“All that is necessary for evil to exist is for good people to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
Survival for museums will depend on actively participating in solving current world problems according to Robert Janes (2009) in his book Museums in a Troubled World.
I believe that “museums” may legally be considered as corporate “persons,” but they can do little or nothing without their human resources–museum workers.
One world problem now confronting museum workers is social justice issues surrounding the Ferguson, Cleveland, Staten Island, & similar deaths due to apparent racial profiling of African-American people by police.
This is not simply a crisis in the United States. Canada also has several similar cases.
Since museums as corporations cannot read, I urge museum workers to carefully examine the Joint Statement from Museum Bloggers and Colleagues on Ferguson and Related Events posted on the 15 December 2014 Museum 2.0 blog.
As stated in the above blog post, there is scarcely a community surrounding any museum that is untouched by racism & which could not benefit from museum practitioners engaging local citizens to address cultural & racial understanding, racism, & violence in our society.
If ‘good people do nothing,’ Janes’ predicted future of irrelevance will not be a comfortable place for any museum worker.
Reference Cited: [please report any dead links by means of the reply function. All comments are reported to your blogger.]
Janes, Robert R. 2009. Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? New York: Routledge.
Solving Task Saturation for Museum Workers 