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06/20/2005:

"Row over German zoo's Africa show"

The event is intended to give residents in the town of Augsburg in south Germany, a taste of Africa with craft sellers, drummers, story tellers, music groups and food from around Africa.

But campaigners, including representative of Germany's black community and academics, say setting it in the town's zoo is racist.

"People are upset by the idea of placing [the festival] in a zoo between the baboons and the zebras," said Noah So, who founded Der Braune Mob - an organisation that monitors race issues in the German media.

'Exotic atmosphere'

"It is just not the right place to display human beings, let alone their culture," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"There is an urge to see those who are not white as part of something exotic or romanticised."
Noah Sow

"Two hundred years ago African people were displayed in zoos. Now we're in 2005 and one could get the impression that nothing's really changed."
Full: bbc.co.uk

Yeah one could that 'impression' couldn't they? And Ota Benga, a twa man from Congo, was 'displayed' at the World's Fair and the Bronx Zoo in 1906.