'Saartjie Sarah Baartman' Every black woman should know her name.
Although its not celebrated like it should be, especially here in the UK, does not make it less important. Most of us black people are so quick to use slavery and the oppression of our ancestors as a weapon when arguing over a matter or fighting against racism as if we really know our history or care as much as we portray. But the truth is a lot of us don't, if we did, it would show in our thoughts, words, actions. I am guilty too. Now when I came across this story, all i could ask myself was "HOW IN THE WORLD HAVE I NEVER HEARD ABOUT THIS?". I blamed myself for not researching on my own, about what we went through as a people. I also blamed society for letting our past be swept under a rug. I then put myself in the position of this young lady 'Saartjie Sarah Baartman'.
'Saartjie Sarah Baartman' also known as 'hottentot venus' was one of the two khoi khoi women from the eastern cape of South Africa. After a European led commando raid in the town she was orphaned, widowed and lost her children. and as if that was not bad enough, she was taken to France by Alexander Dunlop who suggested to her Dutch slave master that she be taken to England for exhibition. Now she was being taken by a man who deals with animal specimens, in other words they believed the women of this town were not humans and portrayed animal like traits.
She started being exhibited in london as a freak show, a scientific curiosity, where she was made to be gawped and fondled with to entertain people at shows. She had very large buttocks (steatopygia) and also the elongated labia (vagina) of some khosian women. She was made to dance in provocative manners while the Europeans leered at her with lustful eyes and abused her, at times she couldn't hold back her tears and cry. She was treated like a wild beast, she was kept in a cage forced to dance even when ill, and threatened with fists or sticks when she did not co-operate.
After four years in England she was taken to France (Paris) to continue her round of degrading rounds of shows and exhibitions. Once they got tired of the show, Sarah was forced to turn to prostitution. Her body could not uphold the further abuse, foreign climate change and diseases, she died the next year in 1815 at the age of just 25. Sarah lived and died thousands of miles away from friends and family, with no means of ever getting back home.
As if she had not suffered enough in her lifetime, George cuvier a french scientist made a plaster cast of her body, removed her skeletons, brain and genitals placing them in a jar, to be displayed in a museum. After the years of abuse, heartache and torment they still did not allow her body to rest in peace. The europeans so badly waanted to prove that we was not human like they. They described her in relation to an animal, lips like a chimpanzee. They described her buttocks like those of a female ape.
160 years later and they were still on display, but were finally removed from public view in 1974, President Nelson Mandela asked for her remains to be brought home in 1994. It took the French government 8 years to pass the bill, and she was finally given a proper burial in just 2002! Her grave has been declared a national heritage site, and i hope to visit their one day!
What amuses me is how times have changed...but in a way they haven't. In those days our black women were forced to dance provocatively, showcase their body parts etc...But now black women do these things at their own will! And they do it proudly. With no care in the world. I for one will be educating my daughters on how a black woman should carry herself. It has been done in the past for a reason, so we can appreciate and respect our bodies. So we can treat our bodies like a temple. We have free will now, women like 'Saara' did not. Im very sure if she was alive she would be very confused at some things in society today. We are still in the mind state of slavery, things like 'KING magazine' and many more proves some black women just dont get it. Anyways i did not really write this to preach! I wrote it to honour 'Saara Baartman' she deserves it, after publicly being humiliated for 100's of years. And she was just 20 when the ordeal began, a year below myself. Mmmmm.
