FYS  

Deana Bing  

Emplid: 23649286    

 

Enrichment #1: Museum of Broken Glass 

 

For the past few weeks I’d been eyeing this one museum on Astor Place, a few blocks away from where I work. On the outside windows are hundreds of names of just the few people that have died in police related incidents. As a person who advocates for the wellbeing of the black community, and the humanization of black men, I couldn’t just walk past it. In fact, I had gone back and forth for days, because the opening date kept being moved around!  

I entered and met John, a coordinator of the museum. He was very informative on the government policies that allow police aggression. We spoke briefly on the Police Secrecy Act, the Solitary Confinement Act and a petition to legalize marijuana, all of which visitors can sign and send to Albany to get involved.  

The museum itself is only a pop-up, but there is a lot to notice even though it’s small and seemingly bare. The exhibits were cubbies, and several of them were of more names of people who’ve been killed by the police. Each tag had a name, place of death, date of death, and a comment on the person killed. One tagged that disheartened me was of an eight-year-old boy who’d been killed by an off-duty cop, his father. 

Another exhibit that I found interesting was one about fare evasion. There were over 5,000 fare evasion arrests in 2018, and 90% of the people arrested were black or Latino. Being from New York, it’s ironic to see police being at stations because there are so many more dangerous crimes that happen every day.  

Ultimately, I find it refreshing to have a museum that caters to police brutality, because it isn’t talked about enough. Black families have found themselves having “the talk,” with their sons about how people will target them, similarly to “the talk” our ancestors had about white extremists. Black females are also being harassed by the police, but it is mostly black males who face this kind of racial discrimination. The first step at correcting the problem is by addressing it, and this museum does just that.