Today I had an e-mail exchange with my sister and she reminded me about the Ota Benga story. In case you don't know your history, Ota Benga was a human being who was put on display in the Bronx Zoo in 1906. ( New York. Not Alabama or Mississippi; New York!) It was sick and disgusting, and it defies belief that people could actually act that way towards another human being.
It is an uncomfortable part of our history, but it is one that needs to be told.
Here are some excerpts from Wikipedia.
The field Negro education series continues.
"O"ta Benga (c. 1883 – March 20, 1916) was a Congolese man, a Mbuti pygmy known for being featured in an anthropology exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904, and in a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been purchased from African slave traders by the explorer Samuel Phillips Verner, a businessman hunting Africans for the Exposition. He traveled with Verner to the United States. At the Bronx Zoo, Benga had free run of the grounds before and after he was exhibited in the zoo's Monkey House. Except for a brief visit with Verner to Africa after the close of the St. Louis Fair, Benga lived in the United States, mostly in Virginia, for the rest of his life.
Displays of non-white humans as examples of "earlier stages" of human evolution were common in the early 20th century, when racial theories were frequently intertwined with concepts from evolutionary biology. African-American newspapers around the nation published editorials strongly opposing Benga's treatment. Dr. R. S. MacArthur, the spokesperson for a delegation of black churches, petitioned the New York City mayor for his release from the Bronx Zoo.
The mayor released Benga to the custody of Reverend James M. Gordon, who supervised the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn and made him a ward. That same year Gordon arranged for Benga to be cared for in Virginia, where he paid for him to acquire American clothes and to have his teeth capped, so the young man could be more readily accepted in local society. Benga was tutored in English and began to work. Several years later, the outbreak of World War I stopped ship passenger travel and prevented his returning to Africa. This, as well as the inhumane treatment he was subjected to for most of his life, caused Benga to fall into a depression. He committed suicide in 1916 at the age of 32." [Source]
I need you to think about Ota Benga when folks start getting on their moral high horse and declare to all who will listen how we as Americans are superior to others.
*Pic from phillytrib.com
42 comments:
What a horrible and sad thing! God only knows what he suffered at the hands of the white man.
I think (correct me if I'm wrong)that Black Americans are the only people on the face of this earth that have no place,land, connection to a land that they can call their own and say I came from precisely that village, that town, that area, those mountains, these plains, and my family, people are from there.
All of that was erased.
Now with DNA testing there's a chance to find your homeland. The Australian Indigenous had families broken up into the 70's. One of my favorite movies showed this treatment "Rabbit Proof Fence". You would love it Desert.
PX
There used to be a lot of racist forms of entertainment in nineteenth and early 20th century America.
Ever hear of African Dodger? This was a carnival game in which a black person would put his head through a hole in a wall and white people would pay to throw balls at it.
Here is a short film about African Dodger.
Poor little Ooga Booga! The saddest story of World War I!
Anonymous said...
Now with DNA testing there's a chance to find your homeland. The Australian Indigenous had families broken up into the 70's. One of my favorite movies showed this treatment "Rabbit Proof Fence". You would love it Desert.
PX
10:44 PM
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Pilot the indigenous peoples of Australia seem to be all but non existent! People that have been there relate they are nowhere to be seen,you have to search high and low to see a few.
And the really sad part is that none of the whites there want to even talk about it! If and when you question them "where are the indigenous people of this country?" "Where can I find them?" "Why aren't they walking around in the towns" The white mans hemming and hawing and run around commences! It seems they have all been relegated/forced/coerced/whatever into reservation-like areas! Too sad!
I remember growing up in Tennessee, my Grandpa had a pet Pygmy named Mr. Woodcock. Grandpa trained him to pick apples and chase rats down the sewer. Mr. Woodcock was always happy long as he had him a ham bone and some critter he could rape.
When Grandpa would ride into town on his horse, Mr. Woodcock would go with him, riding a pig. He used to take him to bars where he'd wrestle raccoons and fight roosters. Mr. Woodcock would wrestle any animal you put him up against, but he was terrified of midgets.
One day, Grandpa was out feeding the chickens when a chicken hawk swooped down and took Mr. Woodcock away. Grandpa had his shotgun but he didn't shoot for fear he'd hit Mr. Woodcock. Grandpa was real sad about it, but three days later, here come Mr. Woodcock walking up the road to the farm. Guess he must of raped that hawk but good.
"Ever hear of African Dodger? This was a carnival game in which a black person would put his head through a hole in a wall and white people would pay to throw balls at it."
Man, you sure could get a lot for nickel back in the day.
The "father of modern Ob/Gyn" is known to have made those discoveries using Black female slaves.
As PX mentioned, a simple DNA test will tell most people who they're related to.
For whooteemoos it's MUCH easier since the marry relatives.
BAWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAS
Also, could you please not use such big words in your posts? I really enjoy coming here, but your writing is often too complicated for my brain to handle! :)
"What a horrible and sad thing! God only knows what he suffered at the hands of the white man."
Did you fail to read that he was captured and sold by African slave traders... in 1906? 51 years after slavery was abolished in the USA? His sale to an American was probably the only thing that saved his life.
You probably don't know that Malcolm X saw an active slave market selling African slaves in Mecca some 60 years after that, or that slavery continues between Africans in Africa today. Because that doesn't fit The Narrative, which is all you know.
Isn't it interesting that Ota Benga didn't choose to stay in Africa after the exposition? He went back to the White country, and then whined about it. So much like you.
"I think (correct me if I'm wrong)that Black Americans are the only people on the face of this earth that have no place,land, connection to a land that they can call their own and say I came from precisely that village, that town, that area, those mountains, these plains, and my family, people are from there."
Recover your history. African Ancestry will tell you where your African forebears hailed from via DNA test. Plan your return. Africa is fraught with dangers, but when TSHTF North America will be worse for you than for a Tutsi in Rwanda.
Peter Gabriel did the music for "Rabbit Proof Fence". I haven't seen the whole movie, but what I have seen seemed really good.
It's seemingly a struggle to get people to admit the basic humanity of everyone else. This seems to be an egregious example, and we want to think we are getting better, and to some extent we are, but we have our own outrageous cases of inhumanity to cope with, maybe not as paid entertainment, but certainly with hand guns.
-Doug in Oakland
Yeah Jamie, your bitch ass is scary! Better cancel my barbeque because some orbital engineer is making scary threats on the internet.
Orbital engineer. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Nah Jamie maybe your bitch ass should leave cause we're gonna play the knockout game on your punk ass everyday. Nkw that's gonna be fun! I bet you drop like a sack of rocks. That is if some parent doesn't off your ass for stalking little kids while you're judging "science contests".
Trumpcare failed. Geez, Republican congress and the WH and they can't pass a bill.
Slug said...
"It's seemingly a struggle to get people to admit the basic humanity of everyone else."
But what about the "pig people"? Surely they can't see your wisdom?
@Lilac
Much as in the U.S., there simply isn't that great a number of natives in Australia today. They make up only about 3% of the country's total population.
And quite a few of them are actually of mixed aboriginal/European heritage, so you might not notice those mixed people when you're just out casually walking around; they don't necessarily stand out that sharply from everyone else. Many "blackfellas" aren't all that black.
Additionally, the area with the highest concentration of aboriginal Australians is in the Northern Territory, but that's not somewhere tourists and business travelers to Australia usually choose to visit. The heavily populated parts of the country with the big cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc.) are on the east and south coasts.
An important concept is frame of reference. Understanding it can help you see that nobody is really any better than anybody else.
lilacpr said...
Also, could you please not use such big words in your posts? I really enjoy coming here, but your writing is often too complicated for my brain to handle! :)
12:33 AM
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Not me guys!
This was a recent book penned by my good friend, Pamela Newkirk on this tragedy. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/books/review/spectacle-the-astonishing-life-of-ota-benga-by-pamela-newkirk.html
dinthebeast said...
It's seemingly a struggle to get people to admit the basic humanity of everyone else.
-Doug in Oakland
12:46 AM
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"Seemingly" ?
Definition of seemingly: apparent; appearing, whether truly or falsely, to be as specified: a seeming advantage. noun. 2. appearance, especially outward or deceptive appearance. Something seemingly true appears to be true. Use the adverb seemingly when you want to say "on the face of it" or "apparently."
I don't think there's anything "seemingly" about this at all ;)
Land Down Under said...
@Lilac
Much as in the U.S., there simply isn't that great a number of natives in Australia today. They make up only about 3% of the country's total population.
5:08 AM
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Oh I know, it's due to a horrible disease known as Whisupsyn! It's viral and global, unfortunately xD
Anonymous said...
Slug said...
"It's seemingly a struggle to get people to admit the basic humanity of everyone else."
But what about the "pig people"? Surely they can't see your wisdom?
4:07 AM
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Umhum! Exactly! It's a case of physician heal thyself! ;)
Field Negro said..."One of the thousands of sideshow performers in early 20th century America was a Pygmy man who had been purchased out of bondage from African slave traders and brought to America. He did one gig at the 1904 World's Fair, after which he was returned to Africa. He chose to go back to America, where he spent one month in 1906 as an attraction at the Bronx Zoo, walking around the grounds in traditional Pygmy garb. Some nice white folks got him out of this degrading business and took care of him, fixing his teeth and teaching him English. Ten years later he wanted to go back to Africa, but had to wait because of World War I. So he killed himself. America is the worst country ever.
You are right Field. All of this happened little more than a century ago. Nothing has changed. America is irredeemable.
Nothing left to do but burn it all to the ground!
It would be more appropriate to put creatures like Donald Trump on display in a zoo.
Just give him some his daily bread, water, and a Twitter account, and he's good to go. ;-)
Anonymous @ 4:07 AM said...
Slug said...
"It's seemingly a struggle to get people to admit the basic humanity of everyone else."
But what about the "pig people"? Surely they can't see your wisdom?
---
Burn Level: Epic.
That's up to them, not me. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads and making them watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and read Breitbart every damn day. They do that of their own free will.
And if "seemingly" isn't a strong enough word for you, consider the Pig-People who don't struggle with it even one little bit.
-Doug in Oakland
So what do you think about people who haven't listened to Limbaugh since going on a road trip years ago, never even turn on the television, and only read Breitbart when someone links to it...
and still want the people who turned Detroit from "the Paris of the Midwest" into the murderous pesthole it is today kept at a nice, safe distance?
Oh, right. "Pig people". Because not surrendering your society, your infrastructure and even yourselves to Blacks for destruction be rayciss.
dinthebeast said...
And if "seemingly" isn't a strong enough word for you, consider the Pig-People who don't struggle with it even one little bit.
-Doug in Oakland
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Aw Doug please don't be mad! :) I's just I'm a little bit testy. There's a huge cloud of Saharan Dust over the island again and I've been cooped up in my room all week, venturing out to the rest of the house with double mask on! and medicated and therapies, it's awful!
The internet is how I entertain myself and since I'm a stickler for words I can be a PITA sometimes xD
Please forgive, it's nothing personal with you or anyone else, just in the spirit of fun and debate...plus
God I'm bored! Luv ya kid! ;)
Drumpf is the missing knuckle-dragger link showing wingnuts de-evolving back to the trees they crawled down from. The next link is a curiosity- an intelligent primate far advanced from its knuckle dragging whitey wingnut relatives it has sued to be declared emancipated.
Of course wingnuts thought he said emasculated so they cut off their balls to spite their ancestors and that basically explains all the pussies in the wingnut stable.
So apparently someone actually read the commandment about graven images and then knocked over the brand new engraved granite monument to the ten commandments outside the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas.
He is apparently a repeat offender.
-Doug in Oakland
"He is apparently a repeat offender."
He is apparently a Pig-Person.
Could be, for all I know. He was in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
"and still want the people who turned Detroit from "the Paris of the Midwest" into the murderous pesthole it is today kept at a nice, safe distance?"
You mean the Republicans starting with St. Ronnie the Idiot who have been gutting the labor unions that made all of that localized affluence possible? Or perhaps the corporations who offshored the jobs that used to hold the community together?
Yeah, I don't hang out with those creeps either.
-Doug in Oakland
Doug, you seem smart, but write in a way that goes way over my head. Could you please write in easier to understand words and phrases? Same goes for the rest of you. :)
"You mean the Republicans starting with St. Ronnie the Idiot who have been gutting the labor unions that made all of that localized affluence possible? Or perhaps the corporations who offshored the jobs that used to hold the community together?"
I mean the Supreme Court majorities in Shelley vs. Kraemer and Brown vs. Board of Education which tore down White people's legal defenses against Black invasion (which also destroyed the West side of Chicago)... courts appointed by the FDR and HST administrations. I mean the majority in Griggs vs. Duke Power which enshrined the noxious doctrine of "disparate impact", forcing equal treatment of grossly unequal people.
I mean Demonrats like Lyndon Baines Johnson whose "Civil Rights acts" privileged worthless Blacks everywhere. I mean Demonrats like Emmanuel Celler and Teddy Kennedy whose Immigration Act of 1965 opened the floodgates to the third-world hordes. I mean Demonrats like Coleman Young who ran on what today would be called a Black Lives Matter platform, vowing to shut down the Detroit Police Department's STRESS unit which had slashed armed robberies in the city (in no small part, by killing some armed robbers and making the rest fearful enough to stop committing so many of them). As always, Demonrats were out to make America safe for violent criminals, and in so many major cities they succeeded.
All this, and I'm only up to 1973. Ronald Reagan wouldn't be POTUS for another 8 years. Offshoring wouldn't be a major issue for another 10 years after his departure.
But clowns like you will attribute effects in 1948 to an election of 1980, because you literally cannot think anything contrary to the dogma you've been fed. You're brainwashed.
"Yeah, I don't hang out with those creeps either."
If you were exposed to a steady diet of realtalk and un-faked history, I bet your head would explode.
Heart breaking
The history of europeon bestiality towards all people of color is beyond comprehension! They hate everyone but themselves,but that's probably the root of their problem,self hate.Sickening bastards!!
Anon@11:31, u might be on to something. It would certainly be a big draw. That orange hair alone would have folks clamoring to get in.
Fuck the gooks and chinks!
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987; Sarah Bartman...Also put on display, even after death.
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