During my stay in Tulsa, I visited two museums that chronicle man’s inhumanity to man in the 20th century. The first of these museums is Greenwood Rising. It’s about the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.
The massacre took place in the Greenwood section of Tulsa which, at the time, was one of the most prosperous black communities in America. It’s not clear how many blacks were killed by the rampaging white mob, but the number is probably in the several hundreds. Many more were injured, and large chunks of the neighborhood were burned to the ground.
The first section of the museum is about life in Greenwood before the massacre. As portrayed in the exhibits, life was good. The all-black Booker T. Washington High School, is said to have been the best in the city.
Whether intentionally or not, the museum makes a case for “separate but equal.”
The main section is about the massacre itself. It features images of violence and burning buildings, along with the recorded recollections of some survivors.
Before entering, one sees a sign warning that this part of the museum may result “triggering.”
Tulsa also has a museum called the Sherwin-Miller Museum of Jewish Art. It’s located, along with Tulsa’s Jewish Federation, on the outskirts of the city.
This museum does contain Jewish Art. However, it is dominated by a section on the Holocaust.
The framework for this section resembles that of Greenwood Rising. It begins with exhibits about Jewish life in pre-Nazi Europe. It then chronicles the rise of fascism in Germany.
Next come the rooms about the Holocaust itself. As in Greenwood Rising, the recorded voices of survivors augment this horrific story.
The Holocaust killed approximately six million Jews. The killings were premeditated and systematic. After the war, the Jewish population in the countries most affected by the Holocaust was only around 10 percent of what it had been.
There is no trigger warning at the Sherwin-Miller.
I did quite a bit of traveling in the spring, giving talks at various law schools about the pros and cons of the Trump prosecutions. One of the schools I visited was Tulsa Law. What a pleasure it is to spend some time with normal, courteous people! It's sometimes easy to forget they're out there, what with all the fruitcakeism inside the Beltway.
Last summer I spent three weeks in Buenos Aires. There is also a holocaust museum there. It is very well designed and provides a memorable experience. It was a week day, but there were a decent number of visitors. It was the only place in the city where I had to show my ID to enter. Informative signs were in Spanish and English. We also had dinner one evening in a fabulous restaurant owned by a Israeli Jews. Actually I am not sure what country they emigrated from, since I did not get into details with the staff at the time. But it was a memorable meal. The background music was all very ethnic, klezmer type music. Something like 5 distinct courses were served.