Posted on 08/06/2006 8:40:38 PM PDT by neverdem
WHEN New Yorkers went to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday, Sept. 8, 1906, they were treated to something novel at the Monkey House.
At first, some people weren’t sure what it was. It — he — seemed much less a monkey than a man, though a very small, dark one with grotesquely pointed teeth. He wore modern clothing but no shoes. He was proficient with bow and arrow, and entertained the crowd by shooting at a target. He displayed skill at weaving with twine, made amusing faces and drank soda.
The new resident of the Monkey House was, indeed, a man, a Congolese pygmy named Ota Benga. The next day, a sign was posted that gave Ota Benga’s height as 4 feet 11 inches, his weight as 103 pounds and his age as 23. The sign concluded, “Exhibited each afternoon during September.”
Visitors to the Monkey House that second day got an even better show. Ota Benga and an orangutan frolicked together, hugging and wrestling and playing tricks on each other. The crowd loved it. To enhance the jungle effect, a parrot was put in the cage and bones had been strewn around it. The crowd laughed as the pygmy sat staring at a pair of canvas shoes he had been given. “Few expressed audible objection to the sight of a human being in a cage with monkeys as companions,” The New York Times wrote the next day, “and there could be no doubt that to the majority the joint man-and-monkey exhibition was the most interesting sight in Bronx Park.”
But the Ota Benga “exhibit” did not last. A scandal flared up almost immediately, fueled by the indignation of black clergymen like the Rev. James H. Gordon, superintendent of the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn. “Our race, we think,...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Without a trace of irony, this truly is the NYT at its best. If it did more reporting like this and avoided tainting its coverage with the political preferences of its staff, it could be a great newspaper again.
Yet, never having heard of Ota Benga, my first reaction was that the Times was making up another story...
The advertisement for Corcoran sinks that accompanies the article is, well, quite ironic. (A Tarzan-haired man wearing only a towel in a modern kitchen.)
Thanks for the toon!
More Students in New York Will Take Regular English Test
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
UMA OPRA; OPRA UMA; OTA OPRA UMA; UMA OTA OPRA... the mind boggles.
Thanks for the ping!
A classic example of creationism's degrading of conservatism.
If someone wants to stick a man in a zoo and call it Darwinism, contrary to everything the theory says, nothing in the theory can prevent that.
If someone wants to slaughter another people and call it Christianity, in direct opposition to Christ's teachings, nothing in the Bible can prevent that.
If someone wants to get on a website and spout gutter revivalism and call it conservatism or even Christianity, in complete ignorance or disregard of what made those things great, nothing on the internet can prevent that, either.
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