The Venus Hottentot

I wished we had had more time to discuss this poem and the documentary in class today. I think this is one of those horror stories in world history that isn't discussed as much as it should be. Even if we subtracted the fact that Saartjie was an African woman from the equation, her life was an extremely tragic tale of greed, total apathy, and evil, whether she was Black, White, Asian, Latina, or any other ethnicity. The fact that she was an African woman places her amongst the millions of African men, women, and children who suffered at the expense of the same sort of ideas through the Atlantic slave trade (a number Saartjie could arguably be placed amongst). I thought Saartjie's story connected to our article we read for Tuesday in that she was proof that in Africa as a continent exists different peoples, nations, and ancestries. I think that during the slave trade and even today we often consider "African-American" or "Black" to be an umbrella term, while White peoples' ancestries are considered. For instance, I'm a White girl, but I am also Polish, Hungarian, and German. African-Americans may have ancestries that include Ibo, Yoruba, and Fulani (as named in the article). Backers, supporters, and investors of the slave trade attempted to wash all captives of their tribal and national affiliations in order to further deprive them of their humanity. They thought that erasing one's past erases their humanness. Saartjie proves that just as Ukranian people have different features from say a French person, the Khoi Khoi people had distinct features from other peoples in Africa. It is deplorable that this was used as justification for using her in freak shows, but the fact is, even from the racist men who conned her into going to Europe saw that the Khoi Khoi were a distinct people of Africa.

I really liked the part of the poem that was a tribute to the genius that was Josephine Baker. These two women are very interesting to compare and contrast. Where Saartjie's exotic beauty was used against her and considered "freakish," about one hundred years later in Paris, people celebrated Baker's performances and her beauty as a woman of color. However when she came to America, she was shunned by White audiences and seen as a performer of savage erotica. I think the juxtaposition of the two women is a testament to how this country seems to have lagged behind other nations in "taboo" subjects such as sexuality and ethnicity. People have used words such as "sophisticated" and "powerful" in describing Baker. These same words could and should have been and now be used to describe Saartjie. As the poem states, she was intelligent, capable of speaking at least three languages, she was well-traveled (though perhaps not by her own accord), and she was aware of issues that most European people of the time could not begin to fathom. It is a terrible shame that her voice has been lost in her story as a completely capable person whom I am sure would have had a lot to say.

This poem and the story that goes with it have a lot to teach us. It's good that we have been able to come into contact with it and discuss it. I think it has been one of those stories the White world has been hoping to sweep under the rug to forever be forgotten, but it happened, and we must learn from it and honor Saartjie's memory.