Sam's English Journal

Dear Editor,

I am writing to complain about the column you published in The Evening Standard about the Human Zoo.

I think it was highly offensive towards the black community and race. The exhibition is a disgrace not just to Black-Americans, but to all the people that were involved in the long painful years of the slave trade.

Even though the organizers have taken the mature decision to close down this show, you are suggesting that the exhibit should be kept open. In your column you say that you have never “seen a more potent example of Europe’s exploitation of Africa”. I believe being able to read about the slave trade and how many blacks were taken without their consent to America is necessary. On the other hand, opening an exhibition that so graphically depicts slaves being chained up portraying grotesque images of violence that happened many many years ago as a human freak show is very inappropriate.

Honestly, I don’t believe you have looked at this from the perspective of the black race. As you are a white woman, I don’t think you can understand how it feels to a black man or woman to visit a museum of this explicit nature. As a black person you are automatically associated to the devastating years of the slave trade. As a black man myself, when I hear about slave trade, it instantly triggers a gruesome, distressing image in my mind. In your column you say that, “you could read about the facts but you’d easily forget about it ,however visually seeing the art would be like an emotional harpoon. Great art changes you.” I disagree with this because of the extreme and titillating nature of what of the show offers to its paying customers. When you exaggerate and glamorize the slave trade in this type of setting, you portray to your audience that you despise and have no pity towards the black race.

You also say that, “The workers agreed to participate in this exhibit”. Yes, they probably did, but when the actors in the exhibition were interviewed, they felt strongly that your exhibition could be branded as racist. “How do you know we are not entertaining people the same way the human zoos did?” one said. Another asked “How can you be sure that it’s not just white people curious about seeing black people?”. As a member of the black community, I  disagree with the fact the exhibit is open and that it should be allowed to portray these types of images. I’ve seen a picture of a black women in one of the exhibition’s parts, where she is chained up to a leash that would, in our modern world today, be used to keep a dog or any other vicious animal of that kind under control of the owner. In my opinion the whole show can be viewed as racist due to the fact that the curator is of a white race. He is sensationalizing to show how the black race have been historically downgraded into a non-existent group of people in this world however in doing so he demoralizes the black race in the present.

Chris Nekongo from Namibia, who read this article, says that this exhibition has shocked many citizens living in the Namibia, where during the slave trade many slaves would have been deported out of their homeland and sent to work in countries like America and England. He says that the “historical facts should be kept in the past”. My own views are that the facts should not be hidden away but should be expressed in a way that does not sensationalize, objectify and victimize the black race.

In conclusion, I feel that shutting the exhibition has been right and most sensible, mature decision. It will benefit everyone for it to stay that way as well.

Yours sincerely,

Samuel Nwosu