Blog Post 1 Museums are not Neutral

 Hello everyone, my name is Nate Finegold, I am a senior here at CSU Pueblo studying business with an emphasis in marketing while simultaneously trying to get my MBA.  I was born and raised here in Pueblo, I love art and movies; I play tennis and enjoy reading as well as video games from time to time. I have always really enjoyed museums ever since I was a kid.  Learning about the past, whether it be science or art or culture, has always intrigued me.  The ethical part of museum ethics is what really hooked me to this class.  I just took a business ethics class last semester, that went over some very intense and horrible behavior committed by all sorts of companies and it really held my interest throughout.  Museums, I would imagine, have crazy stories and ethical entanglements that are just as interesting and intense and that's what I am interested in learning about. The ethical issues that I am aware of is basically how countries stole things from other countries, I know Germany did this in WWII and a bunch of other places have also done it. However just after our first class I know there are many aspects to museum ethics that I have not thought about and I am excited to learn about.

Museums Are Not Neutral is an interesting campaign led by two very passionate people who wanted to spread the message that museums are indeed not neutral. They see museums as an extension of colonialism. Museums show art that was predominately made by white powerful people and would often leave out or just twist the story in a way that highlights these white people more while shoving everyone else off to the side. We talked about in our first day of class how Egypt was seen as a sort of primal precursor to the beautiful art and sculptures of the Greeks. In some cases Egypt was not even considered a part of Africa most likely due to its connection to the overall narrative of white people. I think Museums should entirely be made up of neutrality. There should be no bias or judgement it should just present historical facts with context to the best of its ability.  Now for most of history white men ruled just about every facet of the western world, so they decided what should be preserved and what's good and what's bad art, so it is from the beginning, a biased industry.  I think campaigns like Museums are not Neutral are exactly what we need as a society.  A look into the idea of history will shoe that it isn't as black and white as we thoughts, its a mumbled grey that needs full context in order to be realized.  This understanding I think will help tremendously in making strides towards full equality.