8 ms·

The forgotten history of human zoos

60 points by mercurial 12y ago

rtpg 12y ago
seeing "1931" in there is so depressing. I realise we've made progress since then, but that still isn't very far on a "cultural mentality" scale
- spoiler 12y ago
  I was convinced it was a typo before I looked it up. It's so horrendous what we did (and still do) to eachother.
- mathattack 12y ago
  Indeed - we live in a sanitized world thinking that civil rights happened with the civil war. I'm ashamed to even look at these pics.
  - kzrdude 12y ago
    Surely people know the civil rights movement, 50 years ago?
    - rtpg 12y ago
      In school it's summarised as "Rosa Parks sat in a white person's bus spot, MLK was shot, and the Civil Rights Act was signed". Really no talk of the lynching beforehand (or anything else in the systematic oppression of blacks).
    - mathattack 12y ago
      For the people who think of REM as Old Fogey Music, the Civil Rights Movement is a foreign to them as the roaring 20s liberation was to us.
- e12e 12y ago
  I'd thought I'd just point to: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-y... but along the way I also found: "Researchers said they determined that 3,959 black people were killed in “racial terror lynchings” in a dozen Southern states between 1877 and 1950." (My emphasis) http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10...
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Australia, 1967. Aborigines are finally recognized as persons and granted rights under the Constitution. Up until then, they were to be treated as 'native fauna' - i.e. animals. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-1900-1969 http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/ab...
  - Potando 12y ago
    It seems clear cut now when we grow up being told "everyone is equal", but that's because we have the luxury of seeing all moderns humans as a single species with no close living relatives. How would we classify Neanderthals if we found them alive today? How far removed from "our own race" do you have to go before something isn't a human? How about someone with a different number of chromosomes such as a Down's syndrome patient? I think the real problem isn't classifying animals - aborigines really do have a different genetic history from every other race. It's that we somehow equate "not properly human" with "deserves to be abused". Until we can escape from that mentality, we're really no better than these zoo keepers. We've just moved the threshold a bit.
  - xtrumanx 12y ago
    I've heard of the forced removal of children from their families but this timeline paints a really dark picture for me of Australia's history. Makes early 20th century Australia seems comparable if not worse than apartheid South Africa.
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      Its a dirty little secret, but Australia is still a very racist and intolerant place. Basically, Australia got away with its own "slow and steady" apartheid - a true travesty, to this day, and which still causes untold pain and suffering to a portion of its population. Alas, this is the price paid by generations for the luxury most Australians enjoy today. As an ex-pat, I hope to see things change, but I'm very much afraid that the more things get swept under the rug the more they stay the same.
Mikeb85 12y ago
And yet we're still smug about the fact we're so 'enlightened'. Meanwhile, this was happening not even 100 years ago. Maybe a little historical perspective is needed next time we demonize others for what we consider overly-conservative values, in light of the fact that western society hasn't exactly been particularly progressive throughout the ages...
- Potando 12y ago
  You only have to look at the present to see that we aren't properly enlightened yet. Look at the range of sexualities that are still criminalized: pedophilia, bestiality, incest. We make a show of being accepting of homosexuality, but it's a farce when we realize that we only accept it because it's been repeatedly promoted by bold members of that group willing to risk it all in an attempt to change society. People (in the UK at least) are still being imprisoned for having consensual sex with their adult relatives. It's still a common fear that pedophiles shouldn't be left alone with children in case they rape them. Much like the fear of homosexual men was 50-odd years ago (turns out not all gays are rapists after all). Farmers regularly rape animals for profit, but if they do it for pleasure, it's a crime.
  - spdub 12y ago
    Did you just compare racists with pedophiles?
    - friedolion 12y ago
      Did you just call homosexual people, racists?
    - Potando 12y ago
      Not quite. I was trying to show that even today we're not very enlightened by comparing blacks with pedophiles. These are both groups of people who have been seen as "inferior" and "acceptable to abuse" simply for existing, rather than for causing harm.
      - 12y ago
GuiA 12y ago
The emergence of modern zoological gardens is intimately tied to colonialism; given the prevailing mentality at the time (the world is a God given property to the white man), these horrors are sadly unsurprising. I really recommend the book "New Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century" for an in depth history of zoos amd treatment of that colonialism connection, it's fascinating.
wodenokoto 12y ago
I have a pet-peeve about articles that tries to paint a bad thing even worse. This is bad enough as is. You do not need to exaggerate and call fences cages. The Paris world fair is also a bit of a (dark) gray area. If you read the wikipedia article, it seems less clear that these are people who are kidnapped into a zoo and more like people hired to enact a stereotypic view of their culture. Moreover, the 1931 exhibit was setup to show cultural diversity and compassion towards the colonies. It was obviously a marketing stunt, attempting to legitimize an illicit sovereignty, but it is not unfair to expect those participants to be treated better and not die within the year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Colonial_Exposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Colonial_Exposition The article also focuses heavily on white peoples explotation, but again wikipedia points to the oldest known human zoo from the 1500's in Mexico. Interesting stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo
- Rebelgecko 12y ago
  Thanks for making those points. A lot of the articles on the linked site seem questionable (to put it very very mildly).
aaron695 12y ago
They still exist. Across the world we have many locations(Amazon and some islands) where we have 'quaint' tribes living in isolation, with people from the outside more or less forbidden from visiting them so the rest of the world can still have the wonder of real life tribes living amongst us. The fact there is quite a movement(often amongst the left) to encourage tribal societies to stay technology backwards shows people still think it's ok to keep others as entertainment.
- ramblerman 12y ago
  I think the discussion on whether to bring these tribes into the 21st century or not is an interesting one. Linking it to human zoos is just stupid. It's apples and oranges.
_cudgel 12y ago
Did I mistakenly go to Tumblr?
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Much of this was terrible. Some of it was little different from Epcot Center - a cross-cultural experience arranged for mutual benefit.

60 points by mercurial 12y ago

rtpg 12y ago

seeing "1931" in there is so depressing. I realise we've made progress since then, but that still isn't very far on a "cultural mentality" scale

spoiler 12y ago
I was convinced it was a typo before I looked it up. It's so horrendous what we did (and still do) to eachother.
mathattack 12y ago
Indeed - we live in a sanitized world thinking that civil rights happened with the civil war. I'm ashamed to even look at these pics.
- kzrdude 12y ago
  Surely people know the civil rights movement, 50 years ago?
  - rtpg 12y ago
    In school it's summarised as "Rosa Parks sat in a white person's bus spot, MLK was shot, and the Civil Rights Act was signed". Really no talk of the lynching beforehand (or anything else in the systematic oppression of blacks).
  - mathattack 12y ago
    For the people who think of REM as Old Fogey Music, the Civil Rights Movement is a foreign to them as the roaring 20s liberation was to us.
e12e 12y ago
I'd thought I'd just point to: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-y... but along the way I also found: "Researchers said they determined that 3,959 black people were killed in “racial terror lynchings” in a dozen Southern states between 1877 and 1950." (My emphasis) http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10...
fit2rule 12y ago
Australia, 1967. Aborigines are finally recognized as persons and granted rights under the Constitution. Up until then, they were to be treated as 'native fauna' - i.e. animals. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-1900-1969 http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/ab...
- Potando 12y ago
  It seems clear cut now when we grow up being told "everyone is equal", but that's because we have the luxury of seeing all moderns humans as a single species with no close living relatives. How would we classify Neanderthals if we found them alive today? How far removed from "our own race" do you have to go before something isn't a human? How about someone with a different number of chromosomes such as a Down's syndrome patient? I think the real problem isn't classifying animals - aborigines really do have a different genetic history from every other race. It's that we somehow equate "not properly human" with "deserves to be abused". Until we can escape from that mentality, we're really no better than these zoo keepers. We've just moved the threshold a bit.
- xtrumanx 12y ago
  I've heard of the forced removal of children from their families but this timeline paints a really dark picture for me of Australia's history. Makes early 20th century Australia seems comparable if not worse than apartheid South Africa.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Its a dirty little secret, but Australia is still a very racist and intolerant place. Basically, Australia got away with its own "slow and steady" apartheid - a true travesty, to this day, and which still causes untold pain and suffering to a portion of its population. Alas, this is the price paid by generations for the luxury most Australians enjoy today. As an ex-pat, I hope to see things change, but I'm very much afraid that the more things get swept under the rug the more they stay the same.

Mikeb85 12y ago

And yet we're still smug about the fact we're so 'enlightened'. Meanwhile, this was happening not even 100 years ago. Maybe a little historical perspective is needed next time we demonize others for what we consider overly-conservative values, in light of the fact that western society hasn't exactly been particularly progressive throughout the ages...

Potando 12y ago
You only have to look at the present to see that we aren't properly enlightened yet. Look at the range of sexualities that are still criminalized: pedophilia, bestiality, incest. We make a show of being accepting of homosexuality, but it's a farce when we realize that we only accept it because it's been repeatedly promoted by bold members of that group willing to risk it all in an attempt to change society. People (in the UK at least) are still being imprisoned for having consensual sex with their adult relatives. It's still a common fear that pedophiles shouldn't be left alone with children in case they rape them. Much like the fear of homosexual men was 50-odd years ago (turns out not all gays are rapists after all). Farmers regularly rape animals for profit, but if they do it for pleasure, it's a crime.
- spdub 12y ago
  Did you just compare racists with pedophiles?
  - friedolion 12y ago
    Did you just call homosexual people, racists?
  - Potando 12y ago
    Not quite. I was trying to show that even today we're not very enlightened by comparing blacks with pedophiles. These are both groups of people who have been seen as "inferior" and "acceptable to abuse" simply for existing, rather than for causing harm.
    - 12y ago

GuiA 12y ago

The emergence of modern zoological gardens is intimately tied to colonialism; given the prevailing mentality at the time (the world is a God given property to the white man), these horrors are sadly unsurprising. I really recommend the book "New Worlds, New Animals: From Menagerie to Zoological Park in the Nineteenth Century" for an in depth history of zoos amd treatment of that colonialism connection, it's fascinating.

wodenokoto 12y ago

I have a pet-peeve about articles that tries to paint a bad thing even worse. This is bad enough as is. You do not need to exaggerate and call fences cages. The Paris world fair is also a bit of a (dark) gray area. If you read the wikipedia article, it seems less clear that these are people who are kidnapped into a zoo and more like people hired to enact a stereotypic view of their culture. Moreover, the 1931 exhibit was setup to show cultural diversity and compassion towards the colonies. It was obviously a marketing stunt, attempting to legitimize an illicit sovereignty, but it is not unfair to expect those participants to be treated better and not die within the year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Colonial_Exposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Colonial_Exposition The article also focuses heavily on white peoples explotation, but again wikipedia points to the oldest known human zoo from the 1500's in Mexico. Interesting stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

Rebelgecko 12y ago
Thanks for making those points. A lot of the articles on the linked site seem questionable (to put it very very mildly).

aaron695 12y ago

They still exist. Across the world we have many locations(Amazon and some islands) where we have 'quaint' tribes living in isolation, with people from the outside more or less forbidden from visiting them so the rest of the world can still have the wonder of real life tribes living amongst us. The fact there is quite a movement(often amongst the left) to encourage tribal societies to stay technology backwards shows people still think it's ok to keep others as entertainment.

ramblerman 12y ago
I think the discussion on whether to bring these tribes into the 21st century or not is an interesting one. Linking it to human zoos is just stupid. It's apples and oranges.

_cudgel 12y ago

Did I mistakenly go to Tumblr?

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Much of this was terrible. Some of it was little different from Epcot Center - a cross-cultural experience arranged for mutual benefit.