Introduction to Contemporary Africa – Sara Baartman Discussion
Post one reply of 200-250 words to a classmate’s comment.
You must critically evaluate your classmate’s post.
To evaluate your classmates, you may want to comment on:
Something new you have learned from your classmate
The organization of their argument
What crucial points may be missing in their argument
What you like or dislike about their argument
Sara Saartjie Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus, was an African woman who was forcibly objectified and exposed. Called so many names, some being “ape” others being “exotic freak,” Baartman was born in South Africa, in the Eastern Cape. She worked as an enslaved servant to Peter Cezar. Cezar, his brother, and a Britishman, Alexander Dunlop, were fascinated by the women in this landscape, and took a liking to Baartman. They had a grotesque curiosity about the bodies of the Hottentot women, especially surrounding their genital anatomy.
Baartman was soon manipulated by Cezar and Dunlop. They took her from her home and brought her to England, where they would soon force her to parade around whilst exposing herself, in hopes of selling her. Little did they know, England had recently abolished the slave trade, and “Cesar’s display of Baartman particularly outraged some members of the anti-slavery lobby, including Zachary Macaulay of the African Institution. They disliked a Dutch settler keeping a Khoekhoe woman in a state of bondage in a free England exulting in its recent abolition of the slave trade. Macaulay asked the attorney general to investigate whether Baartman displayed herself of her own free will or whether she was enslaved.
According to the court paraphrase of the interview with Baartman, she said that she stayed in London to earn money,” (Scully, 2008). However, within the film, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, it was noted that Cezar “came across her on the farm of his brother, that his brother simply gave him to her, as one person would give a slave to another and say, take her. You find her bum interesting, take her and do with her as you will,” (The Life and Times of Sara Baartman). Later on, in that same film, the audience is made aware of the way that Baartman was ‘examined,’ noting that “during this first inspection, we couldn’t observe the most remarkable particularity of her anatomy.
She hid her apron carefully between her thighs. Her movements were brusk and capricious, like those of apes. She had great pendular breasts, and the unsightly habit of making her lips protrude, like an orangutan. Her thigh bones were heavy and short, like an animal’s. Her upper thighs were spindly and delicate, like those of apes, dogs, and other carnivores,” (The Life and Times of Sara Baartman). There is a disrespectful tone, not just in the sense that these scientists wanted to inspect Baartman, but also because of the way they described her. They talk only of her breasts, her thighs, and lips, and compare them only to those of animals like apes, orangutans, and dogs. This, in a way, compares to the way that others have talked about Michelle Obama. As mentioned in Under Cuvier’s Microscope: The Dissection of Michelle Obama in the Twenty-First Century, by Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, “As First Lady, Michelle Obama has been left to defend herself in the face of, what I consider some of the most insidious, racist, castings of the twenty-first century.
She has been charged with epithets ranging from being “ape-like” to a “terrorist” to a “bitter, angry Black woman” to President Obama’s “baby mama.” These blatantly disrespectful, linguistic cartwheels have reached profound and frightening proportions… With her class status and education, Michelle Obama becomes an elusive and thus a troubling figure to mediate and control. Thereby, the mere possibility of her presence as First Lady warranted such a reactionary response, one that continues to equate her with her enslaved forebears of two centuries ago, despite her modernity,” (Gordon-Chipembere, 2011). Within this, Michelle Obama being called “ape-like” can be seen as similar to the way that these scientists described Baartman when examining her. However, as opposed to The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, Gordon-Chipembere uses a certain tone to depict her defending of the former First Lady.
Later on in The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, there is another examination and observation of Baartman. From this, Reaux wrote about the details of his observation, stating that “this woman presents a singularly remarkable trait, the prodigious volume of her buttock,” (The Life and Times of Sara Baartman). Again, comparing Baartman to an ape, with much disregard for any respect. This statement, made by Reaux, compares in some way to a statement made by Renee Martin in her article, Is Serena Williams the New Sarah Baartman? The statement, made by Martin, being “Words like “menacing,” “threatening” and “aggressive” are often associated with Serena… Fox News recently ran a story on Serena in which the author, Jason Whitlock, referred to her as an “underachiever” and called her derriere a “back pack.”
It would seem that though she is ranked number two in the tennis world, it is acceptable to claim that her athletic frame is little more than “an unsightly layer of thick, muscled blubber,” because her body does not conform to what is understood as the beauty norm,” (Martin, 2009). Though the more hurtful words in this statement are not written by Martin herself, she follows that by saying, “Even as Serena continues to dominate the sport of tennis, she remains a problematic figure because of the social constructions of Black womanhood,” (Martin, 2009), and she follows this by saying we need to remove ourselves from the idea of race and gender as grounds to demean others to achieve a post-racial world. However, her tone is much different than the one utilized by Gordon-Chipembere, and I feel that it is closer to the tone of the film, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman. Even though it is not as harsh, Martin takes a more journalistic, almost unbiased perspective and tone toward the way Serena Williams is talked about.
In the end, the racist ideologies about black women across time and space have changed, but not by much. Even though Gordon-Chipembere took to defend Michelle Obama, that does not take away from the fact that people were still making disrespectful remarks, both racist and sexist, about the former First Lady. Some of these remarks, similar to those made about Sara Baartman in the 1800s, compared these women to apes and other animals. Other remarks, like those made in regards to star tennis player, Serena Williams, judge her for her looks and her body, rather than focusing on her as a tennis player and athlete. The tone in each of the pieces differs. In The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, it is more informal about the life of Baartman, rather than picking a side to either defend Baartman against the racist, sexist, and disrespectful remarks, or siding with the remarks made. In Gordon-Chipembere’s piece, there are a lot of these similar kinds of remarks made against former First Lady, Michelle Obama.
However, Gordon-Chipembere comes to her defense and highlights other aspects of Michelle Obama, rather than people resorting to making comments about the physical presentation of Black women. Those who make these blatantly ill-mannered comments and remarks probably regard these women, maybe, as “less-than” because of the issue of racism that all of society has yet to fully abandon. This racism, in conjunction with sexism, makes people feel ‘holier than thou’ and as if they are in the position to make comments about these Black women’s bodies. However, the tone between each article, and film, differ from one another in different ways. Gordon-Chipembere uses a tone to defend Michelle Obama within her article, Martin takes a journalistic, almost unbiased perspective and tone toward the way Serena Williams is talked about, and finally, The Life and Times of Sarah Baartman film provides insight to to mistreatment, manipulation, and complete disrespect for Baartman, and other Khoekhoe women at the time.
