UW Grad Student Is Self-Nominated Protector of Africans
Kakuta Hamisi, a member of the Maasai tribe of Kenya, is working over the summer at the Woodland Park Zoo, talking to zoo visitors about Maasai culture and conservation.
Hamisi, an Evergreen State grad, evidently likes his job--he recruited several members of his tribe to work with him.
But Catherine Claiborne, a grad student at UW's Evans School, has a message for Hamisi: You are being exploited.
She tells the Times that the exhibit could cause visitors to "associate African people with animals, and African Americans with animalism."
I suppose this could be true, for people who see the guy who holds the owls and associate middle-aged fat people with birdism. Or for people who totally misunderstood Animal Farm.
Hamisi points out that he and his co-workers are paid employees in Western clothes. "We're not out there holding monkeys," he told the Times.
But Claiborne isn't buying it, and held a re-education camp forum last night so intellectuals could explain to Hamisi what he is doing wrong.
"I find the irony is lost on him," Femi Taiwo, director of African Studies at Seattle University, told the Times.
It's lost on us too, but if children are being exposed to something as pernicious as irony, it must be stopped right now.
What else have these Maasai been doing--giving children good advice that they just can't take? Free rides when they're already there?
Barring an intervention by thinkpol, Hamisi and his Maasai co-workers will be exploiting themselves ironically through September 30th.
