Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
CEN/@kartsevb
A Russian zoo has been slammed for including a photo of a black man in their ‘Sights of Africa’ display of wild animals.
The case took place at the Reka Zambezi (Zambezi River) zoo in the city of Kazan in the Republic of Tatarstan in south-western Russia and video of the offensive display has been posted online.
In the clip, a zoo visitor can be seen lifting wooden boards with photos of animals’ eyes printed on them to uncover images of wild animals below on a ‘Sight of Africa’ display.
The animals in the display include a giraffe, a snake, a parrot, a lion and the man then turns to the board in the bottom right of the display.
He lifts up the board to reveal a black man and a female voice can be heard laughing.
The clip was uploaded to social media and netizens were quick to complain and accuse the zoo of racism.
Netizen ‘Russkiy Chelovek’ (Russian Man) wrote: “I understand what the creator of this board intended to do – he wanted to show sights of Africa including the sight of a black man who is commonly known as a native resident of the continent.
“Yet the board creator must have forgotten that besides black people, let’s say Jewish and Arab people also live there, so why didn’t he put their eyes there too? It would be more tolerant in this case”.
The zoo has not commented on the incident yet and did not reply to Central European News’ requests for comment.
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