D. Michael Bowen is an unlikely collector of black memorabilia.
He's white, for starters. And he lives in Mooresville, where, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only eight of the 9,273 residents are black.
By Bowen's own admission, his massive collection of more than 3,000 pieces of black Americana is unsettling. An entire room of his house is filled with the likes of mammy cookie jars, pickaninny dolls, black-faced, leering figurines and other bigoted images.
A few pieces are less provocative. The collection includes an original photo of a well-dressed Joe Lewis flanked by dignitaries, and an 1854 slave collar, the original padlock still dangling from its chain. But most of Bowen's pieces exploit racist stereotypes.
That's the point.
"I feel these pieces probably ought to be in a museum or something, because they have historic value," he said. "It's amazing that it wasn't that far back that people were this blatantly racist. Obviously I don't condone it, but it's part of our country's history." [...]
| Read Courtenay Edelhart's Indianapolis Star article "Artifacts of racism"
posted in articles on March 29, 2005 4:42 AM | t (1)
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You know it's coming. Get ready for the revisionist "historians" and Holocaust-denial types to start bullying Fox News for some airtime. They'll talk about the tremendous suffering their ancestors endured in their war to own other human beings.
Have you ever watched the PBS show "Antiques Road Show"? There are quite a number of African-American collectors of this stuff, and African-American experts on this area of collections.
But, I guess it's now like the N-word, you only have license to collect it if you're black, or if you're Sen. Robert Byrd.
It should be noted that this "Michael Bowen" is NOT the person who publishes the excellent weblog Cobb.
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