The Big Problem With Kim Kardashian’s Butt Photos Nobody Is Talking About - Mic
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Goude’s obsession with black women’s bodies has been widely noted as troublesome for how his work has perpetuated the dehumanizing logic that black women’s bodies are objects to be displayed or even violated by white men. In one part of Jungle Fever, as noted by author Janell Hobson, Goude compares the backsides of black women to those of “race horses.”
And when held alongside the stories of other black women dating back to slavery, this treatment becomes all the more problematic. Indeed, the “Carolina Beaumont” and the nude shots from Kardashian have strong echoes of the “Hottentot Venus” — real name Saartjie Baartman — of the late 18th century.
Baartman was a glorified walking art exhibition, exhibited as a public sideshow for white audiences across Europe, enduring humiliations and sexual abuse during the process. The draw? Her curves. After passing away at age 25 to venereal disease, Baartman was dissected and her body was preserved so that she could remain on display for decades. She only received a proper burial 187 years after her death.
Until then, she remained on a pedestal. Decades later, the parallels between that pedestal and the one Kardashian has been placed on are hard to ignore.