In March of 1960, white cops massacred 69 unarmed blacks in Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1961, uMkhonto we Sizwe [Spear of the Nation] was co-founded by Nelson Mandela to fight back against white racist rule. In 1964, Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. In 1976, between 176 and 700 black protesters were killed by white policemen in Soweto. Four thousand were injured.

Teaching in Cape Town after years in the UK and US, J. M. Coetzee published Life and Times of Michael K in 1983. Its epigraph, “War is the father of all and king of all. Some he shows as gods, others as men. Some he makes slaves, and others free.”

Although it’s a novel about war in South Africa, there wasn’t one, then or later, but war was definitely in the air, so Coetzee imagined it in detail. Though Coetzee was wrong in predicting war, his depiction of a society experiencing social breakdown, degradation, paucity and draconian restrictions resonates beyond place and time.

Above all, war is displacement, from all you’ve ever known, for nothing can prepare anyone for extreme violence that doesn’t end. Even if your meaty sack is still intact and banal, indiscriminate blood hasn’t filmed your retinas, you’ve been ejected from normalcy.

To emphasize Michael K’s displacement, Coetzee makes him a harelipped bastard who spent much of his childhood in a group home. Grown, he had no friends, much less women. K scraped by on the lowliest jobs, such as tending to a public bathroom at night, where he’s “oppressed by the brilliant neon light that shone off the white tiles and created a space without shadows.”

Then K got mugged, “On his way home from work late one Friday he was set upon in a subway by two men who beat him, took his watch, his money and his shoes, and left him lying stunned with a slash across his arm, a dislocated thumb and two broken ribs.”

Sounds like Cape Town today, or Philly, Chicago or Memphis, etc., but certainly not Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Tirana or even Beirut, with its economic fiasco.

When K admitted his mother to a hospital, we got a better glimpse of a society in crisis, “She had spent five days lying in a corridor among scores of victims of stabbings and beatings and gunshot wounds who kept her awake with their noise, neglected by nurses who had no time to spend cheering up an old woman when there were young men dying spectacular deaths all about.”

Released, K’s mom returned to her tiny room in affluent Sea Point, where she’s a domestic servant. Triggered by a mere traffic accident, an orgy of rioting and looting then broke out:

Parked cars were smashed open and pushed broadside on into the street. Sirens announced the curfew and were ignored. An ambulance that arrived with a motorcycle escort turned about short of the barrier and raced off, chased by a hail of stones. Then from the balcony of a fourth-floor flat a man began to fire revolver shots. Amid screams the crowd dashed for cover, spreading into the beachfront apartment blocks, racing along the corridors, pounding upon doors, breaking windows and lights. The man with the revolver was hauled from his hiding-place, kicked into insensibility, and tossed down to the pavement. Some residents of the flats chose to cower in the dark behind locked doors, others fled into the streets. A woman, trapped at the end of a corridor, had her clothes torn from her body; someone slipped on a fire escape and broke an ankle. Doors were beaten down and flats ransacked. In the flat immediately above Anna K’s room, looters tore down curtains, heaped clothing on the floor, broke furniture, and lit a fire, which, though it did not spread, sent out dense clouds of smoke.

Nothing like that happened in white South Africa, and Sea Point is still elegant and pristine, with the best Chinese food in Cape Town, mostly to serve its large Jewish population.

Coetzee, though, didn’t have to overly strain his imagination, for he lived in the USA from 1965 to 1972, when black riots were common. He saw them on TV, at least. It’s a leap, however, to place such a scene in Sea Point. Even today, it’s overwhelmingly white.

Perhaps his time in the US also made Coetzee circumspect about race, especially if it suggests any foreboding about blacks, especially black revenge. Although there’s a race war here, race is never addressed, and even Michael K’s is unclear.

With his mom a domestic servant, it’s implied K was most likely not white. Nearly halfway through the novel, he’s booked at a police station as “Michael Visagie-CM-40-NFA-Unemployed.” Most readers, though, would miss that CM means colored male.

We get another tiny hint when a particularly nasty police captain is described as a “big blond man.” Railing against a group of vagrants, he accused them of being criminals, saboteurs, idlers and ingrates who, collectively, were behind South Africa’s turmoil, “You’ve asked for war, you get war!”

The you asking for war, then, were not blacks but, vaguely, society’s losers, oppressed or downtrodden. Coetzee is reframing South Africa’s racial problem as a Marxist battle between classes.

Though K was called a monkey by a farmer (a Boer, perhaps, for boer means farmer), two cops were also labeled as such by the angry blond captain.

In the camp for vagrants, an older man told K, “What they would really like—this is my opinion—is for the camp to be miles away in the middle of the Koup out of sight. Then we could come on tiptoe in the middle of the night like fairies and do their work, dig their gardens, wash their pots, and be gone in the morning leaving everything nice and clean.”

Although that describes Apartheid perfectly, that whites only want blacks for their labor, but otherwise to be mute and invisible, it is, again, reframed in Marxist terms, but only vaguely.

For a novel about South Africa, Apartheid, post-Apartheid or just general collapse, Life and Times of Michael K remains, ultimately, too abstract. For something much more grounded, thus more terrifying, we must turn to Disgrace, published 16 years later, when more evidence has been gathered.

In 1990, Mandela was released. In 1993, four blacks used hand grenades and assault weapons to kill 11 whites and coloreds inside Saint James Church in Cape Town. Fifty-eight more were wounded. In 1994, Mandela was elected president, marking the end of white rule. In 1998, the three surviving assailants of the Saint James Church Massacre were given amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Only one, Gcinikhaya Makoma, had been jailed, and only for 5 ½ years.

(In 2002, Makoma was arrested for robbing a cash truck, but the badly prosecuted case was thrown out. In 2007, this enterprising revolutionary was finally sentenced to 46 years for one more murder, also in Cape Town.)

Still in Cape Town, Coetzee published his masterful Disgrace in 1999. Written during the immediate aftermath of Apartheid, it introduces all the key themes, or problems, that still define South Africa.

For me, though, its beginning is not too inviting, for I’m not keen on having a professor as protagonist, especially if his sex life, yuck, yuck, yuck, is described. Sure enough, the lickably lekker coed shows up in chapter 2, right after the tall and slim colored whore in chapter 1!

With a wicked sense of humor, God has made me a warlord, for I now have a growing army of Angry White Pussies! They’re joining me so fast, I must turn most away, on grounds of physical or mental deficiency.

Of course, even those who can handle a few pushups and some crude English, which is their native language, after all, are useless, for they’re only adept at blathering about sheboons, ragheads and chinks, and IQ too, oh the irony, as they cower, incontinently, in their rapidly darkening continent. Russia, China, the Taliban or even army-less Tuvalu has nothing to fear from such an unmanly force, for it flinches before any transsexual Jew can throw a punch!

Thank God I’m in Cape Town, for here I’m surrounded by real men and women, of all colors. This is a tough, no nonsense place, and yes, its violence is real, I’ve never denied that, but it hasn’t made people hysterical or even uncivil.

After minimizing their chances of having house invaded, car jacked or body assaulted, they calmly go about their business. In bars and cafes, they joke and laugh. They jog, walk their dogs, stroll on beaches and even greet strangers on sidewalks. Taking out the trash before dawn, I was startled by a white man, “Good morning!”

Three taxi van drivers have just been shot to death, with a fourth injured. Of course, it’s horrible, but when I lived in Philly, only slightly better news greeted me most days. Cape Town is actually safer than Saint Louis, with Juarez the deadliest worldwide. Both cities are well worth visiting, of course, especially festive Juarez.

While wandering around Juarez with a white American friend, I was told that whenever he went there with his teenaged son, many locals would smile or nod at the young man, with some openly greeting him, “Finally, I realized my son had been coming here [from El Paso] to get laid!”

The key refreshment station for ships sailing between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Cape Town was called Tavern of the Seas. Although the Suez Canal eliminated much of this traffic, the arrival of Asian fishing vessels half a century ago pumped new life into this gem of a city.

In his endlessly fascinating Sugar Girls and Sea Men, Henry Trotter explains, “With friendly diplomatic relations in place, Japanese companies secured Cape Town as a base for their South Atlantic tuna fishing operations. Since then, Asian seamen have streamed into the Cape Town docks. Locals remember the Japanese invasion of the 1970s to the 1990s as a golden age. The sailors came from the most dynamic economy in the world with pockets bulging with yen, and everyone wanted a piece of the action. The dockside sharps rubbed their hands in anticipation. Cabbies clamoured for the seamen’s fares. Club owners bowed and scraped for their patronage. And prostitutes bleached their hair, catering to the men’s desire for blondes. The Nipponese responded with cash—lots of it. They played with rands as if it were Monopoly money and they paid with wads rather than notes… So the story goes.”

They were joined by Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese trawlers. To reduce cost, Filipino, Indonesian and Vietnamese fishermen were also employed, so there were lots of Orientals passing through Cape Town. During the last two decades, Chinese tourists have also flooded in. Covid stopped all this.

Only unthinking ideologues deny biological differences between ethnic groups. Khoikhoi and Zulus, for example, are not remotely the same. You also have cultural differences, as sustained by history, traditions, geography and language.

Hanging out with Cape Town’s prostitutes for a year and half, without touching them or even drinking, so unlike, say, William T. Vollmann, Trotter records their sociological, anthropological and economic discernment:

Over the years, dockside women have created a mental database of stereotypes to deal with each nationality. This allows them to size up their options quickly with the incoming crews […]

Japanese seamen are the alpha clients of the dockside trade: they’re considered the richest, kindest, cleanest, most generous and most prestigious […] They’re also said to be completely loyal to anyone who is honest with them. If they like a cabby, he’ll be theirs for life. The same often goes in their relationships with the women […] However, the bouncers say the Japanese are useless in a fight, describing them as ‘butter.’

Taiwanese sailors rank just behind the Japanese […] Though the women think they’re unimaginative sexually, they’re seen as good fighters.

Koreans enjoy a high status similar to that of the Taiwanese […] But they’re also highly volatile. The women say, ‘Don’t make a fool of them or they’ll make a fool of you.’ They don’t take kindly to taunting or disrespect, and they’re abrasive and possessive. The bouncers say they ‘act like shit when they’re drunk’ and ‘fight like demons.’

Filipinos make up the largest national group among seafarers, but they’re a diverse bunch […] Some are cosmopolitan coastal dwellers, while others are upcountry hill people. But they’re considered the most romantic seafarers: like Manuel, they say the sweetest things to the women, often inviting them home and promising marriage. They’re also very sentimental, depicting their lives in highly melodramatic tones. The women consider them big liars, though, because they almost never make good on their boasts. They seem to have a fetish for white women, paying between R400 and R800 for the privilege of going with one. They’re also good fighters.

Indonesians typically stay in port for four to five days. They have money and want to spend it quickly on the women. They find it easier to connect with coloured Muslim women because of religious similarities. But the women claim they’re playboys who like to take a different woman each time […] They’re considered the prettiest boys of the lot and average fighters.

Chinese crews have become prominent on the trawlers over the last decade […] They stay in port for a long time, and most of their evenings at the clubs are spent drinking and flirting, not making sexual contracts. The women complain that the Chinese sailors don’t clean themselves properly; even worse, they’re rough and grabby, sometimes even trying to trick the ladies into cheap sexual hook-ups. The Chinese fight well but not to kill.

At the bottom of the prestige pile are the Vietnamese sailors, who make very little money. The women say they’re cheap, always trying to scam them for free sex. At the clubs, they buy the cheapest liquor and pay only R200 to R500 per sexual engagement. According to the bouncers, they’re extremely dangerous: they have no fear whatsoever and boast a lethal knowledge of anatomy.

Since I’m not rich, a pretty boy or much of a fighter, I must be at the very bottom of the Vietnamese pile, but hey, at least I have a bansheeing rabble of Angry White Pussies, always on my tail to sniff for anything untoward. I’m a leader of half men.

A deft storyteller, Trotter crafts unforgettable vignettes. Here’s one:

One evening at one of the clubs, I watched Renata—a coloured veteran who’d been in the game for years—enter the karaoke room quite late. The place was packed, but all the sailors were already busy with women. She skulked around a while, looking for an opening with a man. But with women draped around their shoulders, the men seemed content. Renata stood by the bar and listened to the seamen sing karaoke numbers for a while. Then she placed a request with the DJ.

Coming to Cape Town, I was a bit concerned I wouldn’t be able to walk around much. A Captonian had warned me I would be taking my life into my own hands, although he prayed to God he was wrong.

You can’t experience any place without walking around, however, for it’s the only way to see, sniff and feel it, at a human pace, without barriers. A borderless body among others, you must be continually exposed to the landscape.

If I could meander through Gary, Jackson and Camden, the last countless times, surely I can duck, weave and bob my way through Cape Town?

Soon enough, I found out this was no war zone. As one born into a war, I should be able to recognize soldier thickened streets, weary MPs, dismal amputees, abject refugees, child beggars, sad, garish whores, sullen tanks, screaming jets, thump-thump-thumping helicopters at any time, artillery thuds, blindfolded captives on trucks, sandbags and barbed wires.

Granted, I’ve seen more razor wires in Cape Town than anywhere else. They top walls, wrap around pipes and entangle tree trunks. Still, Cape Town is far from a city at war.

Let’s not get hysterical like this squawking gentleman, “Is it wonderful you have all kinds of different things to eat, but you are living in a war zone, with the existential threat of white annihilation ever imminent?” Sounds like Jews with their looping Holocaust wailing, except Talmudists get lots of political and economic benefits from their horror porn.

An Angry White Pussy on Twitter, “South Africa is great; the trope that black men just want to rape white females is just a myth; you guys are just racist. Oh, fuck off Linh Dinh.” To characterize Cape Town as heavenly and hellish is hardly to call South Africa, a vast country nearly twice the size of Texas, great, and since I’ve said nothing about black men raping white women, why is he conjuring up black penises? It must be terrible to be haunted by such a trope!

One day, I walked five miles down Voortrekker Road, from Belleville to Goodwood. On another trip up that way, I had had a fantastic Ethiopian meal at Out of Africa, so this time, I was looking forward to another pleasant surprise.

(Out of Africa didn’t even have a menu in English, or Afrikaans, for that matter, so I told the lady to just give me whatever. Such a lovely crew, those four smiling women. When I started to sweat from my food’s spiciness, one brought me a whole roll of paper towel. Dropping in for lunch, a man just sat at my table. Spongy bread united us.)

Fleeing English rule, Boers trekked inland. Boer in Dutch means peasant or farmer. Peasant has a condescending connotation which farmer doesn’t, so you have, for example, Vietnamese peasants, but American farmers. Since the English boorish is derived from boer, you can deduce what the Brits thought of these farmers of mostly Dutch heritage.

During the Boer War, 26,000 Boer women and children died, from diseases or starvation, in British concentration camps. Brits, though, saw themselves as morally superior for they had stopped Boers from owning African or Asian slaves, the latter brought from the Malay Archipelago.

On Voortrekker, there are squarish stores with broad frontages flaunting huge letters, a frontier look not unusual in hypothetically urban Cape Town. There are churches offering prophetic healings, deliverances, empowerment services or, simply, miracles, with these not dispensed by no effete, dress-wearing priests, but robust, bombastic bishops, apostles, prophets and prophetesses, all but the last overly equipped with stallion-sized tropes to terrify the pale hearted.

Passing a neon-lit eatery with an A-frame sign outside, a pool table in the middle and a small window to the kitchen at the back, I almost walked in. Finally, though, I ran into one that was goofily perfect, Chelsea Malewa in Goodwood. I vaguely associated its name with the London squad, now atop the Premiership, and I also liked the huge thumbs-up painted on its wall. Starving, I strolled in.

The smell that greeted me, however, was that of fish, both fried and raw, and wet garbage or a clogged sink of dirty dishes. Most sane people would have run out, but I didn’t want to offend its owner/cook, a slim, unsmiling copper-colored woman with dark rimmed eyes, in a black and indigo headscarf, black blouse and indigo apron. Seeing such careful color coordination, I was hoping her food would also be well-tuned. Sucking it up, I ordered rice with chicken and spinach, but nothing to drink, for this place was so lame, it didn’t have any.

It was truly brutal, bra. I’d rather starve for three days than go through that again. My spinach was cold, my rice lukewarm and my chicken preposterously tough, with everything absolutely flavorless. It was like eating leftover that had been sitting on the counter for two or three days. For this privilege, possibly the worst meal I’ve ever had, I paid $3.51.

Again, to not offend the strangely grim woman, I gave the appearance of eating voraciously, though all I was trying to do was finishing my meal as quickly as possible, so I could get the hell out of there.

Free at last, I thought of that old joke about a guy who walks into a bar and orders one shot after another, all different kinds. After his 10th, the bartender says, “Take it easy, buddy. What’s the occasion?”

“It’s my first blow job.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks, but it’s impossible to get that taste out of my mouth.”

Although my experience at Chelsea Malewa was lamentable, it certainly added to my understanding of Cape Town. Like its wealth gap or neighborhoods, there is a vast range here, as wide as anywhere.

Max Jacob’s most famous poem is “La mendiante de Naples,” or “The Beggar Woman of Naples”:

When I lived in Naples, there was at the door of my building a beggar woman to whom I would toss some coins before climbing into my car.

.. One day, surprised at never having been thanked, I looked at the beggar woman.

Now, as I looked, I saw that what I had taken to be a beggar woman, there’s a wooden crate painted green that contained some red earth and a few half rotten bananas.

There’s no surer way to stop people from reading than to insert a poem into an article. To commit this vile act right at the beginning is to chase away nearly everybody. Fine, it’s just you and me, then, all three of us, so move closer.

Just as Jacob mistook some spoilt bananas for a destitute woman, perhaps the Angry White Pussies, rarely seen in real life, but swarming all over the internet, are crypto Jews?

Take my hecklers, for example. Some are apparently real people, but some sound so moronic and deranged, one must wonder if they’re fake personas concocted by, say, Jews? After all, I haven’t been the greatest friend to adherents of the Talmud, despite my lifelong devotion to chopped liver.

If you’re a hasbara agent, you can try to kill two birds with one stone by attacking any “anti-Semite” while pretending you’re a stupendously stupid white guy.

Exposed to such, foreigners may conclude that Americans have become so absurdly moronic, they deserve their bankruptcy and degradation, such as being led by a reality TV conman or braindead pederast.

How mentally challenged are these Angry White Pussies? After I had interviewed a white man, an AWP attacked me for what this white man said!

Too imbecilic to understand that an interview involves two people who don’t have to agree on anything, this AWP ranted, “The next time I see a gook name on this site, I’m not even going to bother reading what it has to say. It’s already made up its mind about me, so I’ll return the favor. Fuck you too, slant-eyed cunt. I hope the next time you play Minecraft and walk around a city controlled by the Democrats you vote for, a mentally ill nigger crackhead tweaking on fentanyl, marijuana, methamphetamine, etc. knocks you the fuck out for no reason and takes your inventory. If that happens to you I’m sure you’d still be blaming whites, considering you’re stupid enough to return to a 3rd world country you’re a wanted criminal in.”

Even after a bottle of Four Roses, swigged at record speed without any Hostess Donettes as whore duh, a sleep-deprived retard can’t sound this concussed, so maybe he’s no AWP, but a Jewish ambulance chaser or bookish rabbi amusing himself after dim sum?

Again, I’m not against individual Jews, but only Jewish thinking, so I’ll condemn someone like the Egyptian Nasser, for example, for deploying us vs. them (a natural outgrowth of chosen vs. unchosen) and collective guilt, to wreck his country.

Jewish thinking is the militant refusal to see individuals, only groups, so it violently shoehorns everyone into categories.

If you hate the bourgeoise, landowners, urban dwellers, rural folks, whites, blacks, Latinos, Orientals, Jews, homosexuals, vegetarians, meat eaters or billionaires, etc., you’re indulging in Jewish thinking.

I have no time to hate anybody. I just hate Jewish thinking. Plus, as a traveler, it wouldn’t be wise to stumble into strange lands with an assholic attitude, not only because locals will gladly repay you in kind (plus interest), but you won’t even see them, so why bother coming?

Even if they’re not Jewish sock puppets, Angry White Pussies serve Jews. By ranting away so idiotically, they can only lead sane observers to conclude, My God, these white extremists are truly clueless monsters!

There is an AWP who keeps insisting I make everything up, that I wasn’t in Albania months ago, and I’m not in South Africa now, “I doubt Linh is in South Africa. It is possible these days to sit at the coffee shop and write travel blogs complete with photos […]
This little Gook wants to show how tough he is. Its the old story, the 5 foot pygmies are always into the Rambo thing. Yet, a few harsh words and Linda Linh is triggered.” Elsewhere, he suggests I’m a homeless man in San Francisco. That’s not commenting. It’s insanity. Somehow, I’ve pushed this pitiful AWP over the edge.

As sadistic Deliverance buggers, aw-shucks Beverly Hillbillies, Flannery O’Connor’s dumbshit white trash or swinish and fart cupping Honey Boo Boo, poor whites have long been caricatured in America, so the AWP may just be another repulsive rendition. Acting grotesquely, he defeats himself while benefiting his worst enemies, with none laughing harder than social engineering Jews.

Offline, he also serves Jews perfectly, for he votes for Jewish puppets, sends tributes to smirking Jews and pays to become addicted to Jewish media. He borrows money from Jewish usurers to send his kids to Jewish dominated colleges to be brainwashed by Jewish thinking. With each war for Jews, he’ll enlist or cheer it, at least, plus tithing his income. Jewish wars are festooned with American flags on porches, cars, clothing and coffins.

Prompted by Jews, many hate whomever Jews despise, be it Russia, Muslims or even themselves!

Even those who realize they’re merely Jewish throwaway tools don’t dare to whisper “Jews,” not even when alone, with all the lights turned off, lest they dox themselves.

Nor will they do anything about their darkening prospects, beyond virtually huffing their castrated rage against Muslim war refugees, Mexican busboys and, well, a guy like me whose last book, Postcards from the End of America, is mostly about the plight of poor whites, and some poor blacks, too.

Since Angry White Pussies do everything to benefit Jews, it’s only fair to ask if they’re crypto Jews?

Some may be, but most are probably not. Having spent their entire lives in a Jewish maze where lies lead to lies, they’re well-conditioned to bark, growl, grovel or play dead, anything to please their master.

Good boy!

Canceled in the USA, I’ve emerged triumphant in South Africa. I’m huge here, for real. Everywhere I go, people know my name.

“Mr. Miyagi!”

“Hello, Jackie Chan!”

“Hi, Mr. Lee.”

“Hey, Bruce Lee!”

“Ni hao!”

“Ching ching!” accompanied by a huge smile.

My self worth restored, I strut. As I pass two chunky prostitutes in Bellville, one laughingly says, “Free to Chinese people.” Now, that’s prestige.

Short skirts or tight pants showcase their bulging buttocks and thick thighs, for locals demand lots of cushion for the pushing. The matchstick thin would snap in two. In groups of three, four or five, they display themselves and wait.

Robert Crumb must have been inspired by caricatures of the Hottentot Venus. More recently, we have Kim Kardashian popping a champagne bottle to ejaculate a creamy white stream of bubbly over her head into a glass perched on her huge rump.

Treated like a freak in Europe, pinched and poked at, Sarah Bartmann has become a symbol of her people’s dehumanized treatment. At age 25 or 26, Bartmann died in Paris in 1815. Eighty-seven years later, she was finally returned to the Eastern Cape to be buried. In Cape Town, there’s the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, and the main hall at the University of Cape Town is named after her.

As inscribed on Bartmann’s grave, “The site has spiritual, cultural, social and historical significance. The treatment of Sarah Bartmann during her life and after her death speaks of suffering, dispossession, sadness and loss of dignity, culture, community, language and life. It is a symptom of the inhumanity of people.”

Although man’s inhumanity is a constant, and you can’t indict it enough, Bartmann was actually complicit in her own degradation.

It was certainly not black and white, for many Europeans didn’t find her show too amusing. Here’s an account from one disturbed contemporary:

She was extremely ill, and the man insisted on her dancing, this being one of the tricks which she is forced to display. The poor creature pointed to her throat and to her knees as if she felt pain in both, pleading with tears that he would not force her compliance. He declared that she was sulky, produced a long piece of bamboo, and shook it at her: she saw it, knew its power, and, though ill, delayed no longer. While she was playing on a rude kind of guitar, a gentleman in the room chanced to laugh: the unhappy woman, ignorant of the cause, imagined herself the object of it, and as though the slightest addition and as though the slightest addition to the woes of sickness, servitude, and involuntary banishment from her native land was more than she could bear, her broken spirit was aroused for a moment, and she endeavored to strike him with the musical instrument which she held: but the sight of the long bamboo, the knowledge of its pain, and the fear of incurring it again, calmed her. The master declared that she was as wild as a beast, and the spectators agreed with him, forgetting that the language of ridicule is the same, and understood alike, in all countries, and that not one of them could bear to be the object of derision without an attempt to revenge the insult.

Many similar responses led the white-run African Institution to take her impresario, a colored man, to court, but Bartmann refused to be freed from him and return to Africa (at the African Institution’s expense).

In his Early African Entertainments Abroad, Bernth Linfords sums up Bartmann’s situation:

She had agreed to allow herself to be exhibited indecently to the European public, and she persisted in this tawdry occupation for more than five years, stopping only when her health finally broke down. She may have been the victim of the cruelest kind of predatory ruthlessness, but her collusion in her own victimization seems clear. She wanted the show to go on and the profits to keep rolling in. She wanted to capitalize on Western curiosity.

One can argue that her poverty and illiteracy allowed her to be used, but that’s too patronizing, for it implies she was incapable of making life choices. Many say the same of prostitutes, and yes, Bartmann was likely one also.

In any case, Bartmann didn’t consent to having her body cast displayed at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris for a century and a half. In 1982, this stiff and naked “African” was finally removed from the bemused, disgusted or scandalized gazes of clothed visitors.

Confronted with a foreign body, we’re naturally curious, so we gaze, flirt, fuck or even kill, with the last two not all that rare throughout history. Since I’m in Africa, let’s talk about Africa. Am I in Africa?

I’m pretty sure I’m in Africa, although with the internet, the Nescafe Coffee I’m drinking with condensed milk (Vietnamese style) and the Seattle Seahawks highlights I checked out this morning, I could be almost anywhere. For lunch, though, I will have a bototie pie, yum yum, so I’m really in Africa! South Africa.

A pioneering European explorer of the African interior, the Scottish Mungo Park got a very raw deal, indeed, but he too, courted his own doom.

Looking for the source of the Niger, Park went to Africa twice. After all the misfortunes, hardship and near-death experiences Park encountered on his first trip, in 1795-97, most people would have stayed the hell away from the Dark Continent, but Park couldn’t stand being happily married back home, so he had to return.

On both trips, blacks actually treated Park rather well, and sometimes even profoundly so.

Traveling with a caravan of slaves about to be sold (by their black master), Park was even looked after by these wretched men and women. Unlike Park, they had to carry huge burdens on their heads, with one woman, exhausted, beaten then stung by bees, left behind to die. Park:

During a wearisome peregrination of more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, these poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently of their own accord bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves to prepare me a bed in the Wilderness.

It’s certainly not anything like the Hollywood or cartoony image of a lone white being cooked in a pot by black savages, but that’s why travelers’ accounts are valuable. If truthful, they add to our understanding with nuanced or surprising depictions.

During another leg of Park’s first trip, he entered the native village (in present-day Gambia) of someone in his caravan:

When we arrived at the blacksmith’s place of residence we dismounted and fired our muskets. The meeting between him and his relations was very tender; for these rude children of nature, free from restraint, display their emotions in the strongest and most expressive manner. Amidst these transports, the blacksmith’s aged mother was led forth, leaning upon a staff. Every one made way for her; and she stretched out her hand to bid her son welcome. Being totally blind, she stroked his hands, arms, and face, with great care, and seemed highly delighted that her latter days were blessed by his return, and that her ears once more heard the music of his voice. From this interview I was fully convinced, that whatever difference there is between the Negro and European, in the conformation of the nose and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature.

As said, Park had many horrible encounters, with most of them at the hands of the Moors, which by Park’s time meant North African Arabs.