Description

A field guide to the memorials museums and practices that commemorate white supremacy in the United Statesand how to reimagine a more deeply shared cultural infrastructure for the future

Cultural infrastructure has been designed to maintain structures of inequality and while it doesnt seem to be explicitly about race it often is Blunt Instruments helps readers identify contextualize and name elements of our everyday landscapes and cultural practices that are designed to seem benign or natural but which in fact work tirelessly to tell us vital stories about who we are how we came to be and who belongs

Examining landmark moments such as the erection of the first American museum and Colin Kaepernicks kneeling pledge of allegiance historian Kristin Hass explores the complicated histories of sites of cultural infrastructure such as

the American Museum of Natural History
the Bridge to Freedom in Selma
the Washington Monument
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Kehinde Wileys 2019 sculpture Rumors of War
the Victory Highway
the Alamo Cenotaph

With sharp analysis and a broad lens Hass makes the undeniable case that understanding what cultural infrastructure is and the deep and broad impact that it has is essential to understanding how structures of inequity are maintained and how they might be dismantled