The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret

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1. what was the name of the book???

   Posted by John on 02/02/2010 03:04:33

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2. please continue to highlight things like this channel4.

   Posted by kelinza on 10/11/2009 09:44:07

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3. I am so glad that this programme was shown on channel 4. Very educational and an eye opener.

   Posted by aneleh on 03/11/2009 11:29:15

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4. Vey interseting episode I have always been aware about these "human zoos" but never hear about Otto benga's story I always heard about Sarajite Baaratman which is too a very sad story of a south african woman being paraded around as a freak because of her features. The whole point of these zoos were to deem people of colour as inferior to white people by creating sterotypes about them Otto showing black people to be savage sub-human same with sarajite Baartman her large buttocks and vaginal appearcene helped shape the sterotype of black women being sexual promiscious. sadly these sterotypes are still wildly belived.

   Posted by Aiyo on 02/11/2009 19:59:51

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5. The final comment about Otto shooting himself brought home the dangers of racism and it's profound impact on it's victims. If I'm honest like many other people of colour growing up in the seventies with the spectre of skinheads and the national front (don't be mistaken the BNP is just a reincarnation of this ilk) there were times I wished I was white. Not because I thought I was inferior in anyway, it would have made it just easier to fit in, to stop the looks of contempt and constantly trying to justify your existence in this country. And this is the point, when you try so hard to say "hey I'm just like you" but are constantly rejected because of the colour of your skin or religion, after a while you begin to start hanging out with people who look like you and before you know it you stop making any atempt to fit in with the wider society. Hence, ghettos are formed. It is at this point you are then accused of being racist and for not adopting the English culture in any shape or form. Those who oppose multiculturalism sowed the seeds for it's failure a long time ago, by being overtly racist in the seventies. It is these same poeple, now middle aged who would have you believe "the multicultural experiment" has been a failure. I remember in the late eighties walking into a pub with an asian friend of mine to meet up with a couple of our friends who were caucasian. They were drinking with a couple of Lads we had not met before. When our friend try to introduce us, the comment he recieved from one of these lads was "you don't hang around with pakis do you?". He was more taken a back than we were, it must have been the first time the poor guy was subjected to overt racism. We, sad to say were use to such comments from time to time. The Lad who said this made no eye contact with us and was never in a month of Sundays going to attempt to get to know us. Yet despite all this I live in a diverse area and have friends from all backgrounds, English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Nepalese, Pakistani, Indian and African-Carribean. If only certain members of our society would stop pigeon holing people and accept people for who they are and not what they are can we move forward as one Nation. I have travelled a fair amount of the world and it would be fair to say that England is a great place to live, it is reasonably safe, friendly and law abiding. The weather could be better though...(I was born here and moaning about the weather is a very English thing)I only dipair these days when one of my primary school age children come home and comment on the fact another child will not play with them because of the colour of their skin...it is at this point I wonder how much some people in this country have moved on from the 60's and 70's. After all with children it is learned behaviour.

   Posted by Danan on 02/11/2009 16:19:40

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6. This programme provided an overly-simplified history of anthropology in the late ninenteenth century. The scientific racism which the programme ascribed to William McGhee, which belived in inferior and static racial types, did exist in ethnology and anthropology in the mid nineteenth century, and was most famously promoted by Samuel Morton and Louis Agassiz. But far from believing in static racial types, William McGhee and his colleagues at the Bureau of American Ethnology believed in cultural evolution, which suggested all races/people had, at least, equal capacity for progress and development. Nor was this theory the off-shoot of Darwianism that the programme suggested, but a a distinct intellectual development with had very little to do with ideas of biological natural selection. Perhaps the biggest problem with the programme was that used 'human zoos' as its framework of analysis without any real contextulisation. The display of humans was, of course, a common practise in the period. But this was not intrinsically linked to racism. Indeed, the great Franz Boas once arranged for a group Kuwaitl Inuits to reside in a mock village at the Chicago World Fair of 1893. No-one can be credited with doing more to destory scientific thoeries of racism than Boas, but the programme seemed willing to suggest that his display at the World Fair of 1893 would have somehow contributed to the rise of the Third Reich. Could do better Channel 4.

   Posted by Frank Hamilton Cushing on 02/11/2009 11:42:33

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7. i am from congo,know the pigmees very well and im just choked by what i saw on tele today.congolese have never heard of this story. cant imagine their reaction if they find out about it.it's really disgusting but somehow i dont blame those people...i am just glad to have lived at this time.everyone watching it at home today was chocked,we now live in england.helas many african leave their countries,communities and families at the searchh of a better live to only discover that the west isnt very what it looks like on tv.

   Posted by dany on 01/11/2009 22:49:53

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8. Thank you Channel four for showing this. The history of racism in Europe came to a climax between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Society may have moved on since then and we may not be as obvious in our reacism but we as a society still suffer from racism albeit in a much more subtle tone. These programs have highlighted this.

   Posted by William on 01/11/2009 22:18:58

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9. omg, this is shocking, how could human beings have done this to other humans? Would I be wrong in saying that the people that did this were no more than animals? shocked at how my people were treated!

   Posted by farah on 01/11/2009 21:48:41

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10. Wow, what can I say? I am basically speechless.

    Posted by michael on 01/11/2009 20:33:55

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11. This show was a real eye openner and I like to thank channel 4 for showing this.

    Posted by Elena on 01/11/2009 20:12:05

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12. A shiver went down my spine and I felt very sad when I heard Otto shot himself....

    Posted by Ed Thomas on 01/11/2009 20:04:33

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13. WHY?

    Posted by sharon on 01/11/2009 20:00:05

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