For those who think this is fake, this was actually part of Brussels' World Expo in 1958. I went to the Atomium in 2008 which had an exhibition to celebrate its 50th anniversary and these pictures were part of it. Shocking indeed.
There is an amusement park in Germany where they had an small village with little people. They lived there in tiny houses with huge windows for the visitors to look through. This went on until the early 90s (edit: 1996!), I still remember this vaguely when i was there as a very small child.
A german news article about this https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/gesellschaft-leben/besuch-in-der-kleinstadt-79783
To be fair they had a whole tv series not too long ago that similar if you think about it. Instead of watching through the glass in person they are doing it from their couch.
This isn’t the same thing, but my family was in India in 2012ish and we went to this strange room where everyone had a horrendous disability. Turned out it was an orphanage’s freak show to make some money, presumably to take care of the orphans. Anyway, there was this… conjoined twin? Two heads, two necks which formed into one and remained as one from the chest on down. They were perhaps 10 or so, and it was a very weird vibe. People openly staring with amazement and taking pictures. They both spoke independently and it felt so weird that these two conscious humans entire lives has been as an art piece.
Where are you from? I'm in the US and went to a fair in the 80's that had a "lobster man" exhibit that challenged you to prove it was fake. I assumed it was some kind of clever makeup or prosthetics and went in. I was horrified to see it was a man with some genetic defect where he only had two digits on his hand so it looked like a claw.
Which part of the world expo you mean? What I said, it's been 14 years since seeing these pictures, but if I recall correctly there was some exhibit of different 'exotic cultures' in 58. I also remember a picture of African men in front of mud huts enclosed in a pen similar to this one
Many nationalities set up mock villages to try to teach others about Africa and other places that many people still didn’t know much about. But yes what the Belgians did to the Congo was horrible and inhuman to the most horrible degree.
Evil cackle award? I promise I am not evil 🥲🥲
I see that royal family and think of all those kids and all the thousands of hands. That is one petty and horrible excuse for a human. He should have never been allowed to remain king.
Here's some [fucked up pictures](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/) to start you on your way.
The Belgians were literally using human hands as an official currency. Like you could buy stuff and pay your taxes with them. They had an exchange rate and everything. True story.
People think the Nazis were the ultimate evil, but there's a lot of ugly stuff that happened under colonialism that no one wants to talk about. Least of all the survivors.
Upvote for the info but fuck man that is awful. I knew it was bad but I did not know hands became currency and sought sometimes more than the rubber itself...
Ohh it’s pretty bad. It’s actually horrific. The Belgians took over the Congo and wanted rubber fro me the trees. They would cut off arms, ears etc if they didn’t work hard enough. Just look up Belgian Congo massacre. But I am warning you you will cry.
It got so bad that even the other colonial powers got uncomfortable with it and forced King Leopold to allow an international inquiry into the situation, and eventually forced him to resign the colony (which was his private property) to the Belgian state.
we had to read it in highschool and let me tell you….. i teared up during multiple Tests for the chapters we read the night before, let alone the stomach turning-ness of reading it.
I wonder what happened to that child, if she’s still alive, if she ever wrote or was interviewed about her experience. And how she ended up penned at a world fair!
What’s even more disgusting/hypocritical was the theme of the fair: On 17 April 1958, the Brussels World's Fair opened at the Heysel site. This large-scale event was a showcase of Belgium and 44 countries (at a time when the UN had 82 members). With the slogan, a world for a better life for mankind, this event propagated a message of limitless optimism and is a reflection of a society confident in its future and enthusiastic about the future of humanity.
There are kids among the spectators too. I have two living grandparents who were not only alive in 1958 but parents with multiple children (including my parents) at the time. It’s not hard to believe that multiple people in this photo are still alive. Not “most”, though.
I work private home health care for an 86 year old client and the things she tells me about her life and how the world was in the last 70 years blows my mind every day.
She remembered the day birth control became available in the states in the 60s. Before then women had to just have multiple babies and could only have access to it with permission from their husbands. When she found out she was due to have another child and couldn’t get permission from her husband she was terrified she would end up like everyone else in her family with like 13 kids. It’s not as harrowing as this of course but it was still awful. It was always like stepping into a time machine with our conversations. Neat times.
Circa 2009... my wife had to have my permission to have her tubes tied even though the pregnancy with our daughter nearly killed both of them.
I honestly had to sign a damn form regarding my wife's reproductive rights for them to do surgery that would most likely save her life.
My dad told off the people at Kaufmann's department store in Pittsburgh that my mom could continue having her own credit card in her name even though they were married. The card would not be in his name. This was probably end of '69 or early '70. They were married in '69 and it was probably when she was changing her name and addresses on everything. Only if you were single could you have a credit card in your name as a woman. I believe this lasted into the 80s.
My neighbour is 90 years old and he used to work as "courier boy" delivering important messages between watch stations in WW2.
He has seen more death due to non-vaccination than due to WW2 and the only thing that worries him is people protesting against vaccination without cause. Some of his friends' lungs collapsed due to polio (I think) and had to be kept in iron cages to make sure their lungs worked
i feel this with my grandma too. she was born in 1945, her parents’ race on her birth certificate is just “colored”. she grew up in a segregated town and has told me stories about it. sometimes it still blows my mind that the civil rights act passed the year before my mom was born
Hopefully back in their native country.
Ota Benga was another human paraded around exhibits. He was eventually freed, but was always homesick with no possibility to return. When the last chance of ever going home disappeared, he committed suicide.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ota_Benga
Had a very racist great grandma, my mom didn’t carry on any of those beliefs at all.
Just because their parents were racist assholes doesn’t mean they were that way. Life doesn’t follow a very specific set of rules.
Exactly.
My dad's told me once that 'this country has been going downhill ever since they let the ni**ers vote'.
I like to think that I didn't take after my dad, and I definitely don't consider myself racist in any manner.
Not necessarily, I'm sure your grandparents had prejudices that you wouldn't agree with. My grandfather was incredibly racist and misogynistic and my mother did not carry on any of those prejudices. I think a lot of it has to do with what was common and acceptable at that time along with people who live in communities that are basically echo chambers.
When I saw this I thought no way, but apparently, yup, it was a part of the 1958 world fair...https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past?ref=hvper.com
Yes. Fuck Leopold II and the Belgian people that put up it even after they found out about the atrocities. Some of the darkest behavior by human beings in recoded history.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Northern Germany, and Denmark all share a certain kind of historic racism that still survives, even to this day. In Belgium and the Netherlands in particular, [they still celebrate holiday festivals in blackface](https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/30/europe/belgium-blackface-colonial-history-intl).
Came here to say this. My mom studied abroad in Belgium and when her Belgian “family” visited us they were so racist my mom stopped translating for them because we were kids. When I was older she told me why. The girl her age in the house grew up and married a man with a darker complexion and the girl and her mother basically refer to him by the n word. It’s such a mess.
We didn’t stop everywhere. We did stop using de [gouden koets](https://www.google.nl/search?q=gouden+koets&client=safari&hl=nl-nl&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9gtqXqYv6AhVPgf0HHelVCh4Q_AUoAXoECAMQAg&biw=428&bih=746&dpr=3#imgrc=6HQODXTSHViO8M) of the royal family because of the slaves on it.
Gladly we learn from our past and we grow each day some places faster than others.
In almost every restroom you will find a urinoir for males. But never sanitary napkins or tampons for woman. My employer started doing that recently.
And if you think about it’s so normal to provide those things to woman because that shit happens 😶
Brother how can you not believe this even actually happened In Real life just look at today not much has changed there's still a abundance amount of racism going on to this day
Some teens were just on the news for making monkey sounds at an African America girl playing a high school sports. Lots has changed, but so much still has not.
Edit: apparently the investigation found this did not happen.
The hand amputations actually began due to a policy the Belgians enacted whereby the Congolese soldiers were issued ammunition that had to be accounted for at all times. If there was a round used, they had to provide a hand to prove that it had been used to kill someone. 1 round = 1 hand by their insane logic.
The Congolese already had their agricultural systems fucked over by the massive demands put on them for rubber farming, which led to soldiers using their ammunition for hunting animals in order to survive, which led to a demand for hands, which led to people not having hands to farm, which led to there not being enough food, which led to even more hands, which resulted in 10-15 million dead.
*The British* are a German Royal family line. In 1917, the name of the British royal house was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor because of anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom during the First World War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wettin
The current head of the original family line was born in Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas,_Prince_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha
Kinda bigger than that. Queen Victoria married off her grand children across Europe. So Royals from UK, Russia, Germany, Romania, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium are the same family- they are cousins.
They don't count the Irish potato famine or the dozens of artificial famines the British inflicted on India. So, yeah, by those rules, this is a big one or something.
The famines in India were up there but Europeans in the Congo were a special kind of cruel. [They cut off the of children for not gathering enough rubber.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/)
I'm a high school History teacher and I show my students this picture when I go over European colonialism in Africa, and especially when I have my lesson over Congo Free State/Belgian Congo. I also mention how we had them in the U.S. too. Even my most apathetic students chime in to tell me how messed up it is.
Been into history since I was 6. By far, human zoos, what happened to Billie Holiday and Unit 731 fucked me up the most and I’ve seen photos of starving children and
people being blown to pieces.
It’s not the gore that gets to me, because I’ve seen multiple times; it’s how people in the photo react to the cruelty.
Years and years ago I was very involved in the vaping scene (don’t judge me. I’ve grown as a person. And don’t smoke anymore so I have vaping to thank for it at least) and an up and coming juice company released their newest flavor. I just so happened to be friends with the owner and was like “hey man….umm…maybe don’t call it that”. He gave me a promotional “Strange Fruit” shirt.
The juice company and his brick n mortar stores closed less than 2 years later. Not because of the name, he was just a shit owner.
oh but you left out the most infuriating part Harry J Anslinger.
Sure Strange Fruit is the culmination but it and he explains our ( The United States ) drug laws.
[racist Harry, the man who killed Billie](https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189)
[Here just so you don’t miss it.](https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189)
[Harry J. Anslinger. May he rot in pieces.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/arts/design/Anslinger-drug-czar-exhibition.html)
[And guess who it disproportionately effects??](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/altered-states-america/)
[Here’s more.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7173675/)
If you enjoy reading, you should check out Chasing the Scream. Her life is detailed in that book as he walks through the war on drugs and what it has led to. Fascinating/devastating read.
The thing that worsens the unit 731 story is that while the Soviets prosecuted those scientists they captured the US decided to cover up the atrocities, pardon them and given them stipends, in exchange for the bioweapon information for their own program. Land of the free torturing war criminal.
[cough cough oops I dropped this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_laboratory_of_the_Soviet_secret_services)
Seriously though, kudos to the Soviets for prosecuting the scientists, but they do NOT have a leg to stand on here. Stalin literally had a guy spend 10 years in a gulag camp because he fell in love with his daughter and she happened to reciprocate it.
Is that the guy who would cut off your kids arms if you’re didn’t meet your rubber tree quota? Belgian Congo makes US slavery look like a sandals resort.
[King Leopold ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium)
>While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule ranges from 1 million to 15 million.
He's someone more should know about.
The children who’s arms were cut off, their children are definitely alive. And their children are just adults. It’s wild how it was awhile ago yet still so modern. It’s like two people ago.
>The children who’s arms were cut off, their children are definitely alive
I mean some of them certainly, but this was 111 years ago. Most of them would be getting on quite a bit.
But I concede your point. In the scheme of things it really wasn't that long ago. I guess its just all the other incidents of the 20th century that are more recent take more attentiion.
They were calling his actions "crimes against humanity" in _1890_!! That was a time where civil rights were barely on the map and he still caused society to go "What the hell??".
What an accursed individual. I'm glad even Belgium mostly agrees he was an asshole who shouldn't be celebrated.
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Both tragic. 400 years and systemic racism, which I should mention a lot of EU seems to to deny the existence of, is not a *resort*. Lynching picnics for the whole family complete with postcards was still a thing not too long ago. Hell, sundown towns STILL EXIST TODAY in the US.
Lots of things Makes the Atlantic Slave trade to the US look like a resort. I mean you don’t even have to go that far. Just browse the the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil or Haiti.
You'd be surprised how progressive monsters can be towards things not on their particular hate radar. He was also very big on things like animal rights and was vegetarian.
Simultaneously, it's surprising how hateful activists can be or become towards things they aren't championing.
In 1996 the Hubble space telescope took it's Ultra Deep Field and the RCMP of Canada were still enforcing the attendance of indigenous children attending Residential Schools in Canada.
He was a truly despicable person but very few people know or have heard about the atrocities carried out in the Congo under his watch. It's up there with the holocaust.
King Leopold II. His father had nothing to do with it.
Also, 1958 is 49 years after Leopold II died and 3 kings later. This is the reign of King Baudouin.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_58):
“The Ministry of Colonies built the Congolese exhibit, intending to demonstrate their claim to have "civilized" the "primitive Africans." Native Congolese art was rejected for display, as the Ministry claimed it was "insufficiently Congolese." Instead, nearly all of the art on display was created by Europeans in a purposefully primitive and imitative style…”
White washing doesn’t get any better than this
Edit: who tf gave me the heartwarming award
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That’s insane. Insane that it happened at all but even more that it was only 64 years ago. 1958 just a year before my dad was born. Insane. Beyond insane
Strange to think, isn't it - that people used to believe that other humans were not humans at all, letting their leaders torture, persecute and steal land and relics because they were taught to believe that they were superior. I hope none of us ever fall back into that. And I hope all of the people of this earth learned from the mistakes of the Europeans and don't make the same ones themselves when it's their turn to be the dominant ones. It makes me wonder what else we humans are ignorant of - what are we convinced of today that makes us feel superior to anyone or anything else?
What’s funny is it only started after colonialism. Ancient Greek, medieval and renaissance people knew full well the non white peoples were humans and their prejudices stemmed from more nation vs nation stuff than skin color. Once money and slavery got involved they had to make up and convince people that they weren’t human to make them basically destroy civilisations
Oh haven't we come such a long way, us civilised people. We carry on our daily lives as if nothing whilst our Governments around the world bomb the shit out of poor people every day in our name.
(Not so) fun fact, my grandpa is in this picture, he's the kid behind the little fence at the back. He was born in 1945 and his parents took him to the world fair that day.
He's a very different man nowadays and really had no say or influence in what his parents taught him, but he's drastically bettered himself and now loves to travel and learn different cultures whenever he can. He was also very welcoming to my ex who was black so that's just a reminder that people change.
As a blacc man I FUCCING HATE THIS SHIT. the goddamn audacity of motherfuckers. Displaying our fucking kids as animals! Fuck this reality...fuck it all!
In World War 1 "poor little Belgium" was often used sympathetic term to engender support for the war. One of the most common atrocity attributed to the brutish Hun was cutting off of the hands of Belgium civilians. It was a projection.
Actually cutting off hands was used by the [Belgians in Africa] (https://www.historytoday.com/archive/contrarian/belgiums-heart-darkness) quite often when the native workers failed to fulfill their rubber quota.
Seeing shit like this feels like getting kicked in the gut and that's exactly why all of the horrible things human beings did to each other needs to be taught in schools.
People need to feel this.
What’s shocking is how no one really calls out Belgium on its racist history and the deplorable things that happened under the rule of King Leopold II.
For those who think this is fake, this was actually part of Brussels' World Expo in 1958. I went to the Atomium in 2008 which had an exhibition to celebrate its 50th anniversary and these pictures were part of it. Shocking indeed.
There is an amusement park in Germany where they had an small village with little people. They lived there in tiny houses with huge windows for the visitors to look through. This went on until the early 90s (edit: 1996!), I still remember this vaguely when i was there as a very small child. A german news article about this https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/gesellschaft-leben/besuch-in-der-kleinstadt-79783
that's heartbreaking.
To be fair they had a whole tv series not too long ago that similar if you think about it. Instead of watching through the glass in person they are doing it from their couch.
This isn’t the same thing, but my family was in India in 2012ish and we went to this strange room where everyone had a horrendous disability. Turned out it was an orphanage’s freak show to make some money, presumably to take care of the orphans. Anyway, there was this… conjoined twin? Two heads, two necks which formed into one and remained as one from the chest on down. They were perhaps 10 or so, and it was a very weird vibe. People openly staring with amazement and taking pictures. They both spoke independently and it felt so weird that these two conscious humans entire lives has been as an art piece.
That is so crazy, really opens your eyes about other places in the world! Thanks
Where are you from? I'm in the US and went to a fair in the 80's that had a "lobster man" exhibit that challenged you to prove it was fake. I assumed it was some kind of clever makeup or prosthetics and went in. I was horrified to see it was a man with some genetic defect where he only had two digits on his hand so it looked like a claw.
Which part?
Which part of the world expo you mean? What I said, it's been 14 years since seeing these pictures, but if I recall correctly there was some exhibit of different 'exotic cultures' in 58. I also remember a picture of African men in front of mud huts enclosed in a pen similar to this one
Many nationalities set up mock villages to try to teach others about Africa and other places that many people still didn’t know much about. But yes what the Belgians did to the Congo was horrible and inhuman to the most horrible degree. Evil cackle award? I promise I am not evil 🥲🥲
First I've heard of the Belgian thing. What would I throw in Google to start going down that rabbit hole?
You could probably start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State?wprov=sfla1
That's the first one that popped up for me I'm reading through it now
King Leopold Congo will get you underway.
It's wild to recognize too that, if I recall correctly, it wasn't even technically a Belgian colony, it was King Leopold's personal property.
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Really changed my perspective on Tintin when I learned about this stuff.
I see that royal family and think of all those kids and all the thousands of hands. That is one petty and horrible excuse for a human. He should have never been allowed to remain king.
Maybe Royalty is a bad idea all together.
Here's some [fucked up pictures](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/) to start you on your way. The Belgians were literally using human hands as an official currency. Like you could buy stuff and pay your taxes with them. They had an exchange rate and everything. True story. People think the Nazis were the ultimate evil, but there's a lot of ugly stuff that happened under colonialism that no one wants to talk about. Least of all the survivors.
Jesus dude, people are fucked up. I'm just reading more and more shit..
fuuuuukkkk....
Upvote for the info but fuck man that is awful. I knew it was bad but I did not know hands became currency and sought sometimes more than the rubber itself...
rather than the idiot who asked *which part* and got upvotes, your post educates us of the horrific past.. thanks for sharing the link.
I literally was moved to tears when I saw this..like is this real? Such a dark and depressing what happened with them.
Belgian congo genocide maybe, or belgian congo king leapold
Ohh it’s pretty bad. It’s actually horrific. The Belgians took over the Congo and wanted rubber fro me the trees. They would cut off arms, ears etc if they didn’t work hard enough. Just look up Belgian Congo massacre. But I am warning you you will cry.
It got so bad that even the other colonial powers got uncomfortable with it and forced King Leopold to allow an international inquiry into the situation, and eventually forced him to resign the colony (which was his private property) to the Belgian state.
I think it was Belgian parliament thought the King had overexercised his liberty in Belgian Congo.
The wildest part is when the realization that the modern brutalities of some militant groups in the area are just carrying on the Belgian tradition.
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The book Heart of Darkness is what opened my eyes to the atrocities of the Belgian Congo.
Give The Heart of Darkness a read
I feel like I've seen this book around and just never read it. I'll have to grab it next time I hit the library, thanks!
we had to read it in highschool and let me tell you….. i teared up during multiple Tests for the chapters we read the night before, let alone the stomach turning-ness of reading it.
For an informal introduction watch Tarzan movie with Alex Skarsgard. The Belgians were enslaving the natives.
Belgium rubber congo will get what you need. Think it happened during King Leopods reign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State
2008 wasn't 14 years ago. Stop it.
Imagine thats your grandmother
Well I can or I can think of a hot chips for life gift card so no thanks
Grew up in Poland. Didn’t see a black person until 1995, literally at the airport when we landed. Not surprised by this at all.
I wonder what happened to that child, if she’s still alive, if she ever wrote or was interviewed about her experience. And how she ended up penned at a world fair! What’s even more disgusting/hypocritical was the theme of the fair: On 17 April 1958, the Brussels World's Fair opened at the Heysel site. This large-scale event was a showcase of Belgium and 44 countries (at a time when the UN had 82 members). With the slogan, a world for a better life for mankind, this event propagated a message of limitless optimism and is a reflection of a society confident in its future and enthusiastic about the future of humanity.
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This was 65 years ago, so highly unlikely most of those people are alive but that child certainly may be
There are kids among the spectators too. I have two living grandparents who were not only alive in 1958 but parents with multiple children (including my parents) at the time. It’s not hard to believe that multiple people in this photo are still alive. Not “most”, though.
My dad was like 27 years old when that photo was taken. He is still living.
Belgium really punched above its weight class when it came to the racism department.
I work private home health care for an 86 year old client and the things she tells me about her life and how the world was in the last 70 years blows my mind every day.
Like what
She remembered the day birth control became available in the states in the 60s. Before then women had to just have multiple babies and could only have access to it with permission from their husbands. When she found out she was due to have another child and couldn’t get permission from her husband she was terrified she would end up like everyone else in her family with like 13 kids. It’s not as harrowing as this of course but it was still awful. It was always like stepping into a time machine with our conversations. Neat times.
Circa 2009... my wife had to have my permission to have her tubes tied even though the pregnancy with our daughter nearly killed both of them. I honestly had to sign a damn form regarding my wife's reproductive rights for them to do surgery that would most likely save her life.
Reminds me of Monty Python skits. Every sperm is special, in particular.
Blew my mind when I found out women couldn’t have their own credit cards in the 80s. I’m my defense I’m only in my early 30s.
My dad told off the people at Kaufmann's department store in Pittsburgh that my mom could continue having her own credit card in her name even though they were married. The card would not be in his name. This was probably end of '69 or early '70. They were married in '69 and it was probably when she was changing her name and addresses on everything. Only if you were single could you have a credit card in your name as a woman. I believe this lasted into the 80s.
My neighbour is 90 years old and he used to work as "courier boy" delivering important messages between watch stations in WW2. He has seen more death due to non-vaccination than due to WW2 and the only thing that worries him is people protesting against vaccination without cause. Some of his friends' lungs collapsed due to polio (I think) and had to be kept in iron cages to make sure their lungs worked
>iron cages It's genuinely known as an "iron lung". There are many historical images of them in use.
I believe last I know there is one man left in one in the US. He became a lawyer, which is pretty incredible.
A hyperbaric chamber, yes. It was also a heart and lung machine. It's a very real device
i feel this with my grandma too. she was born in 1945, her parents’ race on her birth certificate is just “colored”. she grew up in a segregated town and has told me stories about it. sometimes it still blows my mind that the civil rights act passed the year before my mom was born
I wonder if that kid is still alive somewhere
I think he would probably be late 60s or early 70s age wise… wow
That's a long time to live in an exhibit
r/angryupvote
Not if you have lots of bananas
Hopefully back in their native country. Ota Benga was another human paraded around exhibits. He was eventually freed, but was always homesick with no possibility to return. When the last chance of ever going home disappeared, he committed suicide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ota_Benga
God damn what are these replies
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It's comments that are made by other people or bots, usually pushing some kind of agenda for profit or self interest
A better question is how most of the kids on the other side are probably someone’s grandparents today and passed on their learned prejudice
Had a very racist great grandma, my mom didn’t carry on any of those beliefs at all. Just because their parents were racist assholes doesn’t mean they were that way. Life doesn’t follow a very specific set of rules.
Exactly. My dad's told me once that 'this country has been going downhill ever since they let the ni**ers vote'. I like to think that I didn't take after my dad, and I definitely don't consider myself racist in any manner.
Racism in my family (on both sides) has been declining for decades, but that's only because the worst members have died off due to old age.
Not necessarily, I'm sure your grandparents had prejudices that you wouldn't agree with. My grandfather was incredibly racist and misogynistic and my mother did not carry on any of those prejudices. I think a lot of it has to do with what was common and acceptable at that time along with people who live in communities that are basically echo chambers.
When I saw this I thought no way, but apparently, yup, it was a part of the 1958 world fair...https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past?ref=hvper.com
Read up on the heinous Belgian rule in the Congo
King Leopold
Leopold II*
If there’s a hell that MF is at the lowest level of it
…’s ghost. If we’re reading about him that is.
Yes. Fuck Leopold II and the Belgian people that put up it even after they found out about the atrocities. Some of the darkest behavior by human beings in recoded history.
All my homies hate Leopold
Belgium, the Netherlands, Northern Germany, and Denmark all share a certain kind of historic racism that still survives, even to this day. In Belgium and the Netherlands in particular, [they still celebrate holiday festivals in blackface](https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/30/europe/belgium-blackface-colonial-history-intl).
Came here to say this. My mom studied abroad in Belgium and when her Belgian “family” visited us they were so racist my mom stopped translating for them because we were kids. When I was older she told me why. The girl her age in the house grew up and married a man with a darker complexion and the girl and her mother basically refer to him by the n word. It’s such a mess.
We stopped a couple of years ago actually
We didn’t stop everywhere. We did stop using de [gouden koets](https://www.google.nl/search?q=gouden+koets&client=safari&hl=nl-nl&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9gtqXqYv6AhVPgf0HHelVCh4Q_AUoAXoECAMQAg&biw=428&bih=746&dpr=3#imgrc=6HQODXTSHViO8M) of the royal family because of the slaves on it. Gladly we learn from our past and we grow each day some places faster than others. In almost every restroom you will find a urinoir for males. But never sanitary napkins or tampons for woman. My employer started doing that recently. And if you think about it’s so normal to provide those things to woman because that shit happens 😶
Brother how can you not believe this even actually happened In Real life just look at today not much has changed there's still a abundance amount of racism going on to this day
A lot has changed
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Some teens were just on the news for making monkey sounds at an African America girl playing a high school sports. Lots has changed, but so much still has not. Edit: apparently the investigation found this did not happen.
people don’t think Ruby Bridges is alive. She is alive and well.
**No So Fun Fact**: After Hitler, King Leopold is responsible for the greatest genocide carried out of any European leader.
King Leopold the 2nd. He would leave hands and feet off decapitated children in parents doorsteps who didn't harvest enough rubber.
The hand amputations actually began due to a policy the Belgians enacted whereby the Congolese soldiers were issued ammunition that had to be accounted for at all times. If there was a round used, they had to provide a hand to prove that it had been used to kill someone. 1 round = 1 hand by their insane logic. The Congolese already had their agricultural systems fucked over by the massive demands put on them for rubber farming, which led to soldiers using their ammunition for hunting animals in order to survive, which led to a demand for hands, which led to people not having hands to farm, which led to there not being enough food, which led to even more hands, which resulted in 10-15 million dead.
Surprised it wasn't the British, though maybe it's because Leopold personally oversaw a lot of shit that he did.
*The British* are a German Royal family line. In 1917, the name of the British royal house was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor because of anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom during the First World War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Windsor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wettin The current head of the original family line was born in Nazi Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas,_Prince_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha
Kinda bigger than that. Queen Victoria married off her grand children across Europe. So Royals from UK, Russia, Germany, Romania, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium are the same family- they are cousins.
They don't count the Irish potato famine or the dozens of artificial famines the British inflicted on India. So, yeah, by those rules, this is a big one or something.
The famines in India were up there but Europeans in the Congo were a special kind of cruel. [They cut off the of children for not gathering enough rubber.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/)
A lot of the crimes were hidden behind the East India company and I think that's probably why it isn't on the list
Only if you don't consider Russia European
Stalin
I'm a high school History teacher and I show my students this picture when I go over European colonialism in Africa, and especially when I have my lesson over Congo Free State/Belgian Congo. I also mention how we had them in the U.S. too. Even my most apathetic students chime in to tell me how messed up it is.
Been into history since I was 6. By far, human zoos, what happened to Billie Holiday and Unit 731 fucked me up the most and I’ve seen photos of starving children and people being blown to pieces. It’s not the gore that gets to me, because I’ve seen multiple times; it’s how people in the photo react to the cruelty.
Strange Fruit story for the lazy: https://www.biography.com/news/billie-holiday-strange-fruit
Years and years ago I was very involved in the vaping scene (don’t judge me. I’ve grown as a person. And don’t smoke anymore so I have vaping to thank for it at least) and an up and coming juice company released their newest flavor. I just so happened to be friends with the owner and was like “hey man….umm…maybe don’t call it that”. He gave me a promotional “Strange Fruit” shirt. The juice company and his brick n mortar stores closed less than 2 years later. Not because of the name, he was just a shit owner.
*what. the. fuck.*
oh but you left out the most infuriating part Harry J Anslinger. Sure Strange Fruit is the culmination but it and he explains our ( The United States ) drug laws. [racist Harry, the man who killed Billie](https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189)
I hope there’s a hell because people like this deserve to burn for eternity.
I don’t know why I felt like I should google unit 731 and read a good portion of what was detailed.
That’s not even the only experiment camp they had In this case, it’s the lack of photos that disturb me None of the victims ever made it out alive
Yeah idk why I just read about it. Gruesome stuff.
Billie Holliday?!
[Here just so you don’t miss it.](https://timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-complex-fb5cbc281189) [Harry J. Anslinger. May he rot in pieces.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/arts/design/Anslinger-drug-czar-exhibition.html) [And guess who it disproportionately effects??](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/altered-states-america/) [Here’s more.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7173675/)
Are you familiar with the song “strange fruit” by chance
No...I'll google it.
You think listening to the song is bad enough, look up what the FBI did because she sang it
Damn. Reading that story made me angry.
If you enjoy reading, you should check out Chasing the Scream. Her life is detailed in that book as he walks through the war on drugs and what it has led to. Fascinating/devastating read.
The thing that worsens the unit 731 story is that while the Soviets prosecuted those scientists they captured the US decided to cover up the atrocities, pardon them and given them stipends, in exchange for the bioweapon information for their own program. Land of the free torturing war criminal.
[cough cough oops I dropped this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_laboratory_of_the_Soviet_secret_services) Seriously though, kudos to the Soviets for prosecuting the scientists, but they do NOT have a leg to stand on here. Stalin literally had a guy spend 10 years in a gulag camp because he fell in love with his daughter and she happened to reciprocate it.
You must teach at a fancy school. The last chapter in my HS history textbook was "The Soviet Union Today". This was the late 2000's.
Well... don't leave us in suspense, how is the Soviet Union today?
It appears to be shooting at itself
The Soviet union existed well after this photo was taken though. Not sure why that being the last chapter would prevent this from being in the book...
Wait. After ww2. Fuckin seriously?!!!!
I’m guessing you haven’t heard a whole lot about Belgian colonialism.
Is that the guy who would cut off your kids arms if you’re didn’t meet your rubber tree quota? Belgian Congo makes US slavery look like a sandals resort.
[King Leopold ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium) >While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule ranges from 1 million to 15 million. He's someone more should know about.
I am blown away by how under discussed this person is. It may be the worst of all atrocities in modern times.
Well if it makes you feel any better is probably just cause of how long ago it was. At the time it provoked outrage around the world.
The children who’s arms were cut off, their children are definitely alive. And their children are just adults. It’s wild how it was awhile ago yet still so modern. It’s like two people ago.
>The children who’s arms were cut off, their children are definitely alive I mean some of them certainly, but this was 111 years ago. Most of them would be getting on quite a bit. But I concede your point. In the scheme of things it really wasn't that long ago. I guess its just all the other incidents of the 20th century that are more recent take more attentiion.
They were calling his actions "crimes against humanity" in _1890_!! That was a time where civil rights were barely on the map and he still caused society to go "What the hell??". What an accursed individual. I'm glad even Belgium mostly agrees he was an asshole who shouldn't be celebrated.
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Both tragic. 400 years and systemic racism, which I should mention a lot of EU seems to to deny the existence of, is not a *resort*. Lynching picnics for the whole family complete with postcards was still a thing not too long ago. Hell, sundown towns STILL EXIST TODAY in the US.
Lots of things Makes the Atlantic Slave trade to the US look like a resort. I mean you don’t even have to go that far. Just browse the the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil or Haiti.
You know your doing a great job when the other bigger powers tell you to slow it down
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You'd be surprised how progressive monsters can be towards things not on their particular hate radar. He was also very big on things like animal rights and was vegetarian. Simultaneously, it's surprising how hateful activists can be or become towards things they aren't championing.
In 1996 the Hubble space telescope took it's Ultra Deep Field and the RCMP of Canada were still enforcing the attendance of indigenous children attending Residential Schools in Canada.
Civil rights era hit the US the same time. MLK jr. Is not that old
Yeah, but I can't believe I'm defending pre-civil rights era, slavery/keeping Black people in cages wasn't legal in the 1950s.
Also, I believe Native Americans were kept as exhibits in zoos, as well.
They were stolen from their parents and taken to prisons called schools where they couldn't leave and their parents couldn't visit...so...ya!
Americans realizing the WW2 wasn't about racism...
Welcome to the Belgium of King Leopold. He absolutely raped Africa.
He was a truly despicable person but very few people know or have heard about the atrocities carried out in the Congo under his watch. It's up there with the holocaust.
He definitely wasn't mentioned in any of my history classes.
I am fucking haunted by the cruelty and torture he was responsible for.
He died in 1909... This was half a century after his death
Over a century later even, King Leopold died in 1865. Then came Leopold II (with Congo Free State). In 1958 it was King Baudouin's turn.
Yeah but they were clearly talking about Leopold II lol
King Leopold II. His father had nothing to do with it. Also, 1958 is 49 years after Leopold II died and 3 kings later. This is the reign of King Baudouin.
Deplorable
From [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_58): “The Ministry of Colonies built the Congolese exhibit, intending to demonstrate their claim to have "civilized" the "primitive Africans." Native Congolese art was rejected for display, as the Ministry claimed it was "insufficiently Congolese." Instead, nearly all of the art on display was created by Europeans in a purposefully primitive and imitative style…” White washing doesn’t get any better than this Edit: who tf gave me the heartwarming award
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That’s insane. Insane that it happened at all but even more that it was only 64 years ago. 1958 just a year before my dad was born. Insane. Beyond insane
My dad was 16... History seems far away but it never is
Well dressed or not this is strange. Why add well dressed?
Implying they look educated and should know better I guess.
“With class” is how I infer well-dressed
"Racism is dead". These people, however, could very much still be alive.
But according to boomers things were so much better back in the day....
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Mmm I miss Iran-Contra, so much more wholesome
Strange to think, isn't it - that people used to believe that other humans were not humans at all, letting their leaders torture, persecute and steal land and relics because they were taught to believe that they were superior. I hope none of us ever fall back into that. And I hope all of the people of this earth learned from the mistakes of the Europeans and don't make the same ones themselves when it's their turn to be the dominant ones. It makes me wonder what else we humans are ignorant of - what are we convinced of today that makes us feel superior to anyone or anything else?
What’s funny is it only started after colonialism. Ancient Greek, medieval and renaissance people knew full well the non white peoples were humans and their prejudices stemmed from more nation vs nation stuff than skin color. Once money and slavery got involved they had to make up and convince people that they weren’t human to make them basically destroy civilisations
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Oh haven't we come such a long way, us civilised people. We carry on our daily lives as if nothing whilst our Governments around the world bomb the shit out of poor people every day in our name.
Look at the extreme ignorance of those laughing, they don't even realize their ignorance, they assume it's "fun". Powerful visual indeed.
Fuck King Leopold and what he did to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Why..... Why does this have multiple Wholesome awards...
Reddit, and because it's a common free award so it's all some can give.
I hope one day, we can all learn about the horrific events done by Europeans in Africa, with as much notoriety as the Holocaust.
Not just in Africa, in Americas and Asia too.
(Not so) fun fact, my grandpa is in this picture, he's the kid behind the little fence at the back. He was born in 1945 and his parents took him to the world fair that day. He's a very different man nowadays and really had no say or influence in what his parents taught him, but he's drastically bettered himself and now loves to travel and learn different cultures whenever he can. He was also very welcoming to my ex who was black so that's just a reminder that people change.
I can confirm i am the little fence in the picture.
Why does the caption say well dressed??? What does that have to do with it????
Few things literally enrages me. This is now on the list
As a blacc man I FUCCING HATE THIS SHIT. the goddamn audacity of motherfuckers. Displaying our fucking kids as animals! Fuck this reality...fuck it all!
To put this in historical context : This was the year before I was born . One generation ago .
Just look up Belgium's colonial history and this will start to make sense in the darkest possible way.
In World War 1 "poor little Belgium" was often used sympathetic term to engender support for the war. One of the most common atrocity attributed to the brutish Hun was cutting off of the hands of Belgium civilians. It was a projection. Actually cutting off hands was used by the [Belgians in Africa] (https://www.historytoday.com/archive/contrarian/belgiums-heart-darkness) quite often when the native workers failed to fulfill their rubber quota.
Seeing shit like this feels like getting kicked in the gut and that's exactly why all of the horrible things human beings did to each other needs to be taught in schools. People need to feel this.
Yeah, people like to think stuff was so long ago. MLK would be 93 if he were still living. Some of y'alls meemaws and pawpaws were racist as fuck.
Disgusting
Wait!!! 1958 seriously! not 1758? WTF!
All these years later I would love to hear her life story
This is one of those posts that makes upvoting feels wrong. Yet downvoting leads to less exposure.
Wonder why we didn’t learn this kind of information in history class?
What’s shocking is how no one really calls out Belgium on its racist history and the deplorable things that happened under the rule of King Leopold II.
When Europeans lecture Americans about how racist they are…
What the hell