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I had no idea that human zoos were a thing; but this helps add to the ongoing themes of dehumanization, humiliation, racism, power & power dynamics, etc that we notice when we analyze modern history. We notice the ongoing struggle of colonizer not understanding the colonized, whether or not if it's done with integrity, and thus justifying their actions through this failure. Phrases like: Inferior, weaker, lesser, dominance, stripped, exploitation, etc help as anchors as we navigate the mountain of humanitarian disrespect (to say the least) and to help us understand affairs like these. In this case, human zoos are a way to humiliate and establish a dominance over "weaker" peoples, to twist their culture and identity. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, I believe that we as a whole are doing better understand one another with the emergence of technology, however at the same time it can be a divider. We must must be careful with our biases, however, why would production companies choose to glaze over his crimes rather than provide an accurate rendition?? Why must everything be about making a quick buck?? I'd be interested to see reviews and feedback from different cultures about the movie, including others as well that I haven't researched on.

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One theme from this unit that I noticed in the video is the humiliation, degradation, and dehumanization of the oppressed by the oppressor, and how it is used to differentiate the two by making the oppressed seem less than. One of the methods of humiliation that stuck out to me, both when Gopal spoke of it and in this documentary, is the disrespect shown for the dead and for the burial rituals/ceremonies of the colonized. This form of humiliation bothers me especially strongly because it not only mocks their culture, but also refuses them the right to escape humiliation in their death and refuses their family and friends to grieve properly. Another of these methods of degradation that stuck out to me was the use of fraudulent investigations by scientist colonists to prove that people of other cultures, ethnicities, and races were less than them. This form of dehumanization stuck out to me over others because of just how ridiculous the evidence they gave seemed to be, yet people still believed it because they wanted to. I appreciated that this documentary ended with the recognition of the importance of everyone remembering these stories.

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Throughout this year we have been heavily focusing on colonization and this film fit in really well. I had never heard much about human zoos and I'm glad we get to. A theme I saw carried through the film was how little the people in power cared about the people they were taking from their home. This power dynamic is representative of colonization through out the majority of the world. There was little worry for the indigenous people they were invading. In some instances the conquers attempted to erase the indigenous culture but what I thought was interesting about human zoos is that their culture emphasized. Rather than trying to change the indigenous they gave them ridiculous roles to play. These roles were what people coming to these zoos thought the indigenous were like and it further emphasized the idea that indigenous are lesser than their colonizers. We see the lasting effects of these human zoos and the image that they portrayed despite being false. After this people of color have been see as lesser then their white counterparts and continue to be.

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A theme throughout the year and that is echoed in this video is power. Who has it, how they use it, and how they got it. Colonization is how people got power, physically dominating another civilization and bleeding them dry of there resources and or culture. The human zoos on the other hand is a demonstration of power and humiliation but can also give power to an individual. To demonstrate how powerful you are, you need to have people below you. This can still be seen today in the way companies are set up. Not as disgusting as it was with human zoos and destruction of cultures but still present.

I was interested in the way cultures and people were portrayed then and now. With the Disney movie about P.T. Barnum painting him as an everyday guy who helped individuals, but in reality being the complete opposite. I wonder how well that movie did in non-western countries?

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A main theme i noticed throughout this unit is the complete disregard for peoples lives and harsh domination of certain people as seen in other colonizing instances. In the video the "lesser" race is caged, abused, neglected and ripped away from their homeland for purely entertainment purposes. The Europeans had ripped the Pygmy and Kalina people away from every thing they have ever known. The indigenous were forced to pretend to act like cannibals even though they were not. What im most shocked about is the fact that this was still happening not even 100 years ago. These disgusting acts of discrimination caused trauma still felt today based off an interview done with one of the grand daughters of one of the captured.

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The connection between the human zoos and global colonization is that human zoos were used to justify global colonization, specifically the scramble for Africa. In addition, human zoos were like a mini, more extreme form of the subjugation endured by natives of colonies; both were used for the monetary and social gain of colonial powers and their cultures were erased in favor of ones more pleasing to colonizers. Like the colonized were subjected to physical labor in plantations with nearly negligible pay, those in human zoos were forced to work all day and were not payed for doing work as circus performers, who today are paid. Also, similar to how colonizers forced culture on the colonized, in human zoos the directors forced this savage persona onto the slaves and Barnum even renamed the Aborigines he used in his show. Both colonization and human zoos started with private companies and were later taken over by states. Finally, as colonies started off amicably accepting colonists hoping to trade, initially, those exhibited in human zoos volunteered to go because they believed they were to facilitate a beneficial exchange of cultures.

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One of the main parts of colonization that we've looked at this year is the differentiation between oppressor and oppressed,or how those in positions of power over others justified their power. Often this justification is based on the dehumanization of the oppressed.
Gopal touches on some of the methods of dehumanization within colonies, but we hadn't really talked about how this was brought over to the colonizing countries themselves until now. The human zoos that this video focused on clearly highlighted another way in which colonization was built on differentiation through dehumanization.
I think that this video also makes important points about the importance of the process of decolonization in it's recounts of how different cultures have fought to reclaim the bodies that had been taken from them so that they could be properly put to rest.

I was interested in how P.T. Barnum related to this, and the difference between how he's been portrayed in recent media and how acted in real life.

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One prominent theme throughout this video was the theme of dominance, more specifically, dominance on the basis or race and ethnicity. Throughout colonization, certain geopolitical locations such as England and France have strived for dominance over other “weaker” locations. However, their definition of “weaker” is not the same as ours. Particularly white passing countries would see those of color as “weaker” and see this as a way to assert their dominance over them, take control, and establish a hierarchy. This “weakness” being skin color and cultural differences. We are able to see this happen within the video as the French established and asserted dominance over the people of color, just because of simple human differences, these differences being skin tone as well as culture. This can be directly related to current and rising issues of race within the United States. For example, police brutality is solely based on the hierarchy  of races based on white privilege. Overall, the main theme within this video is solely based on dominance between cultural, racial, and ethnic differences.

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One theme throughout colonization that was present in the video as well is power over a group considered 'inferior'. In colonization we see this when Western and European nations colonized countries with people of different ethnicities, races, religions etc. These people were then deemed lesser than the people in the colonizing countries (for the most part). In the documentary we see the power over a marginalized group when the people were used in zoos. Evidently those put into zoos and museums were considered inferior. Although not as outward as zoos or museums, we can still see the theme of power over 'inferior' groups in many different places today: people of color facing police brutality, children being kept in cages at the border, etc.

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Power dynamics are a major theme throughout global colonization. One thing that was pointed out in the documentary that realates to power dynamics was how the "plays" that the people subjected to the "human zoos" were made to put on created a false narrative. The people who made them do these plays intentionally insinuated that this was the correct story of these people when in fact it was false. This reinforced their power because they were able to define other people. "Human zoos" led to a lasting cultural trauma that still deeply affects them.

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This film relates to our work on global colonization through the theme of racism and forcing a culture upon someone else. These people were no longer regarded as people when they were taken from their homes, they were put in cages and forced to play parts, dance and many other things. So were supposed to depict "cannibals", they were shown having to hold fake severed heads and other props to trick the audience into having a negative image of them. Another extremely dehumanizing example was Ota Benga who was put in a cage on display with a Chimpanzee. We have people being stolen from their homes throughout history, though I had only know of people being taken for slavery and things like that, I had not know that people were taken to be put on display. The part involving P.T. Barnum especially surprised me, I had known that he put on those dehumanizing shows but I had not know it went to this extent. P.T. Barnum had a movie made about him called "The Greatest Showman", but in the movie they depict him very differently than how he was in real life.

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The main connection I made between the documentary and our class was how pseudoscience has in part motivated both of these phenomena (global colonization and the "human zoos"). This connection was especially clear to me when the narrator said "The world was gradually appropriated by those who saw themselves as uniquely civilized." The entire existence of these zoos is built on the idea that the audience is so civilized and advanced (because of their perceived "normalness") that they are entitled to entertainment by way of the exploitation of people who are not presented as people (by exaggerating physical, cultural, or linguistic differences). When we carry this over to chattel slavery or global colonization, we can see the same thing happening: Colonizers, steeped in their own entitlement and perceived self-importance, exploited Indigenous African peoples because of various differences that were only exaggerated by the fact that the colonizers thought they were "uniquely civilized." This makes me wonder how the exploitation of culture seen in the documentary has changed, and how it looks today. Colonialism still exists in more covert forms, so I don't think it would be foolish to assume that these "colonial crimes" still exist too. I would guess that the fetishization of women of color in the US is a possible present-day effect of the "human zoos".

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A major theme in colonization is the act of racism and mistreatment towards other human-beings. We see this horrific act of racism happen when powerful nations took over people from other countries and cultures, and putting them into zoos as if they were animals. This was awful, and no human-being should ever be treated in such awful and disgusting manner. Just because their culture was different than the Europeans, they believed that it was okay to mistreat them in horrible ways. The fact that this did not happen long ago just really upsets me. It's important that we remember history and make sure that atrocious things like this never repeat again.

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One of our central themes is colonization, a major part of which is racism. These extremely powerful nations were able to put people from other countries and cultures into zoos, which is horrific, but also exemplifies something important: when so far removed from another culture, before the age of technology that we live in today, it was so much easier to distance oneself from another culture. The images of people caged in zoos are awful, but even worse to me are the ones with people sitting taking photographs with these people as if they were an exhibit in a museum, while smiling and laughing. It's hard to even place blame on those people, as they weren't able to comprehend their racism, though they maybe should have been; but those truly to blame are those who put them there in the first place, those first colonizers who treated those peoples so poorly and with such racism. They treated them so horribly in their native countries; it's possible they thought, "why not bring them back to our country and treat them like animals there, too?" It truly was disgusting, but sheds light on an otherwise hard-to-breach subject.

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A key theme I noticed that relates to our unit is powerful countries taking advantage of vulnerable populations and abusing them to satisfy their own needs. In the documentary, the colonizers judged these people for their cultures and ways of life simply because it was different from typical Eurocentric ideals. They used their power to manipulate and exploit different populations(like the Pygmy people and Kalina people)  for the sick purpose of amusement. The Europeans thought that just because these people acted or seemed different, that it was okay to mistreat them in this way. Personally, it is so shocking to me that this was not that long ago and that humans could treat other humans this way. A quote that stood out to me from the film was, "It is now the duty of a generation to rescue these stories from oblivion and create an enlightened culture of remembrance." Which is very important to keep in mind for all historical atrocities, no matter how dark.