In her piece, “Images of Sara
Bartman,” the author, Yvette Abrahams, provides a historical overview of the
many social, political, ideological factors that helped create an environment
in which the exhibition of “freaks” was readily accepted. However, while
keeping this central theme in mind, the point that I wish to discuss further is
how the imperialist mindset of the British may have been one of the leading
contributing factors as to how and why a horrific and degrading practice would
ever take place to begin with.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed
Abrahams analysis on the making of the story of Sara Bartman, what struck me
the most interesting, by far, was her ability to connect Sara Bartman’s story
to the imperialist mindset of the British at the time. As she explained in her
piece, not only was Sara’s story a testimony to the literal colonization that
took place in her African hometown, but also a testimony to the effects that
such imperialist and colonial policies can have on not only the colonized
regions themselves, but also amongst the people that resided in Britain at the
time. As was noted with the author’s use of “the colonizer vs. the colonized,”
the ability to literally display the “othered” people, such as Sara, in an
exhibition and generalize the entire Black race as one that is “animalistic”
and “beastly” all helped to create this separation of “us” vs. “them,” or
“civilized” vs. “uncivilized,” which then helped to normalize this form of
degradation as well as to justify the literal colonization of African regions
to begin with.
However, as was also discussed by
the author, this unprecedented fascination with Sara’s buttocks suggests that
not simply an imperialistic ideology was taking place, but rather a gendered
imperialistic ideology. It is this gendered aspect of the discussion that I
find both fascinating and heart breaking, as it reminded me of Dr. Sim’s
refusal to apply anesthesia during countless surgeries with female slaves,
since it was popular belief that black individuals failed to fully develop
their nerve-endings due to their uncivilized manner and, thus, cannot feel
pain. Unfortunately, it was because of their intersecting Black and female
identities that allowed for Dr. Sims to not only literally own these black
women’s bodies, but also to literally control their sexual organs, all in the
name of science.
While it may seem as though
scientific racism and imperialism are a thing of the past, in reality, we can
still see such ideologies very much at play and embedded within the fabrics of
our society and everyday life. For example, take the case of imperialism and
our most recent interaction with Afghanistan. Using an imperialist argument to
justify the invasion of Afghanistan, the US claimed that the Afghanistan
culture was so “backwards” and oppressive towards women that the US had no other
option but to invade the country, attempt to spread civilized/western thought,
and “rescue” these “helpless” women. While many may argue that the US also had
an alternate motive, the fact that they still effectively used an imperial
justification reveals just how much imperialism is not only (more or less)
accepted, but also thought of as necessary for the common good, regardless of
the fact that imperialism simultaneously implies a “colonized vs. colonizer” or
“civilized vs. uncivilized” ideology.
After having discussed the story of
Sara Bartman and the story of Dr. Sims and his female slaves, can we argue that
there could have been other social, gendered, or political ideologies at play
that helped produce these unfortunate outcomes?
http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/nprshared/201602/466943547.png
No comments:
Post a Comment