Is The Museum Of Tolerance Itself Tolerant?

The short answer to the above-entitled question is no, the Museum of Tolerance is not tolerant. The long answer, since everything has both long and short answers these days, is the Museum tries to be as tolerant as it can, but as my guide commented "humanity is simply incapable of not being prejudiced."

Instead of spending the following pages explaining why this exhibit is less tolerant then that exhibit, I would like to break this paper up into two parts: the first a discussion on the tolerance of the museum's Tolerancenter and the second on the tolerance of the Holocaust Exhibit. To begin, I would like to say that I have been to the MOT on several occasions and it really has not changed much since my last visit; however unlike all of my past trips there, this time I was critically evaluating almost everything about the two sections of the museum. Which words did the video man introduction use in orienting the group I was in to the purpose and meaning of the MOT's exhibits? Why were certain images and video clips used over others? Even such seemingly insignificant things as ambient sounds employed throughout the museum became important to me in order to make a determination of the question that has been posed of us in this class.

The Tolerancenter, in my opinion, uses "shock and awe" tactics to elicit a sense of shame in humanity amongst its patrons. This was made evident to me when, upon entering through the doors marked "PREJUDICED" in big red letters, you are met with a giant screen showing images of the Oklahoma City and 9/11 tragedies intercut with unifying commentary by people such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. On top of this, they have disgusting quotes inciting racial or religious intolerance from people like Osama Bin Laden and Reverend Jerry Viner. Now to me, I felt this was a very ineffective way to essentially greet people into the Museum of Tolerance; people do not like firstly being told that they are prejudiced and secondly being confronted, nay, assaulted with prejudice. However, I fully understand why the Tolerancenter opens up this way: it is because it is incapable of personalizing the experience for each individual that walks in its doors. In order to get their general point across, they have to make as general and non-specific an experience as possible (at least in the Tolerancenter before the Holocaust Exhibit).

Moving through the museum, you come to a wall with three timelines running concurrently: the first dealing with historical events, the second with events of intolerance, the third with events that would contribute to weakening intolerance in the future. This is my main area of contention with the Tolerancenter. It is simply because the history being portrayed on these timelines is completely biased, with events being listed and briefly described/explained showing the bias in the museum's personal definitions of tolerance and intolerance, as well as history itself. I found it surprising that there was little mention of the Intolerable Acts of the 1700s on any of the timelines, and attribute their absence to the fact that non-racially or religiously motivated intolerance doesn't really matter to the museum. I was less bothered with what I perceived to be the museum's interpretation of the word tolerance then I was with the fact that, along with the Stamp Act and the Boston Massacre, the Intolerable Acts were a key force in the unification of the colonists and eventual war for independence which created this great