- Aug 8, 2004
- 78
- 3
this is for all the curvaceous Black women, like myself, and also for all the Black people who appreciate a Black woman's curves. I'm posting this to raise an awareness of how curvaceous Black women in history were not celebrated but were seen as freaks of nature and used for entertainment and seen as inferior. this story really saddened me and it makes matters worse that i feel that she may have been an ancestor of mine.
LIVING HISTORY
Sarah Baartman, at rest at last
Lucille Davie
12 August 2002
Sarah Baartman, displayed as a freak because of her unusual physical features, has finally been laid to rest, 187 years after she left Cape Town for London. Her remains were buried on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, in the area of her birth, the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape.
Baartman was born in 1789. She was working as a slave in Cape Town when she was “discovered” by British ship’s doctor William Dunlop, who persuaded her to travel with him to England. We’ll never know what she had in mind when she stepped on board – of her own free will - a ship for London.
http://www.safrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/history/saartjie.htm
this is another article exploring the story of Sara Baartman and also criticises Nelly's Apple Bottom campaign. It's worth reading the whole article. below is just a preview of it.
If you saw the original search for an Apple Bottom Girl on VH-1, that ran over 2-3 days then there is good chance that you noticed that this good idea turned into another act of exploitation. Where once again, 'sistas' are little more than the sum of their body parts. To watch as the cameras often cut off the upper torso of the "models" as they pirouetted on command, under the focused gaze of their almost exclusively male "booty inspectors" just didn't sit right with me. Some part of me just kept thinking, this doesn't belong on TV, at least not on this station, and at this early hour. But alas this is where "we" are, or at least where "we've" been taken. Nelly's national search and road tour, for a 19 -26 year old "big-butt" woman is basically the same type of exploitation that happened with another lesser known 20 year old Black woman named Sara Baartman, who was literally exploited to death. Sara was nicknamed Hottenot Venus. I doubt that Nelly knows her story since he does not even realize the meaning of his own name.
http://www.playahata.com/pages/papi/applebottom.htm
LIVING HISTORY
Sarah Baartman, at rest at last
Lucille Davie
12 August 2002
Sarah Baartman, displayed as a freak because of her unusual physical features, has finally been laid to rest, 187 years after she left Cape Town for London. Her remains were buried on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, in the area of her birth, the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape.
Baartman was born in 1789. She was working as a slave in Cape Town when she was “discovered” by British ship’s doctor William Dunlop, who persuaded her to travel with him to England. We’ll never know what she had in mind when she stepped on board – of her own free will - a ship for London.
http://www.safrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/history/saartjie.htm
this is another article exploring the story of Sara Baartman and also criticises Nelly's Apple Bottom campaign. It's worth reading the whole article. below is just a preview of it.
If you saw the original search for an Apple Bottom Girl on VH-1, that ran over 2-3 days then there is good chance that you noticed that this good idea turned into another act of exploitation. Where once again, 'sistas' are little more than the sum of their body parts. To watch as the cameras often cut off the upper torso of the "models" as they pirouetted on command, under the focused gaze of their almost exclusively male "booty inspectors" just didn't sit right with me. Some part of me just kept thinking, this doesn't belong on TV, at least not on this station, and at this early hour. But alas this is where "we" are, or at least where "we've" been taken. Nelly's national search and road tour, for a 19 -26 year old "big-butt" woman is basically the same type of exploitation that happened with another lesser known 20 year old Black woman named Sara Baartman, who was literally exploited to death. Sara was nicknamed Hottenot Venus. I doubt that Nelly knows her story since he does not even realize the meaning of his own name.
http://www.playahata.com/pages/papi/applebottom.htm