Children’s Museum Details Michael Jackson Decisions
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Children’s Museum of Indianapolis says it was in "an excess of caution" that it decided to remove multiple Michael Jackson artifacts from two exhibits. In a statement, the attraction says it will keep several Michael Jackson pictures on display as part of a direct recreation of AIDS activist and victim Ryan White’s room.
The museum says the moves came in response to controversy over the HBO film "Leaving Neverland," which detailed allegations against Jackson of abuse against children. The attraction says the objects will remain removed "while we carefully consider the situation more fully."
You can see the museum’s statement below:
Three Michael Jackson artifacts have been removed from two exhibits at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis: his iconic fedora and white glove that we purchased several years ago at auction for our American Pop exhibit, and the signed Michael Jackson poster that was in The Power of Children exhibit.
As the world’s largest children’s museum, we are very sensitive to our audience. In an excess of caution, and in response to the controversy over the HBO film called “Leaving Neverland”, which directly involved allegations of abuse against children, we removed those objects while we carefully consider the situation more fully.
The museum’s nationally-recognized The Power of Children exhibit directly addresses issues of discrimination and intolerance of all kinds. Several Michael Jackson pictures on display in The Power of Children exhibit remain because they are part of a direct re-creation of Ryan White’s room. Ryan’s family found Michael Jackson’s kindness to them to be an important part of Ryan’s story and the pictures of Michael displayed in that exhibit will always be an integral part of the Ryan White story. The poster was removed because it was not part of the original re-creation of Ryan’s room.