Last February, I got the chance to raise my objection to the second coming of the Bodies Exhibit in the opinion pages of Real Change [Feb. 24 - March 2, "That's entertainment?"]. "Bodies: the Exhibit" is a traveling circus of death which displays the mutilated remains of China's dispossessed for the pleasure and "educational" benefit of the American public, the current winners in the global class struggle.
Unlike those who paid to see the wares of Renaissance-era grave robbers, America's bourgeois patrons are spared from the natural process of bodily decomposition. They don't have to endure the wretched smell of death. I believe the deliberate sanitization of the "Bodies" experience fosters the cultural desensitization of human suffering while promoting a subdued, but insidious racism toward Asian people.
Dr. Roy Glover, apologist and spokesman for the exhibit, professed the Bodies Exhibit gets its cadavers from China because China has the finest dissectors in the world. Maybe this is a euphemistic way of saying that, in China, the "Bodies" exhibit found both the cheapest source of fresh human cadavers as well as workers so captivated by capitalist greed that they would participate in the harvesting of their fellow countrymen and women for commercial manufacture.
Premier Exhibition readily admits the bodies it displays originally are obtained from the Chinese Police. In its disclaimer, Premier says these bodies are unclaimed with no identifying documents. These people never consented to having their remains so horrifically altered and nakedly displayed. Premier cannot guarantee the deceased were not political prisoners. It cannot guarantee the deceased were not tortured nor executed. There is a nuanced and polite way to frame and define reality, to make it palatable, as opposed to fact and truth.
In the face of their lies, a group of us convinced each member of City Council that they had neglected their moral duty to ban the exhibit from Seattle's city limits. San Francisco, California, and Hawaii have already passed similar measures banning the "Bodies" exhibit. Hawaii has banned all exhibits that display human remains. Much to our delight, on July 19, City Council voted unanimously for the consent of deceased to be verified before their human remains could be displayed.
We are very thankful to this council for its unanimity. For us, this was a proud historical moment. The Chinese government takes issue with outsiders meddling and exposing its oppressive policies. The City of Seattle now takes issue with having these victims of Chinese oppression show up on its doorstep. The measure, to our disappointment, does allow authorized third-party consent, but a similar measure has so far kept the exhibit from returning to San Francisco.
Pete Holmes, the recently elected City Attorney, grasped early on the serious nature of our misgivings and was solidly in our corner, almost insuring this measure would see the light of day at City Council member. Nick Licata ended up effectively championing the "consent" legislation, finding each council representative very supportive. We especially thank these two public servants for their efforts.
This is a significant step in our goal to gain justice and peace for the deceased, who are forced in death to do the bidding of an unprincipled master. Our next step is for the King County Council to follow suit. The same arguments we used and the same research conducted by Seattle City Council should bring these King County representatives to the same conclusion. State legislator Mary Lou Dickerson (D - Seattle) attempted to present similar consent legislation a few years back, but it failed in committee. We are hoping she won't be ignored the second time around. Ultimately, this exhibit should be legally eliminated from our nation.
My own personal agenda is economic revenge. Premier Exhibitions is the poster child for capitalism's ugliest tendencies. This is just one more corporation that demonstrated no qualms about preying upon the most vulnerable, for profit. Since January, its stock price has fallen from $1.50 to $1.13 a share, and I hope either this company collapses or investors force it to sincerely apologize by word and deed. These more than 200 cadavers and body parts deserve to be properly buried with their gravesites vigilantly protected.
I thank Real Change for its support in our effort, but this issue is core to the organization's mission. It's a paper whose staff believe the powerless, the dispossessed and the voiceless deserve to be heard. If they are dead, their plight deserves recognition and then justice. Unlike so many losses and disappointments piled upon the disenfranchised and felt so deeply by sympathetic spirits, this is a small, sweet victory. The support of Real Change made this possible.