This Week in Racism - The History of African Human Zoos in Europe

Photo via Wikipedia Creative Commons

Welcome to another edition of This Week in Racism. I’ll be ranking news stories on a scale of one to RACIST, with “one” being the least racist and “RACIST” being the most racist.

– An art project in Norway has sprung up to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the signing of Norway's constitution. I'm not an art expert by any means. My interest in art starts at velvet paintings and ends with dogs playing poker, but this particular project piqued my interest because it's a recreation of a very real, very racist tourist attraction from the 1914 World's Fair in Oslo called Kongoslandsbyen (or "Congo Village"), which claimed to be a recreation of an African village – complete with black men, women and children engaged in crude recreations of tribal customs. Global Post reported that a newspaper of the time quoted visitors as remarking that the exhibit was "exceedingly funny", and that it was" wonderful that we are white".

This is not the first time Europeans have sought to shed light on this disturbing artifact of popular culture. In 2011, the Quai Branly museum in Paris hosted an exhibition of material from human zoos in France, England and Germany. It was common to bring back "specimens" from Africa to parade around for the enjoyment of well-heeled, curious white patrons. A BBC article on the exhibit mentioned a particularly famous South African named Saartjie Baartman who suffered from steatopygia, a condition they refer to as causing an "extremely protuberant buttocks and elongated labia". That sounds like your run-of-the-mill freak show, except with the added element of her race being a major part of the attraction.

Photo via Wikipedia Creative Commons

Clearly, the fascination with black female asses was around long before the invention of the hip-hop music video. The Paris World's Fair in 1889 had a "Negro Village" attraction that offered 400 Africans to be gawked at by fairgoers, and occasionally those people were displayed in cages – sometimes nude or semi-nude. Granted, nudity isn't illicit in many African tribes, then or now. Yet, for the attendees, surely there was an element of the prurient at play, in the same way that people at modern zoos eagerly gawk at monkeys fucking each other and flinging their shit.

The concept of capturing and parading Africans around in cages fell out of favour, along with the telegraph, boiling drinking water and the League of Nations, but the legacy of dehumanisation of "the other" persists in the global culture. It seems like not a week goes by that a European soccer match isn't tainted by a fan throwing bananas at a black player. A common insult hurled at Barack Obama is comparing him to a chimp. One of the reasons that so many black people found Miley Cyrus's VMAs performance offensive is that they saw Miley parading taut black flesh around the stage for the implicit purpose of showing them off as objects or curiosities. That perception is very, very likely to be off-base and unfair, but it exists for a good reason. Historically, black people have been used as exotic objects or tools for labour since white men first found the African continent. Many black people have that oppression in their DNA and need a trigger warning just to watch TV.

The Global Post story on the Congo Village re-creation reported that there are some African intellectuals who took offense at the project. Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire, a Ugandan writer said in the Guardian that the creators of the art project "can’t exonerate themselves because they mean well. Indeed, if they are serious about creating discussions of racism they ought to think deeper about the likelihood that their project may entrench the same prejudices they claim to fight.”

It's fine to be distressed at the lack of action on the part of many in the creative class toward the problems of racial animosity, but I would hazard a guess that there's not a ton of awareness that these places even exist. It's human nature to sweep embarrassing shit under the rug and ignore the fact that it even happened. If I had sex with a stripper in Guatemala and contracted syphilis, I'm not going to tell my OKCupid date all about it, but she might be better off knowing so she can hail a cab home and delete my phone number. These events are not fun to talk about, but the only way to repair the damage is to remember they happened. NOT RACIST for the art project, RACIST for the mere idea of a human zoo.

– The neverending saga of the "racist" Red Lobster receipt continues with no signs of stopping. This is like the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King of racism. Just when you think it's over, Frodo wakes up and starts calling Samwise a "coon". Toni Christina Jenkins, the Red Lobster waitress who claimed to have received a customer receipt with the word "nigger" scrawled on the tip line, is now being sued by the man accused of writing the slur. Devin Barnes's name was clearly visible on the photo of the receipt Jenkins posted on her Facebook page after the alleged incident. Even though Jenkins was suspended for posting the photo and took the picture off her page, the image quickly went viral and tarnished Barnes's reputation as a non-racist (and excellent tipper).

OK, actually, Barnes isn't an excellent tipper, because he admitted that he did not leave a tip, but he's adamant that he didn't call Jenkins a nigger. Barnes told WKRN that "A lot of people on the Internet who I don't know are calling me a racist… but I know I am not a racist. I don't see colour. I have many mixed-colour friends."

Ummm… Devin, if you "don't see colour," how do you know you have "mixed-colour" friends? Do they wear signs that say "mulatto" or "halfie" or "Tiger Woods"? Help me see the logic! Maybe this whole thing will teach Devin Barnes that he's better off leaving a smaller tip after sub-par service rather than stiffing the waitress. You never know who you're going to piss off. Your waitress might end up being a vengeful woman who accuses you of racism, posts about it on the internet, ruins your reputation forever and gets $10,000 (£6,000) in sympathy donations from horrified citizens.

Oh, and this is directed at Toni Jenkins: If you actually slandered this man and profited from it, you are the worst person in the world. I'm comfortable saying that about you in public, since that's kind of your thing. 5

– An apartment complex in West Haven, Connecticut, is currently home to an elevator that is doubling as a bulletin board for area racists, according to a report from local news station WTNH-TV. Racist and anti-Semitic comments have been written (and summarily scrubbed off) on the inside of the building elevator for the past month. One in particular warned of a "hot summer", which was swiftly followed by a fire being set off in the parking garage.

The news report above includes interviews with unnamed, befuddled alleged building residents expressing their dismay at such a hostile living environment. I hope the place is at least rent-controlled. RACIST

The Most Racist Tweets of the Week:

This fuckin stupid fat wetback cunt at the hospital just called my son a cry baby. Bitch you ready to be the reason I go back to jail?!!!

— Daddy Tweek (@YoungTweek) May 29, 2014

whats obamas last name? its nigger

— braden (@TRAGlC) May 25, 2014

Plot twist: there is no starving Africans and America just hires skinny nigger babies to throw sand on their face and play with sticks on TV

— infamous opinionist (@ThePuristDope) May 29, 2014

What's the deal with Arab descent sand nigger looking girls hating on beautiful latinas? At least they don't smell like garlic and armpit.

— Ant (@Ant_Dgk) May 28, 2014

That awkward moment when you have been in a skype call for like 2 hours with a kid who is a spic

— Mezzy (@MLGMezzy) May 29, 2014

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