"Because the Circassian was thought to be the purest, most primordial exemplar of the white race, that may have led the white viewer to yet another thought: tha

"Because the Circassian was thought to be the purest, most primordial exemplar of the white race, that may have led the white viewer to yet another thought: that the sexual fate and the sexual proclivities of the “Circassian Lady” (no true “lady” by Victorian standards because of these very proclivities) might just as well be those of any given “American Lady,” who must be, after all, the racial descendant of the woman on exhibit. And that, in turn, would suggest that the white American “lady” was, at bottom, in her unadorned, uncultured nature, no different from the Circassian—and so no different from the African." http://mirrorofrace.org/circassian/ http://mirrorofrace.org/circassian/