Spectacle

April 6, 2015
Newkirk (Within the Veil) centers this meticulously detailed monograph on the life of Ota Benga, a young Congolese man who at the beginning of the 20th century suffered the indignity of being caged with an orangutan at the Bronx Zoo’s Monkey House. Although Benga himself left no written record of his experiences, Newkirk pieces together his story from the texts, photographs, and other records produced by the “lettered elite” whose members were complicit in his capture and display. While other African men and women, including the “Hottentot Venus” Sarah Baartman, had been exhibited to European audiences, Benga’s experience was unusual because it took place not in a “human zoo” but in one devoted to animals, thus depicting this African man not simply as exotic, but as a failure of human evolution. Newkirk places Benga’s story in the context of an ever more segregated and aggressively racist United States, a Europe intent on exploitation of Africa’s human and material resources, and a scientific culture that venerated objective inquiry but refused to question established ideas about race. The book might have benefited from a more effective structure, as it wanders through various times and locations. Nonetheless, readers will be moved, especially when reading about the tragic turns Benga’s life took in the years after he was released.

April 15, 2015

In 1906, the New York Zoological Gardens unveiled an exhibit that became an international sensation: its Monkey House, inside which was caged a young Congolese man named Ota Benga. Ota was promoted as a "pygmy" and brought to the United States for the sole purpose of serving as an anthropological display. In New York, Ota was presented as half zookeeper, half exhibit, but it's clear that he was generally regarded as more of the latter than the former--particularly by his promoters, many of whom were renowned eugenicists. When African American leaders protested, everyone from well-respected scientists to the New York Times downplayed the outcry. The Times ran an editorial arguing that it was "absurd to make moan over the imagined [...] degradation Benga is suffering. The pygmies are very low in the human scale." What made Ota so "entertaining" for millions of onlookers? This is a question whose answers spoke directly to the dialog of early 20th- century race relations, and award-winning journalist Newkirk presents them with clarity. VERDICT Newkirk gives us more than the tragic story of one Congolese man. She offers a look into the history of American eugenics and the concepts of racial anthropology that have served as the foundation for racial intolerance for generations. Benga's story is one part of a bigger problem--a problem that continues to exist--and Newkirk doesn't allow us to forget him. Nor should she.--Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia

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