Review Essay: RACE: Are We So Different?

‘‘R ACE: Are We So Different?’’ is a traveling exhibition project of the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Created by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), the exhibit ‘‘RACE: Are We So Different?’’ marks a significant intervention into the social and political life of a local American community on matters of race. It makes a powerful statement about the origin of race ideas, and their impact upon American society, past and present. At the same time, the exhibit asks individuals to reflect critically upon some of their most fundamental and cherished beliefs. The notice paid to race issues nationally has been sporadic at best, occurring, for example, as an after-effect of racially prejudicial remarks made by a political or media personage, vanishing almost as soon as it surfaces. The difficulty in sustaining conversations about race in the American public square is a notorious fact. Classrooms, church meetings, and family discussions (a few of the rare places in which a critical awareness is often cultivated) are dispersed venues. Until the race exhibit came to town (opening in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January 2007), there never was a central, public gathering place, geographically at the pivot of a metropolitan region, focused exclusively upon race and race prejudice. If an interest in race has faltered nationally, the exhibit has succeeded in attracting citizens from the hinterland of Minnesota, who rub shoulders with hip urban wayfarers, alongside vibrant flocks of middle and high school students. This pattern of interaction among visitors is likely to be repeated in each city visited by this exhibit in its five-year tour. The AAA has designed the exhibit to serve as a prototype for small-scale, local exchanges nationwide over race by creating a moment for individuals of varied backgrounds to reach out and share ideas and attitudes. In this respect, it is a model for the way in which conversations concerning race can be engendered, conducted, and maintained. In addition to serving as a model of and for dialogical interactions over race, the exhibit fulfills a practical educational need. To their credit, the designers have subtly woven their representations of race issues into the everyday school routines of middle and advanced high school students. We view the exhibit’s design and presentation of information as an extension of what students ordinarily encounter in their textbooks and other curricular materials. They, however, experience the finished product; the ‘‘behind the scenes’’ give and take of scholars, critics, and educators who made it a reality is hidden from their view. As reviewers, we feel obligated to perform a function similar to that of the educator/critic who offers the best and most honest judgment about the merits of a text, course, etc. The depth achieved by the RACE exhibit demands a critical response of comparable sophistication and expertise. We shall ask whether the exhibit satisfies the goal of the AAA Race Project, ‘‘to help individuals of all ages better understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life by investigating race and human variation through the framework of science’’ (‘‘The Story of Race’’ exhibit handout). We intend to comment on the choices made by the AAA and SMM on how to present a subject like race. We shall try to determine whether the present disciplinary structure of anthropology was a factor in shaping the selection of exhibit offerings, as well as interpretations of their significance for the race question. We present our observations with a view toward furthering the evolution of the RACE exhibit as it moves into a variety of venues, and in the hope that this will be the beginning and not the end of AAA-sponsored exhibits on race.