Is a baboon a black baby?

Is a baboon a black baby?

Crazy question I ask, huh? For many of you reading this, a rhetorical question. But one worth discussing. On our way back from Cape of Good Hope (or was it Holy Hope?), we pulled over because we saw lots of baboons on the road.

Everyone jumped with excitement as they pulled their cameras out and started flashing at the baboons. Unfortunately, my camera was dead…but it allowed me to witness everyone else’s reactions. Their “awww how cute?” “aww look at that baby!” was reminiscent of their reaction to the black babies we had met earlier in the day.

Granted this naïve and innocent attitude may not seem challenging, but I feel that it is rooted on this pathetic assurance of Whiteness. White privilege allowing the belittling of the baby’s humanity and compare it to the baboon.

Let us not forget the historic animalistic analogies of black folk to primates. The idea that black people are closely related to primates—because both are uncivil and dark.

What does it mean then, when we goo-goo-ga-ga over poor black babies with little means of progress, to baboons (who lack a humanistic sense of agency). We remove the agency of the black baby, knowing that s/he will never leave the place they call home. They will never be fully human.

We continuously remind the black babies, that to us—they are within the same caliber as baboons.

Let me pose with a black baby now. He’ll be my accessory of the week.