Had to reblog this,What confuses me here is all the things that are being said in the text. I’m not an expert but I cannot remain silent when Saartjie is brought up.
Sara Baartman, Saartjie, was toured in freak shows and circuses by both britain and france for white amusement, like a caged animal. She was dissected after her death to further scientific racism. People begged France to return her remains Africa for like 200 years.
What the fresh hell is all this “celebrated”, “white lovers” (does an African woman, not even known by her real name, actually call a white man her “lover” when she’s not, you know, FREE???), “sensation”? Why is she being made out to sound like a fashion statement? What realm is this book from?
What she went through was horrible, and the fact that there was specific inspection of her labia, enough for it to be a “sensation”, is fucking horrifying. This turns my stomach.
Just white folk writing history, like always. They kidnapped her, put her naked and on display, talked about and treated her like less than human, and sexually assaulted her, and these motherfuckers want to call it a goddamn celebration.
FYI her “white lovers” they’re referring to were men she had sex with for money when she had to turn to prostitution after people got bored of seeing her in the zoo.
my senior thesis was on her and the black female body. it’s crazy the things you learn when you realize what white historians leave out as the romanticize days of yore….
(Source: howtobeterrell, via ibtk)
