Hottentot

This is not the first time I have ever read about Sarah Bartmann. The first time I have ever read about her was last year in Jeff's Race and Ethnicity class. When I read about the story or Sarah, I was completely blown away, and angry. I was angry about they way people treated her but also angry that I had never heard about her before! I would like to think that I am a pretty well educated person, but not once have I ever heard of Sarah Bartmann or the Venus Hottentot. How come I wasn't learning about this in my history classes? Even though I already knew the story about Sarah, reading Anne Fausto-Sterlings article gave me an entirely different perspective of Sarah's story. And yet, after I was done reading it I was still angry. I believe that every one should be informed about the horrific things that happened to Sarah Bartmann, so that society will no not to engage in this sort of behavior again. In my opinion, science and medicine is treating the LBGTQ community similar to the way Cuvier and doctors treated Sarah. They are looking for biological explanations to explain their "deviant" behavior. If people knew more about the story of Sarah, it could possibly prevent medicine from always looking for an explanation to anything that isn't "normal". My rant is finished.

Shawna Racino