Images of African people framed alongside photos of wild animals featured in the gallery of a Chinese museum have sparked outrage online for their apparent racial insensitivity.
Nigerian Edward E. Duke first posted a video of the museum on Instagram, calling out the exhibit “This is Africa” for the images which seemed to portray Africans as animals, Nigerian newspaper The Punch reports.
In his video post, Duke wrote “首都博物馆 the capital museum in Wuhan, China put pictures of a particular race next to wild animals why? Are they the only race to have impoverished looking?”
It is worth noting, however, that the Instagram user may have been confused about the name of the museum since Wuhan, while home to many museums, is in Hubei Province. China’s Capital Museum, on the other hand, is located in Beijing.
In the clip, several pictures of animals are shown to be displayed side by side with Africans wearing similar expressions.
A child with mouth wide open, for instance, is paired with a chimpanzee also with its mouth opened, while a growling lion is coupled with a black man seemingly doing the same.
While the video has since been taken downfrom Instagram, it has been re-uploaded on other social media sites, earning immediate condemnation from the African community.
“Am not a violent person but if I had accidentally wandered into this museum and seen this😵😵 s#!t, I would have popped off. This is so offensive,” one commenter said.
Others pointed out that the museum illustrates how there is not much knowledge about Black people in Asia.
“Asians are generally extremely ignorant about the black race,” another one wrote.
Some pointed out that one should first understand the image descriptions placed on the display before condemning the gallery.
“@eddydizzle next time, get a picture of the Chinese description at the side so we can read what the author thinks,” a netizen remarked.
