"The Hotentot Venus" Sarah Baartman

"The Life and Times of Sarah Baartman" was an interesting documentary. The things that this young African-American Khosian(Khoi Khoi) woman went through was the most degradable act that any human being should have to endure. To my understanding, young Sarah did not know exactly what she was committing her life to when she signed that contract. She was persuaded by the promise of money and a better life, since she had already lost her family. However, Cezar just saw her as a means of making money and becoming rich. In Englan, Sarah was treated as a beast, something inhuman, in which she deserved whatever they did to her just because. The way in which she was exploited hurt my heart because that is just wrong and whether it's a human, animal, or whatever, nothing should be treated like that and poked at. Sarah was just a Khoi Khoi girl running from one form of slavery to an even more degradable form of slavery. Her only dream was to get back to her home, Capetown in South Africa, and one day be united with her family. However, her dream did not come true because she died three months before her contract was up. Why did this woman die so young? Noone cared to invest it because their only thought was to get her body so they could study it even more. Even after death, Sarah Bartman was stilll studied while scientist tried to find reasons to conclude that she was indeed not human because of her physical features. Sarah Baartman had a very sad and lonely life and evn though they still exploited her body, and statues, she finaly had peace through her death. And it just goes to show that in the 19th century, anything different from the normal was consered to be unreal or beneath the European. Centuries later, we are still looking at documentaries of this young woman. Are we not in a way still degrading Sarah Baatman even though we mean it in a good way??