Bronx Zoo apologizes for putting
African man on display in 1906
by
Vincent Barone
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
7/30/2020 11:28:07 PM
Bronx Zoo officials this week apologized for putting a central African man on display in the zoo’s Monkey House 114 years ago. The man, Ota Benga, was taken as a slave from his indigenous Mbuti people in the Congo and sold to an American man—who brought him to New York, where he was placed in the exhibition for 20 days in September 1906. Zoo officials on Wednesday described it as an act of “unconscionable racial intolerance.” “In the name of equality, transparency, and accountability, we must confront our organization’s historic role in promoting racial injustice as we advance our mission to save wildlife
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Ribicon 7/30/2020 11:28:23 PM (No. 495315)
Compare and contrast. The Dionne quintuplets, all WHITE girls, were put on public display for most of the first 9 years of their lives, first by the Red Cross and then by the Canadian government, which generated more than $50 million in tourist revenue during what amounted to their captivity. Between 1936 and 1943, some 3 million people gawked at the girls from an observation platform built around an outdoor playground at which they would make several daily appearances, not unlike zoo animals. Is an apology due here, or are only bLACK misfortunes worthy of attention?
25 people like this.
Exactly what good does it do to apologize for something a 100 years ago that you had nothing to do with?
41 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 7/30/2020 11:57:11 PM (No. 495331)
In 1906 there were many people who had never seen a black person. My Irish grandparents arrived in the U.S. in 1908 and never even knew that there was any race but white. In the 60's we were at our cabin in northern Wisconsin and the Swedish/Norwegian kids we were playing with were stunned when a black man got off the train. They had never seen anyone like that before. I don't think that putting a human being in an exhibit would happen today, but this is 2020. I am so sick of people who think the world began the day they were born and judge people from the past by the standards of today.
I don't usually admit this but I watch the various "90 Day Fiance" shows and there have been white men and women who have traveled to Africa, India and various Muslim countries to be married. The people in those countries have no problem staring at the white individual and commenting on race. They don't hold back when discussing their family's distrust of white people, of insisting they follow their culture, and eat food from filthy open markets. Many times the elders of the families say some pretty nasty things relating to race. One mother accused her son's fiance of wanting to make him a slave. I do believe however that it's simply a case of ignorance and unfamiliarity and not "racism."
20 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 7/31/2020 12:06:17 AM (No. 495336)
Who knew of this? Who has been distraught about this for the last 114 years? I bet the "woke" administrators of the Bronx Zoo were delighted to find this skeleton in the closet. They get to apologize for something they didn't do and reap the rewards of "wokeness". How groovy it must be to be them!
Along with #1 - Let us remember the freaks in carnival side shows. Oh, I forgot. We already made them unemployed in the first round of "wokeness" in the 1970's.
22 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
SALady 7/31/2020 1:23:55 AM (No. 495359)
Anyone who was offended by this when they saw it in 1906 should receive an apology by the person who decided to do it.
However, since they are all dead now, end of story!!!
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
alaskaal 7/31/2020 1:39:08 AM (No. 495367)
Is the poor fellow happy with the apology? That is all I ask. His name was Ota Benga and his story is a tragic tale indeed. Look him up and see how happy he was at the time of his death.
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
BillW. 7/31/2020 4:55:29 AM (No. 495399)
That's what America did in 2009, to its never-ending regret.
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Enoch Powell 7/31/2020 5:32:16 AM (No. 495428)
Ota was unavailable for comment.
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Strike3 7/31/2020 5:44:30 AM (No. 495431)
What about Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show that included (gasp) Native Americans?
7 people like this.
>>The man, Ota Benga, was taken as a slave from his indigenous Mbuti people in the Congo
By other Africans.
>>and sold to an American man
By other Africans.
16 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Lazyman 7/31/2020 6:59:33 AM (No. 495467)
One more brick through a window should help make this right.
13 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Laotzu 7/31/2020 8:43:56 AM (No. 495557)
Zoo officials on Wednesday described it as an act of “unconscionable racial intolerance.”
That's the lesson to be taken from this event? "Intolerance" is wrong?
I say, again, a body of 2,000 years of moral and ethical knowledge is now missing from our public life. It's been purged from the public record by the Stalinists of the modern era, and replaced with a Marxist identity-based value system.
6 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
TexaTucky 7/31/2020 8:50:29 AM (No. 495565)
I would like to apologize for that couple who took a bite from that apple they were told not to eat. It's been all downhill since then.
9 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Heil Liberals 7/31/2020 8:54:43 AM (No. 495568)
I am fairly certain that there is no one living today that had anything to do with that horrible decision. But, when woke you must go full throttle woke. I didn't even know it was done until this headline.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
chillijilli 7/31/2020 9:04:12 AM (No. 495583)
You can't judge yesterday's actions with today's eyes. It's as simple as that.
9 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
volksford 7/31/2020 9:04:42 AM (No. 495584)
Demetrius Benga of Sharpsburg Virgina is now claiming to be a descendant of Ota and is demanding millions in reparations From the state of NY
5 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
red1066 7/31/2020 9:36:00 AM (No. 495611)
After I stopped laughing at the whole concept of putting a human being on display at a zoo, I was reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode where aliens captured earthlings and put them on display on their planet.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
TLCary 7/31/2020 10:10:51 AM (No. 495639)
"What difference, at this point, does it make?"
Oh, that's right... only applies when Leftists get caught, not when there is a rabble to rouse.
3 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 7/31/2020 10:54:59 AM (No. 495699)
Why would anyone pay to see what is on full display all over NYC?
4 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
bighambone 7/31/2020 2:48:06 PM (No. 495895)
There has been no such thing in the USA, since right after the Civil War, as a legal slave. So in 1906, about forty years after the Civil War, in the USA, and in New York that was not ever a slave State, Ota Benga would have been a free man, who may well actually been in the employ of the man who brought him to the Bronx Zoo. Don’t you think! Whatever there is nobody alive today who knows for sure.
1 person likes this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 7/31/2020 5:55:17 PM (No. 496039)
It's rather amusing to apply modern day morals (wokeness and political correctness) to historical events.
1 person likes this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
rochow 7/31/2020 8:21:34 PM (No. 496178)
I didn't know sasquatch was this old!
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
nihtwael 8/1/2020 10:38:23 AM (No. 496624)
They're putting themselves on display in 2020.
0 people like this.
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All well and good, but as with the slaves brought to the USA, the unfortunate man was enslaved by his own people before coming here.