I'll admit. I watched the damn show. Yeah. Yeah. My blackness pass will probably be revoked and someone is channeling the ghost of Khallid Muhammad right now to haunt me. But damn it we all got weaknesses! Mine was Lisa Nicole Carson. Yeah the other characters were funny, but I wasn't interested in the walking stick Ally or even that lil' nerdish white guy (remember him from the movie Dragonslayer?). I tuned in mostly to catch cameo appearances by the buxom brown suga sista they managed to squeeze in some lines for---from show to show.

So now that she's finally leaving the show, I'm actually thankful! Why? Because now, I'll have no other reason to watch it. And I'll have no reason to repress something rather uncomfortable I saw on there two years ago. I didn't really have a word for it until Spike Lee gave it to me earlier this year: BAMBOOZLED.

I remember it well (imagine that wavy dream effect on ya' television tale as I tell this story), and some of you may two. So for all the undercover black Ally McBeal fans out there (don't' make me point you out!) here we go.

It was a Monday night in February of 2000. I received calls from irate friends (law students no less) asking me to turn to the Fox television series Ally McBeal. They said I had to see what was on there, because I wouldn't believe it.

Anyone who watches the show is aware that at times they embark upon flights of fancy. Often the characters see things ranging from dancing babies to singer Al Green. Usually these depictions are humorous and cause a slight laugh or two. But the images I first saw that Monday night in February didn't leave me with much to smile about.

In this episode of Ally McBeal the objects of hallucination were none other than "pygmies". Yes, "pygmies". An elderly white man repeatedly hallucinated about 3ft, loin clothed, African garbed, savage looking, spear-wielding---or should I say spear-chunking---creatures with sharp teeth called "pygmies". I had to blink twice to be certain I was not the one hallucinating. I kept waiting for the humor to begin---or perhaps where things would be explained. But it never came. I continued to watch as these little savage-Sambo like creatures, so-called "pygmies", repeatedly chased white people about while brandishing spears and sharp teeth. It reminded me of a mix between Tarzan and Birth of a Nation.

Oh and it gets worse. How you ask? Well the white people went as far as to HUNT the "Pygmies"! Yes, they HUNTED the small savage looking black people. And I suppose, since these "pygmies" looked near like animals, I should not have been surprised. In fact I should have not been surprised at any of what I was seeing.

I had witnessed such derogatory media depictions of Africans, particularly "pygmies", before. Anyone who grew up watching cartoon adventure shows such as Johnny Quest may remember the spear wielding "pygmies" our white heroes had to face. And of course our favorite "wascaly wabbit" Bugs Bunny found himself matching wits with a tar-black, pink lipped, Sambo like "pygmy witch doctor". It seems that for some reason the white world has had a great fascination with these small framed Africans.

A 'Scientific' American article in the early 1900s wrote the following:

"The personal appearance, characteristics, and traits of the Congo pygmies... [conclude they are] small, apelike, elfish creatures, furtive and mischievous, they closely parallel the brownies and goblins of our fairy tales. They live in the dense tangled forests in absolute savagery while they exhibit many ape-like features in their bodies...."

Such racist views of "pygmies" would not be without their tragic consequences. The most infamous story was that of a native of the Congo region of Africa named Ota Benga. Ota Benga, whose last name meant "friend" in his own language, had lost one wife to murderous white colonists and another to a snake bite. With promises of wealth and fame, he journeyed with noted white explorer Samuel Verner - who once proposed Africans be placed on animal game reserves - to the United States. No wealth ever came for Ota Benga, but his fame was assured as he was featured in the St. Louis World's Fair as a type of "primitive savage". In 1906 Verner went a step further and presented Ota Benga to Bronx Zoo director William Hornaday. And thus began one of the most racist and bizarre episodes in human history wherein Ota Benga, then a 23 year old man, became a continuing attraction at the Bronx zoo. There, in cage in the monkey house, Ota Benga the human was featured as a type of ape.

White crowds came from all around to see this small "ape-man" who sometimes shared a cage with baboons and was equipped with a make-shift bow and arrow. The spectators jeered at him; pulled at him; and laughed at him in sheer delight. According to the New York Times, "There was always a crowd before the cage, most of the time roaring with laughter, and from almost every corner of the garden could be heard the question 'Where is the Pygmy?" and the answer was, 'in the monkey house.' Several times the pushing and groping became so ugly, the police were summoned to the cage which Ota Benga was forced to call home.

Luckily for Ota Benga, the African-American populace of NY had decided enough was enough. And a petition was sent out by a group of black ministers to release Ota Benga from his humiliating captivity. As one Rev. Gordon wrote, "our race... is depressed enough without exhibiting one of us with the apes. We think we are worthy of being considered human beings, with souls". Through their activism they were able to rescue Ota Benga from his entrapment. Unable to raise the money to send him back to his homeland however, the black community attempted to make a place for the man. With their own American-derived ethnocentric contentions, they attempted to convert him to Christianity and even went as far as placing caps on his filed teeth to make him look more 'normal'. But it seemed that Ota Benga had found his life was filled with too many cruelties and indignities to continue.

A decade since his captivity, growing repeatedly despondent, the small man placed a revolver to his chest and ended his life. As one writer put it, Ota Benga finally "removed the caps from his teeth".

Well of course this episode of Ally McBeal did not air in 1906, but rather 2000. Certainly such depictions of Africans cannot barrage us in our own homes, during Black History Month no less. Certainly by now in this racially enlightened color-blind America I'm always hearing so much about, no major network would have such racist depictions of black people. Certainly it is known that the very word "pygmy" is derogatory, and that these people have a host of ethnic names to describe themselves. Certainly it is known that these people, referred to by the ancient Egyptians as "the dancers of the gods" and associated with the deity Bes, are some of the oldest humans in the world. Certainly it is known they are as intelligent, skillful and fully human as any one else.

Or perhaps not. For it seems FOX television and the writers at Ally McBeal were taking cues from Samuel Verner and the folks from the 1906 Bronx zoo. Once again, "Pygmies" were on display in all their supposedly ape-like and savage, impish qualities, for all to see. And though nearly a century has passed, FOX television made it painfully apparent that Ota Benga's humiliation has not yet come to an end.

MORPHEUS- Exposin Fake Shyt