When reading about “Mining the Museum” I was really struck by the comments made by some of the people. I found the comment that “Mining the Museum has the ability to promote racism and hate in young Blacks and was offensive to me” intriguing because this person really seemed to be missing the point that ‘young Blacks’ would have perfectly legitimate reason to hate him, and that their anger is way more legitimate then his feeling offended. While the curator stated “Objects… [become] generic and lifeless out- side the context of personal experience,” a commenter said, “I liked the pedestals without statues least because they were visually boring and emptiness is decidedly uninteresting, period.” This person obviously did not have the personal experience to engage with this exhibit, as I would say the same about the first commenter as well.

I felt like this “Mining the Museum” exhibit could be very misconstrued if the wrong person are and looked at the personal experiences of the individual viewer would not have allowed them to actually engage with the exhibit. When I read the comment, can you force all of Baltimore to see this? My first reaction was yes, the whole world would should see this exhibit. But as I read the negative comments, I start to switch my position. So no, I don’t think everyone should see this exhibit; everyone doesn’t deserve to see this exhibit. “Mining the Museum” can have some very powerful conversations directed around it, but it can also be taken and destroyed by people who go to this with the wrong intentions which can be hurtful for those who need to see this exhibit, who deserve to see this exhibit.