The golliwog is a contested symbol in a number of ways. Not least for the many people who owned one as a child (or still do) who don\u2019t see it as racist, or perhaps who feel personally implicated by such interpretations. However, this\u00a0issue is bigger than individual belongings. In the USA, the long history of the structural oppression of African Americans was justified and sustained through the perpetuation of racist stereotypes and caricatures. Mass-produced popular culture from the nineteenth century onwards was a key mechanism through which such stereotypes and caricatures (i.e. \u2018The Brute\u2019, \u2018The Tom\u2019, \u2018The Jezebel\u2019 etc.) were constructed and reinforced. The \u2018inheritance\u2019 of this historic material culture – the dolls and the multitude of everyday household objects, the Mammy cookie jars, fairground games, lawn jockeys, \u201ccoon\u201d figurines – in the present, is a distinctly dissonant heritage. This is particularly apparent now as generations who owned such material in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are passing away and leaving the problem of what to \u2018do\u2019 with such stuff to their children. There has been a recent interest in this issue in other countries too, as a recent article on \u2018Aboriginalia\u2019<\/a>, or so-called Aboriginal \u2018kitsch\u2019 in Australia made clear. So, what do we do with this racist stuff now?<\/p>\n One answer to that question is to build a museum. I visited one such museum, The<\/em> Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia<\/em> in Michigan State, America in July 2015 on a research trip as part of the Citizenship, \u2018Race\u2019 and Belonging Research Network (CRaB) here at the University of Portsmouth. For this research, I undertook tours, interviewed museum staff and analysed the exhibition. The Jim Crow Museum <\/em>(http:\/\/www.ferris.edu\/jimcrow\/)<\/a> brings together thousands of artefacts which together seek to tell the story of how racial segregation and the oppression of African Americans was justified and enabled by a consumer culture which perpetuated caricatures and normalised the dehumanisation of African American people. The museum claims to be \u201cusing objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice\u201d, and there is a distinct teaching ethos in this museum which is housed within Ferris State University, Big Rapids. Despite its \u2018out of the way\u2019 location, the museum has attracted quite a lot of attention in the national<\/a> and international<\/a> press. The museum\u2019s main narrative arc foregrounds the idea that racism and segregation was \u2018normalised\u2019 through everyday objects. Most of the artefacts they display are not rare, and that is the point. This was the imagery which most white Americans had in their homes, gardens and at work.<\/p>\n There are, however, questions which arise in deciding to display such obviously offensive artefacts in this way. One concerns issues of voyeurism \u2013 are visitors coming here just to gawp at racism from a \u2018safe\u2019 distance? Marvel at the carnivalesque and grotesque caricaturing, the images of lynchings and oppression like a kind of \u2018torture porn\u2019? Does this break any meaningful connection visitors could be making to longer term legacies of this living history today? In interviews with museum staff, it was clear that external fears that such a museum would become a \u2018shrine to racism\u2019 was seen as something which had delayed the museum\u2019s development. It\u2019s hard to argue that this is the case given the kind of contextual background information developed through panel text, and the overtly \u2018social justice\u2019 stance that the museum takes. There are, however, also concerns over the impact of the display of this kind of imagery on visitors and more broadly. This is also an anxiety expressed within the representation of slavery in public history, that representations of enslavement can themselves be degrading (see “Uncomfortable Commemorations”, by Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace\u00a0History Workshop Journal<\/em><\/a>). Can the re-representation of racist imagery reignite degrading ideas? What kind of affective, emotional impact does this have on visitors? Museum staff suggested that emotions could in fact be a \u2018way in\u2019 for people to talk about this difficult issue \u2013 that particularly for white visitors, emotional reactions were a way to break down barriers to engagement, dislodge the years of justification and rhetoric which have in part been perpetuated by the ideas carried through the artefacts the museum exhibits.<\/p>\n The Jim Crow Museum<\/em> started with the personal collection of racist \u2018memorabilia\u2019 owned by the museum\u2019s founder, Dr David Pilgrim. Many African-Americans collect such material, some seeing this as a way of \u2018bearing witness\u2019 to the overt and grotesque racism which occupied such prominent public cultures. In asking what should be done with historic racist stuff in the present, we are also asking what should be done with racist artefacts within the context of a contemporary economy where there is a thriving market for this kind of thing. Auction halls and markets (including eBay) up and down America continue to sell racist \u2018antiques\u2019, with the more overtly racist artefacts being worth more. Furthermore, perhaps a more pertinent question should be, what we should do with historic racist stuff when there is so much present-day racist stuff. Some of this is the re-production of \u2018retro\u2019 imagery in new forms, but there are many more artefacts perpetuating evolving present-day racist stereotypes, especially around the presidency of Barack Obama, America\u2019s first black president, and in the context of the campaign to elect Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Museums are not neutral spaces and they never have been. There is something in the museum \u2018genre\u2019 which can allow for meaningful critical reflection on dissonant histories. The ongoing \u2018legacies\u2019 of such pasts and their raw connections to the present are an area which, in taking up overtly activist and \u2018social justice\u2019 stands, such museums should continually reflect upon. One thing we can do with historic racist stuff, therefore, is display it within a setting that allows connections between past and present to be made in meaningful ways, in ways which contextualise the impact, effects and legacies of such material today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/crab.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_4842-1024x683.jpg?resize=810%2C540\")