Ota Benga

Spectacle: The Astonishing life of Ota Benga was written by Pamela Newkirk, which talks about a quarter of a million New Yorkers who gathered around the Bronx Zoo to observe a young African named Ota Benga who was exhibited in a monkey house cage.Protesters such as William Sheppard, a Presbyterian missionary, Reverend MacArthur, a pastor in Manhattan's Calvary Baptist Church, and Wilford H. Smith all fought to free a 103-pound and 4-foot-11 Ota Benga. While 500 people at a time came to the monkey house and to mock Ota Benga. A way successful way for the Bronx Zoo to honor Ota Benga is to build a memorial for him to show their sincere apology and to join the “Black Lives Matter” movement because after more than a century later, the continuation of incarceration on these young black males for petty crimes and the mass of police shootings on these men has been an alarming issue lately. By doing this they can show empathy towards the black minorities in New York. The Bronx Zoo in New York needs to have a remembrance of Benga by creating a memorial to show that they are sincerely apologetic for the way they Benga. “Benga became the object of pointing…

and museums. Until 1906, when he sold Benga to Hornaday, owner of the Bronx zoo, as a chimp. Hornaday put him in the primate house. In this case, Ota Benga was meant as a form of entertainment. As people rushed in to see the new attraction in the summer of 1906, they were not expecting what they saw. In the papers, they had heard of a savage new attraction at the end of the primate exhibit, instead they were greeted by a 4’11 Pygmy man who weighed 103 pounds. They recognized him as human,…

associated with anthropological work is demonstrated in the discrimination against people of foreign culture. This is subsequently a result of a lack of comprehension and tolerance of deviations from the norm. In the article “The astonishing life of Ota Benga” by Pamela Newkirk, Newkirk demonstrates the injustice and unethical behavior that Ota Benga, a native inhabitant of the Congo was subjected to. Anthropologists and scientists disregarded his humanity and concluded that his analogous…

Ota Benga In 1906 society deemed a twenty-year-old man so nonessential, that he was kept in a cage with the monkeys at a zoo. His name was Ota Benga. The Biography, Spectacle, by Pamela Newkirk tells the story of this Congolese man taken from his home to be exhibited at the St. Louis World Fair, from there he was moved to the Bronx Zoo whom placed him under brutal conditions in their primate house. After his own protests and those of the community, Ota Benga is freed, but his mind is still…

The American Explorer Samuel Phillips Verner went to Africa in 1904 under contract pay row a selection of Pygmies to be part of the "Exposition of St. Louis. OTA Benga was one of the men caught. When they arrived at the exhibition, the Ota took great success because everyone wanted to look at his teeth. His teeth were filed down a sharp edge when he was young pour a decoration of Vangelis. Journal of the United Nations said that the Ota Benga was "the only genuine African Cannibal in America",…

and race within the modern is also a heavily explored topic within The Hairy Ape, as the play stands as an allegorical tale about racism and classism. The Brecht production premiered six years after the death of Ota Benga, a Cameroonian man who was placed as an exhibit within a zoo, which is exactly where Yank finds himself at the end of the play. Benga was spectacularized; the high amounts of attention and low amounts of compassion he received lead to his early death. Yank, the play’s…

He was locked in a monkey cage in the Bronx zoo. He was a small black man who who was captured from Congo and was brought to the Unites States in 1904 by Samuel Verner an explorer. He looked nothing like the people around him due to his height and dark black features and therefore was considered an inferior race and were treated less as a human and more as an animal. Everyone was curious about him. People from everywhere came to see the “inferior race” studied him and laughed at his activities.…

A single human’s appearance varies from other humans because of the genetic composition that is unique to every human. Genetics accounts for unique physical attributes that separate one race of people from another race. But unfortunately this has brought out racism in the world and this could be a cause of certain races trying to prove their superiority from other races. Racism has been part of society for a long time and sadly it is not showing any signs of going away anytime soon. Racism has…

upon African-Americans were excuses to morally disengage from the exploitation inflicted upon other human beings that were kin to the dehumanizers themselves. The connection between intelligence and moral agency is apparent in the discourse as well, Morton is attempting to denigrate the intelligence of the African Americans he is describing, stripping away the notion of moral agency and humanity until the point of becoming an animal – which is exactly what happened in 1906. The Bronx Zoo was…

slavery to his advantage, gaining workers for little to no cost, and making big bucks. The natives were exploited and forced to work, resisting would most certainly end in death. Women and children were captured and raped, used as motivation for the male slaves to work for no pay. Many slaves were murdered for sport, or for their hands, noses and ears. Men were paid and rewarded for how many hands, noses, or ears they could collect from dead bodies, and sometimes living ones. Others were sent to…