Hottentot Venus

The documentary on the Khoi Khoi woman who became Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, demonstrated the immoral need of trying to demean and degrade people and cultures you don't understand. Instead of trying to understand Sarah's culture the Europeans immediately demeaned it because it was different from their own. Difference in skin color, language, clothes, and culture were preconceived to be inferior because it didn't resemble their own. The cruel manner of displaying her as a sub-human being in freak shows denigrating her character as a human being and reducing her humanity as an attraction to be put on display is the theory of the "other" being put on in full display. To justify yourself as superior you must put others who are different from you down in the harshest ways possible. Slavery and later colonialism thrived due to this perverse reasoning. Psuedo-science of emphasizing small differences such as Sarah's buttocks in contrast to European women was justified to the dissection of her organs as if she was some kind of animal after her death. The documentary demonstrated that we as human beings look for ways to divide ourselves for power and exploitatation of each other instead of uniting to tackle bigger problems such as hunger, poverty, and war to uplift ourselves. Sarah Baatman deserved better. She stands as a reminder of the progress we made as a people and the obstacles black women must overcome due to the stereotypes implemented on them due to Europeans morbid curiosity on people of color. Black women are extremely resilient and overcame many obstacle. Sarah Baartman is a matyr for not for her denigration but because of her beauty. Today her beauty withstands the test of time and even through exploitatation black remains beautiful.