Death, Human Rights, & Our Role As Allies

Letting Go?: Reading Part 1

I was surprised to find that there are still museology experts in the 21^st Century having to defend the idea that museums should be participatory. In my eyes, the attainment of knowledge, freedom of self-expression, and the ability to play an active participant in society are all basic human rights. Not only has my personal voyage into adulthood embedded this belief into me, but also several tragic deaths have done much to cement in me the importance of these rights.

Growing up in the age of the Internet and American Idol, there has never been a time when I could not voice my contempt, delight, or disappointment about my life and the world around me. And while my online ramblings are typically not intellectual or even very popular, I have always felt like I had a voice.

Some have been less privileged in their access to these freedoms. Aaron Swartz was one activist who recognized the relationship between power and knowledge. Swartz fought for his belief that academia was obligated to provide open, public access to their findings. As it stands now, many independent researchers cannot access journals, books, or other materials they require to further their studies without first paying large sums of money to access it. Admittedly, the issue is more complex than I can present in such a limited space. Yet, it’s not such a stretch to say that museums were founded on principles similar to Swartz’s. That to create a greater society, learning must be affordable and accessible to even the layman. After an incident involving the mass download of JSTOR articles, Swartz faced multiple criminal charges and legal fees totaling $1 million.[1] The criminal charges, coupled with a past of mental illness led Swartz to take his own life in January 2013.[2]

More recently, the death of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender girl, has caused me to ponder the duties and responsibilities of curators and preservationists on the web. Before her death, Alcorn was an active user on the microblogging site Tumblr. The blog she left behind tells the story of a girl who struggled in trying to find both her identity and comfort in a world where she felt unloved.[3] Leelah’s blog was not carefully curated like Steve Zeitlin’s City Of Memory project.  Her baby pink, kitten covered blog would fail to pass some curator’s tests for quality, relevance, and importance. As Leelah’s suicide gained national attention in late of December 2014, Tumblr executives deleted the blog at the behest of Leelah’s parents.[4] The deletion has been controversial, as many in the Tumblr community believe the deletion is a form of erasure and transphobia. A number of these individuals have begun making amateur efforts at preserving Leelah’s blog.

Death always has a way of revealing the fragility and importance of any given situation. Ultimately, our job as public historians is to act as allies. We must prioritize our conversations with the public, whom we serve and represent.