Welcome to Litsy!

Gutwrenching bio with multiple themes of colonization, Christian evangelism, eugenics, and racism. It tells the story of Ota Benga, a Mbuti (“pygmy“) Congoloese man who was kidnapped by an American thinly veiled as a missionary, brought to the US for show at the 1904 St. Louis World's fair, exhibited with monkeys at the Bronx Zoo for white people's amusement, then released with Black support.

#ReadingAfrica2022 #DRC
#NonFiction2022 #Outcast

The [American Presbyterian] mission [to the DRC in 1895] was once again without a white presence, and Dr. Samuel Chester, Executive Secretary of the Board for World Missions, issued an urgent call for white recruits. He said it was “absolutely necessary to have one white man, and very desirable that we have at least two…more colored people are offering than we are able to send, but no white man is offering for the African work.” #ReadingAfrica DRC

A biography of a Central African man who in 1906 was put on exhibit in a cage in the Primate House of the Bronx Zoo. It's infuriating, doubly so because the book is largely a refutation of another, whitewashed, biography written in 1992 by a grandson of the missionary/businessman/con artist who leased Ota Benga to the Zoo. Newkirk has the documents and doesn't blink at uncomfortable detail. It's angry-making but also thorough and fascinating.

I went into this book knowing that it was going to make me angry. How could the story of a man being displayed in the monkey house of a zoo not? But I didn't realize exactly HOW angry 😡. The book covers much more than just the story of Ota Benga, and does a good job of of contextualizing the story. I was familiar with some of the history (esp. of anthropology) but much was still startling. #LitsyAtoZ #LetterN

This was a tough one to read, and I imagine to write. Not only is its subject matter outrageously tragic, but the documentary record is maddeningly thin. What the author valiantly attempts, then, is to fill in the empty space with every possible detail not only about the subject but of all the people and places with which he had contact. The sad result, ironically, is that Ota Benga becomes a secondary character in his own story.

this book is starting to irritate me..... not the book itself but the character of the people in the book.

Lunchtime reading and it feels a little too fresh. This quote is more than a hundred years old so why do I feel like we haven't made any progress?

Ignoring the mess and diving in.

Working my way through my #blacklivesmatter TBR list. Love my inter office library book delivery.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Ota Benga's death, which gives me an opportunity to mention Spectacle. This book is remarkable and horrifying and fascinating.