Gabriel Prosser The Smokedbreakfast Table — Issue #6 New Day Hottentot Venuses

Sarah Baartman was her name and she was from the southern africa. in the 19th century she was used as a freak show attraction because of the size of her buttocks and genetalia. The white men were amazed at the body of a Black women and use her body to put on display in freak shows all across europe. Sarah Baartman was used as a guinea pig for the sick scientist and their so-called experiments. Even after her death on December 29 1815 she was 40 years old, they would get the legal approval to keep her reamins on display in museums until 1974. There is a poem called “ I’ve come to take you home” written by a South African writer named Diana Ferrus. She wrote this poem in 1978 and it started the movement to bring her bodie back to her homeland tofinally rest in peace, France accepted the request on March 6 2002 and Sarah Baartman was buried on a hill in Hankey a small town on August 9 2002, 200 years after her birth. Now with this brief His-story explained take into account the imagery of Black prominent women that are on television and in the music industry today. This is just His-story repeating itself by the potrayal of Black womens bodies as something to be gawked at or bought for money. This is why i call it The New Day Hottentot Venuses, again we have Black women that are showing their bodies in the most disrespectful way and allowing these little girls to see and admire something that is ignorant and dangerous considering the times that we are living in today. Black women and Black Girls are sexualized in the entertainment industries just as Sarah Baartman was in europe in the late nineteenth century all for the love of money. So the next time you hear of the song WAP or listen to the Cd Heux tales just remember as a Black women you are playing right into the hand that they want you and your daughters to be. They want The Black women to be wild and free and for her to think that she is liberated without the Black man that way they can further confuse her by this Hottentot Venus indoctranation.

Originally published at https://www.getrevue.co on March 24, 2021.