What if the answer is "yes"?

“Are Black Women Really Apes?”

We all know that black women are not really apes. The absurd racism of previous centuries can stun us, and this question seems more of a rhetorical device than it is a real question—after all, who would argue that any human being is non-human today? Yet, if it is a rhetorical device, what is the end of the rhetoric? What point is it supposed to reinforce?

It is tempting for a reader to say: “No.” No further explanation is necessary. Humans and apes are not the same species; sexuality has no impact on specization, and so the question essentially answers itself: by defining something as “woman” we presume that that woman is not ape. “Woman” implies humanity.

So what is the end of this essay, “Are Black Women Really Apes?” Is it to ask that question—or another?

A better question to ask might be, “How, and why, would anyone ever even ask such an absurd question?” That question is far more difficult to answer.

The paragraph that immediately follows the title appears at first to be a red herring, some sort of pretentious overture set out to present the tone as one that is all-knowing, the speech of an elite speaking from the armchair of Enlightenment.

Yet it is also disconcerting. The first sentence, “Through the 19th century, carnivals put on the freak show.” Why is it “the” freak show? Why not “freak shows?” It almost seems as though this sentence, and this entire paragraph, should be struck from the essay. It would be better to get to the point quicker, faster. If it is to be an elegy for Sarah Bartman and Joseph Merick, as it appears to be at times throughout, then why not write a poem instead even? Why does this essay exist?

Another sentence that is infuriating: “We only recently have evidence as to what real disease Joseph Merrick, or “The Elephant Man,” had.”

By what right does this author deem him or herself worthy to use the term “we”? What is this author presupposing in such a claim? Surely he or she had no part in the historical study that discovered this nearly irrelevant factoid.

Also, as far as overtures go, this is a poor one indeed. Here we are having recent evidence when we still do not really know who Sarah Bartman or Joseph Merrick are. Why are we reading about them? Again: Why does this essay exist?

And why all these fancy schmancy medical terms in the next few paragraphs?

Skipping until the next mark of irritation, without really bothering to understand what exactly all those fancy schmancy words mean, we come to this bizzarro sentence: “But what name do we give the disease of the spectators who paid to gaze at each of them?” Oh. Zing! Heyoo! Wow, what an overuse of the rhetorical question. Don’t you love the presupposition here—yet it’s not even really a presupposition, it’s more of a flat out accusation. The people who paid to poke this black woman’s ass were “diseased.” Cute. Clever. But not compelling.

Yet another moment of extreme frustration: “If you are having difficulty making the link between sexual organs and being an ape, perhaps other great scientists can help clarify.”

“You” the author says. You don’t even know me. Who are you to use “you” against me? Why are you presupposing that I can’t follow your argument (not that I can). And of course another little jab, “great scientists.” I’ve never heard of these douchebag scientists, and of course I don’t regard them as great. I’m bourgeoise enough to recognize a snarky comment like that as simple flippancy.

It’s at this point that I begin to lose patience. Why should I bother reading this essay and not another? Why must be there so much rubbish thrown into this argument? I can’t discern a thesis, I can’t follow half the claims, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

I can’t decide.


A further point. Joseph Merrick too was dissected. Joseph Merrick too was put on display after his death. The difference between them is less extreme, after death, than any dissimilarity in life. So they were not so different.

For each, scientists tried to understand them. The desire to understand may have come from the desire to substantiate a racist claim—but they still sought to understand.

If that is this case—and the essay might even emphasize that it is—then is it to mock the scientists of the past from afar? Or is it asking a different sort of question altogether.

The question asked at the beginning, that obviously rhetorical one, “Are black women really apes?” Did they not need to test that claim? And so they tried to. They were willing to put their racist beliefs to the test and see what happened. Their mode of interpretation, however, despite any pretenses at the “scientific method” was not enough to dissuade them—instead, their preconceived notions shaped what they saw as “evidence” and helped them mount a growing discourse on the female body as reflective of the tendencies of the female mind.

The spectator has nothing more than idle curiosity—and in pursuing that curiosity, to pay to have the experience of poking the black woman’s ass, that “curiosity” leads very directly and obviously to exploitation. Yet, in this case too, the “Scientific” impulse too led to exploitation. And in this case, the scientific impulse was based on seeking out observable phenomena.

This was Science. This is Science. Perhaps this essay’s final question is: Who are the martyrs to Science? And in the end, was it all worth it?

What if the answer to that last question is “yes”?