Is This The Most Beautiful Image In The World, Right Now?

The black foetus

Screen shot from my twitter page via ebereillustrate

All through my years of compulsory education, I have absolutely no recollection of Black folk being represented or captured in a meaningful, scientific way.

When we delve deep into history, there are some egregious images of Black people that’s seared into our subconscious.

There is Sarah Baartman, the South African woman, also known as the Hottentot venus, who was paraded around Europe in the most dehumanizing way imaginable as some sort of anthropological specimen. According to reports from the 19th century she was described as “ the missing link between man and beast”

And for well over a century after her death, her remains were still being displayed at Muséum d’histoire naturelle d’Angers, until Mandela’s government formally petitioned the French government to have her body returned to the land of her birth for a proper burial. Even then, it took the French government a long time to accede to this request.

There is the image of the young Congolese kid who was placed in a cage for the amusement of Americans well over a hundred years ago, who subsequently committed suicide. It took the Bronx zoo 114 years to apologize for its atrocity.