Afrocentrism 101
David
"smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:310820000825581908%thest...@hotmail.com...
> [previously posted on the net]
>
> Afrocentrism is a pseudohistorical political movement that erroneously
> claims that African-Americans should trace their roots back to ancient
> Egypt because it was peopled by black Africans. Some of Afrocentrism's
> other erroneous claims are:
Again, you are already certain that this is impossible despite the fact that
other Black African cultures have traces (slight and/or strong) of Egyptian
culture, clothing, language... To you Egyptian language, culture, could have
only gone north, northeast, northwest... it is impossible for you to
conceive that it went south, or southwest. Just like it is so certain in
your mind that any and all uncontested Black civilizations and citystates
were isolated within the continent, no matter how relatively powerful they
were. Mansa Musa never sailed across the atlantic, Chinese never traded on
the east coast and Africans never traded in Indonesia, India, and China.
Perhaps there was a magical reason. Oh I forgot, you all believe that they
never knew how to build ships!
the ancient Greeks stole their main cultural
> achievements from black Egyptians; Jesus, Socrates and Cleopatra, among
> others, were black;
No, the idea is that they had some african heritage, some! Of course there
are extremists who try to assert they were indistinugishably Negroid, but
you can go to any KKK website and hear all sorts of stories about the
Caucasian, Aryan egyptians. The "theft" issue is clearly ascribed to the
fact that Aristotle's pupil DID take as many original egyptian written
documents as he could and placed them all in the Library of Alexandria,
which subsuquently burned 500 years later.
> and Jews created the slave trade of black Africans.
This I am not familiar with. Perhaps you are overgeneralizing a movement and
placing ignorant fringe ideas into it and passing them off as mainstream
(within the movement). These are diffusionist and racist. I could use the
same arguement and say that "mixed" black people are not as "good" as darker
more african Black people. This is obviously rediculous, and I don't
subscribe to it...
>
> The main purpose of Afrocentrism is to encourage black nationalism and
> ethnic pride as a psychological weapon against the destructive and
> debilitating effects of universal racism.
I can agree to that, but I know as well as you do, that straying from the
truth is just as damaging if not moreso. Do you think I am over here
ignoring facts, and hoping that somehow you intelligent people over there
will overlook them? Of course not! If I were like that, I would have made
one of these rediculous claims and then silenty vanished from these
debates... on the contrary I have labored to verify my claims and to post
them on here.
Your use of the word "pseudo" invokes the idea of contempt, because you
consider the racist white perspectives of the past 250 years as
"historical", but never "pseudo"-historical. :) I can smile at that
"unbiased" perspective. Its like you are saying to a new student, "Oh just
ignore those Negroes over there, they don't know what they are talking
about. Anything they say that we don't already know and believe is gonna be
by definition false... you know how THEY are!"
>
> Some of Afrocentrism's leading proponents are Professor Molefi Kete
> Asante of Temple University; Professor Leonard Jeffries of City
> University of New York; and Martin Bernal, author of Black Athena.
>
> One of the more important Afrocentric texts is the pseudo-historical
> Stolen Legacy (1954) by George G. M. James. Mr. James claims, among
> other things, that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt; that the
> ancient Greeks did not have the native ability to develop philosophy;
> and that the Egyptians from whom the Greeks stole their philosophy were
> black Africans. Many of James' ideas were taken from Marcus Garvey
> (1887-1940), who thought that white accomplishment is due to teaching
> children they are superior. If blacks are to succeed, he said, they
> would have to teach their children that they are superior. James's
> pseudo-history is the basis for other Afrocentric pseudo-histories such
> as Africa, Mother of Western Civilization by Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannnan,
> one of James's students, and Civilization or Barbarism by Cheikh Anta
> Diop of Senegal.
>
All Black, all independant researchers, and by your own logic, all
inherently errorous, because you can't have both circumstances. Any facts
about history can only be verified and validated by Europeans. This is how
you work! LOL I guess if they rubberstamped their stuff from "established,
traditional" Egyptologists, they would be acceptable to you. Well guess
what, history is rewritten by those who are on top. I could imagine in 3000
years in the future a debate like this: "The African Americans weren't
Black africans... they said they were Black because the Europeans who
brought them there saw their tan and to them it looked like they were black
but they were really fairskinned, ruddy, mulattos! Look at the pictures of
Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Iman (a Black/white photo... we lost the
color photos of her), Hally Berry, W.E.B. DuBois! These people are the
common type of American Black during the first 500 years! They were a mix
of Native, African, and European, if they did have some vestige of african
traits, they were minor compared to the dominant European traits. Why are
you making such a fuss? It's the fifth millenium for goodness sake, we
should be past such immaturities!" Goodness, i am starting to laugh too hard
now!
> --
> :-)
Katherine Griffis
soc.culture.egyptian, wrote the following:
>[previously posted on the net]
>
>Afrocentrism is a pseudohistorical political movement that erroneously
>claims that African-Americans should trace their roots back to ancient
>Egypt because it was peopled by black Africans. Some of Afrocentrism's
>other erroneous claims are: the ancient Greeks stole their main cultural
>achievements from black Egyptians; Jesus, Socrates and Cleopatra, among
>others, were black; and Jews created the slave trade of black Africans.
>
>The main purpose of Afrocentrism is to encourage black nationalism and
>ethnic pride as a psychological weapon against the destructive and
>debilitating effects of universal racism.
>
>Some of Afrocentrism's leading proponents are Professor Molefi Kete
>Asante of Temple University; Professor Leonard Jeffries of City
>University of New York; and Martin Bernal, author of Black Athena.
>
>One of the more important Afrocentric texts is the pseudo-historical
>Stolen Legacy (1954) by George G. M. James. Mr. James claims, among
>other things, that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt; that the
>ancient Greeks did not have the native ability to develop philosophy;
>and that the Egyptians from whom the Greeks stole their philosophy were
>black Africans. Many of James' ideas were taken from Marcus Garvey
>(1887-1940), who thought that white accomplishment is due to teaching
>children they are superior. If blacks are to succeed, he said, they
>would have to teach their children that they are superior. James's
>pseudo-history is the basis for other Afrocentric pseudo-histories such
>as Africa, Mother of Western Civilization by Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannnan,
>one of James's students, and Civilization or Barbarism by Cheikh Anta
>Diop of Senegal.
In addtiion, one shoudl also consider this specific goal of Afrocentrism
as well:
"... As an epistemological consideration, the Afrocentric discourse
attempts to shift, construct, critique, and challenge the way of knowing
or discerning knowledge from an epistemology engendered within a
European cultural construct to one which is engendered or "centered"
within an African or probably more correctly an African American
cultural construct...
The Afrocentrist seizes knowledge of this place perspective as
fundamental role of intellectual inquiry because it's content is a self
conscious obliteration of the subject/object duality and the
enthronement of an African holism (Asante 1990:5).
Much like phenomenalogy [sic], or the post-modernists'emphasis on
multiple voices, Afrocentric scholars seek to, admittedly, construct a
philosophy and epistemology centered within our cultural reality."
"Afrocentric Racism" Lee Baker (Temple University)
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/Afrocentric_Racism_16168.html
(current as of Aug 31, 2000)
Regards --
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Member, American Research Center in Egypt
International Association of Egyptologists
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.griffis-consulting.com
Reading mail from me in a Usenet group does not
grant you the right to send me unsolicited commercial e-mail.
All senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail will be
reported to their postmasters as Usenet abusers.
David
as "afro-centric" and define my perspective based on these quotable examples
below. I feel that my aspect of "afrocentricism" which I obviously see
differently than what you propose to the newsgroup, is simply this:
"To recenter the perspective of history and current perspectives towards a
perspective of people of African descent. To make observations and
conclusions from this perspective, and to seek validation and verification
from those of this perspective."
This does not include distortions of the truth, exaggerations of facts, or
selectivity in references. It merely states that the ideology that European
scholars are by default going to be unbiased, while showing an Egypt devoid
of B/A/N (black african negroid) composition is false because it starts off
with the assumption. Egypt when viewed from Egyptologists in Europe began as
a place impossibly empty of a BAN compliment. Akhenaten had a disease, the
pyramids were built by outsiders, curly hair represented in Egyptian murals
is just a stylistic artistic license and other rediculous claims. We NEED
some level of African/Black perspective in Egyptology because it is simply
false to subscribe to such wild claims. Because many of you do subscribe to
these claims and flinch when they are shattered. Trust me, when I started
out in this, I was definitely on the eurocentric side. But as time went on
and on, I noticed something, surreptitiousness in representation of the
Egyptians seemed to come from the Euro side. Like the Greco-Roman periods
were blended often when I discussed the Ancient Egyptians... whose rulers
are of a different time and society than the Greco-Egyptians. Selectivity
in representing the ancient egyptians, especially when showing some Italian
guy dressed up as an Egyptian and saying that he was the "typical" egyptian.
Right now, you can all surf the web, do some searches...
How long can you all (as a collective experience not as individuals) say
that Eurocentricm has been dead in scholarship? 30 years? 50 years? You
are all doing it today! Nowhere can I say that any of you have listened to
an African or African Oriented person add his take on history, or his
contribution...(definitely not take him seriously). If he does not repeat
what you already "know" then you automatically throw his ideas out the
window, even if they are more logical, occam razor, and consistent. You will
conjure up new variables (which are not validated) to explain why you are
still right... To you its simple Equatorial Africa was isolated from the
rest of the world. The only ones who WERE outside of Eq. Africa in antiquity
were slaves. Egyptian culture did not ever go south, southwest. It could
only go north, north west or north east. These claims which you all DO
imply, strongly NEED to be validated. And like one of you told me, ignoring
facts to the contrary will not work!
"smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:310820001048122824%thest...@hotmail.com...
> In article <2hrsqso08srujbltf...@4ax.com>, Katherine Griffis
<k.gr...@griffis-consulting.com> wrote:
>
> > "Afrocentric Racism" Lee Baker (Temple University)
> >
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/Afrocentric_Racism_16168.html
> > (current as of Aug 31, 2000)
>
>
> Here it is:
>
> Afrocentric Racism
>
> From: IN%"AFRI...@BRUFPB.BitNet" "FORUM PAN-AFRICA" 23-APR-1991
> Subject: More on Afrocentricity *** Here is the best discussion yet of
> the Afrocentric ssue which has been appearing on Anthro-l **** From:
> BITNET%"V13...@TEMPLEVM.BITNET" "Lee D. Baker" 23-APR-1991 Subj: Re:
> Afrocentric Racism
>
> As an Afrocentric scholar and a cultural anthropologist I have been
> following this trivial discussion on Afrocentricity with amused
> contempt. To begin with, Afrocentricity is not about claiming African
> origins of ancient civilization. One must understand Afrocentricity as
> an empowering counter hegemonic philosophy, which questions
> epistemological considerations which are based in European cultural
> realities (the whole notion of objectivity or cultural neutrality is
> moot in this argument because the episteme is based on a western
> positivistic tradition). As an epistemological consideration, the
> Afrocentric discourse attempts to shift, construct, critique, and
> challenge the way of knowing or discerning knowledge from an
> epistemology engendered within a European cultural construct to one
> which is engendered or "centered" within an African or probably more
> correctly an African American cultural construct. Although the metaphors
> here of European and African are very much contested, however one can
> argue that there are hegemonic scholarly epistemologies born from a
> racist, bourgeois, and sexist ideology which in turn "scientifically" or
> "rhetorically" construct, justify, and perpetuate the exploitative
> articulation of race, class, and gender throughout the world.
> Anthropology historically and one can argue currently is an intimate
> part of this process.
>
> The Afrocentrist seizes knowledge of this place perspective as
> fundamental role of intellectual inquiry because it's content is a self
> conscious obliteration of the subject/object duality and the
> enthronement of an African holism (Asante 1990:5).
>
> Much like phenomenalogy, or the post-modernists'emphasis on multiple
> voices, Afrocentric scholars seek to, admittedly, construct a philosophy
> and epistemology centered within our cultural reality. I study with
> Molefe Asante at Temple University who is the foremost scholar on
> Afrocentricity. I must inform the Anthro_L list that Ivan van Sertima is
> not dominating the Afrocentric discourse, actualy he is somewhat on the
> periphery. In Asante's 1990 book Sertima was not listed in the index,
> and I do not recall Asante ever using any of Sertima's work in this
> book. If anyone is interested here are some references for both work on
> Afrocentricity and African origins of civilization.
>
> Asante, Molefe Kete 1988 Afrocentricity. Trenton: African World Press.
>
> 1989 The Afrocentric Idea. Trenton: The African World Press.
>
> 1990 Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton: The African World
> Press.
>
> Bernal, Martin 1986 Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of Civilization.
> London: Free Association Books.
>
> Diop, Cheikh Anta 1974 African Origins of Civilization. New York: L.
> Hill.
>
> In response to the one person who referred to Afrocentricity as a kind
> of racism, this naive idea of racism needs to be addressed. Implicit in
> any form of racism is power(individually or collectively)to exercise
> racism-- van Sertevan is clearly ethnocentric, but racist? I don't think
> so.
>
> The discussion regarding the fact that issues and debates regarding race
> in anthropology and other social sciences have subsided over the last
> twenty years are salient but no one has discussed the concept of race as
> a socially constructed reality, and what has been substituted for the
> old racial categories. I have argued that since the social sciences
> have, seemingly, debunked reductionist notions of race, many
> anthropologists have all but eliminated "race" from their vocabulary.
> However, ethnicity and ethnocentricsm have become the new words for
> explaining strategies invoked to integrate the geographic and the
> historic specificity of power relations. Similarly,
>
> Ethnic groups are typically imagined as if they were natural, real,
> eternal, stable, and static units. They seem to be always already in
> existence. As a subject of study, each group yield an essential
> continuum of certain myths and traits (Sollors 1989:xiv).
>
> It is important to be cognizant of these simplified notions of both race
> and ethnicity. Racial inequality can not be neglected, nor reduced to
> the interpretations of texts, when every index of the quality of life
> place African Americans at or near the bottom. The list of indices of
> racial oppression could fill pages and pages, but many social scientist
> do not want to deal with race as a socially constructed reality which
> permeates all sectors of our society. The reality of the social
> construction of race within our society needs to be understood more
> clearly.
>
> Oftentimes, students and teachers alike blur race, ethnicity, heritage,
> nationality, and culture into one ethnic portrait of "the other" glued
> on to a multi-cultural collage without consideration of the specific
> structural, historical, and geographical power relations that play such
> an integral role in their formation.
>
> Race must be viewed dialecticaly or as the socially constructed reality,
> dynamically worked out through a history of contradictions. One can
> glean tremendous and exceedingly relevant insight into the social
> construction of race at the end of the twentieth century by reviewing
> some of W.E.B. DuBois' early concepts of race at the beginning of the
> twentieth century. By doing so we can begin to understand the reality of
> race-- dialecticaly; plus, we can appreciate W.E.B. DuBois exceedingly
> novel approach to race, at a time when pseudo-scientific racism was
> being promoted and perpetuated throughout the society;
>
> William E. B. DuBois provides one of the most poignant descriptions of
> race, and provides an entre into looking at the construction of race as
> synthesis of contradictions born from social relations. DuBois often
> referred to "the concept of race." However, DuBois was not even
> satisfied with describing race as a concept and he remarked, "Perhaps it
> is wrong to speak of it [race] at all as 'a concept' rather than as a
> group of contradictory forces, facts and tendencies (DuBois 1986:651).
>
> I have listed a couple of recent works which deal with race and
> ethnicity in a fairly sophisticated way, plus one of DuBois' classic
> pieces which deals the changes of the concept of race in relation to the
> history of the United States.
>
> DuBois, William E.B. 1986 Dusk of Dawn an Autobiography of a Race
> Concept. In DuBois Writings. N. Huggins, ed. pp. 358-547. New York: The
> Library of America [1943].
>
> Goldberg, David Theo 1990 Anatomy of Racism. Minneapolis: University of
> Minnesota.
>
> Sollors, Werner 1989 The Invention of Ethnicity. Oxford: The Oxford
> University Press.
>
> I realize that this is a lengthy comment for this list, however I felt
> that an Afrocentric perspective was needed in this discussion.
>
> Lee D. Baker Dept. of Anthropology Temple University.
>
> --
> :-)
David
people here who are not a part of the experience telling the rest of us what
it means. I am being called an afro-centricist even though many of the
criteria that they said is a part of afro-centricim I do not subscribe to.
Would it be said that the "established" viewpoints are considered biased?
Thats where I am at. I look at the "dominant" viewpoints of Egypt, and I ask
myself, how I can trust the validity of these points when in fact many of
them were made by people who also believed that Blacks were incapable of
(impossibilities) creating a civilization like Egypt. From then on, it was
natural for them to explain anything possible because to them the Negroid
Egyptians didn't exist so SOMETHING had to explain the dark skin, curly
hair, the word Kemet, the Nubian people, etc.
I have noticed that since the start of my presence here, all the people who
insist on a Berber, Semetic, Asiatic egypt have shown me nothing, no
references, no pictures, no websites, only a few references which are simply
empty repetitions. The burden of proof towards saying that The Egyptians
were by and far not BAN lies on those who make this claim, because all of
the foundation is on the "afrocentric" side... the more accurate side
1. Default humans started out dark skinned african. We can all agree to
this, any fairskinned or ruddy people would have dark
skinned african ancestors. It would take another 100,000 years to go
from dark to light and dark again. The Sahara desert (arid zone) was not as
great, and was actually concentrated further north (but the southern Sahara
savannah was still very warm, just not arid)... Thus the "bantu" peopling
of the area to the border of the desert was in fact further north than it is
now. There have been settlements found in the sands of Sahara...Without any
bias one can say that bantu people could have traveled up to the Medit coast
of Africa just as well as "berber" looking people could have traveled south
or east or west. There is no initial reason to believe otherwise unless you
believe in magic or some sort of racial inferiority... or unless there is
lack of evidence. And there are definite archaeological remains of Bantu BAN
people on the Medit coast of Africa.
2. Tanning can only go so far for people who are fairskinned. Lybians lived
in the same hot arid region and they still remained
fairskinned. Semeitics and Asiatics also... They may have been tanned
but first off, living in a sunny region is natural and the "tan" isn't an
artificial addition to a naturally pale body. It is a natural part of life.
ITs like saying people are naturally skinny and when they eat they become
fat or muscular... so big people are just big because of the sun. BAN people
are dark (in comparison to fairskinned people) with or without a tan, but
recognize that their complexion varies probably at the same range depending
on how much sun they get! Its just that Europeans aren't aware of paying
attention to those differences. For a european to be dark would be
significant, but for a Bantu African to be significantly lighter than
average would still make him "Black" to a European. This particular point
flies right against the face of "dark skinned white people were what
Herodotus meant by Black" arguement. The elaboratness of denials like these
is simply speaking for itself; denial ain't a river in Egypt!
3. The natural regional areas of Egypt are smoothly continious towards
Nubia and Ethiopia. I don't see any impassible mountains, any seas or large
lakes, I don't see a chasm seperating Nubia from Egypt. One person told me
that the Nile is impossible to travel southward after a certain point, but i
replied that it is very easy to go northward... just sit back and let the
water carry you (if the wind is right). One can also travel across the red
sea... i mean there are a variety of ways.
4. There is absolutely NO indication of Egyptians cutting themselves off
from Africa. There were many expeditions to Penewet (Ethiopia/Somalia and
notice the -et at the end which means land by the way!) The Kemu and Penewu
were known to be very friendly to each other. So even if Egypt had problems
with the Black Nubians, that didn't automatically mean they could not
differentiate between one black group and another... Nubians, Penewu, Kerma,
and others were distinct from each other. Egypt didn't just lump them into
one category and then seperate themselves of them.
All four of these points are made without ANY political, afrocentric, or
bias. It is simply facts as best as can be determined with logic and
consistency. These four points do not prove that Egyptians were
indistinugishably Black, but it does take the power away from assuming with
confidence that the Egyptians were indistinguishably Semetic or Berber
without any EVIDENCE.
From these four fundamental points one has to now input data, references,
sources that show contrary events... an isolated caucasian group in the
middle of africa whose bones and remains show their caucasian appearance, a
people who were tanned, yet maintained their asiatic composition. A
significant cutting off from Equatorial Africa by egypt, by showing some
writings or reliefs and why this would be the case. References that show
that Egyptians placed Nubians and other NAM peoples as distinct
foreigners... Sesostris tomb shows contrary... and he was a patron diety of
Nubia.
red...@my-deja.com
Afrocentrism is 400 years late. Racism, or Eurocentrisim, came out of
Western Europe as a smoke screen to hide the humble begining of Western
European, and also to claim the Romans and the Creeks as their own
civilization.
However, The Greeks and the Romans, at the hieght of their dominance,
saw western European as a bunch of "uncivilized barbarian savages"
(their words not mine).
Eurocentrism also tried to downplay the influence of Egypt and
the near east on the Greeks and the Romans because these countries
were "lost to Islam" and became enemies or rivals. Europe was unified
under Charlamane (sp?) and became a "Christiandom," with a powerful
Roman Catholic pope. The Crusades campaign of course shows the extent
of that, and that is why there is a strong conection between Christian
Symbolsim (in the form of burnning crosses) and racism, because it was
part of the evolving identity of western Europe.
But the problem with Afrocentirsm now is that those same Europeans, at
least the educated and the librals of them, are the ones who acknowldge
that and have no problem admitting it, which makes Afrocentrism looks
so stupid and outdated.
The biggest blunder of Afrocentrists of course is trying to claim
anceint Egypt on the premises that Egypt is in Africa. That is too
simplistic of course because there are black Africa and non-black
Africa, and the majority of Black Africans south of the Sahara belong
to Cameroonian tribes.
The ancient Egyptians, whether upper or lower, don't identify with
African blacks. THey certainly expanded their territory and mingeled
with African blacks, but that doesn't qualify Ancient Egypt as an
African Black civilization like the ones found in Nigeria and Western
Africa. And even east Africa and Ethiopia have mingled with Yemenies
Arabs from prehistoric times, and perhaps with Egyptians also.
Of course Nubia could not be ignored, but the whole thing is stupid
because the Afrocentrists have taken the bait of the Euro racists and
are playing with the same rules that they have set for them. The sad
side of trying to claim ancient Egypt is that it shows that the
Afrocentrists have searched all Black Africa but found no worthy
civilization (which is not true), so they decided to claim a non-black
African civilization such as Egypt. They foolishly try to claim it in
vain so they can go back to the whitie racist and say: See, we had an
impressive civilization in the past!
I can understand the need to search for ones own identity but to do so
on the basis of race only, and with such great blunder, is counter
productive and stupid.
In article <lxur5.13536$_e4.5...@typhoon.mw.mediaone.net>,
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
MuadDib
>
> However, The Greeks and the Romans, at the hieght of their dominance,
> saw western European as a bunch of "uncivilized barbarian savages"
> (their words not mine).
>
Sort of the way the rest of the world sees sub-Saharan Africa today. One
group "civilized," - the other didn't.
Neville Lindsay
<red...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8ool5t$soo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
This is just beautiful - condemning Euro-racists, and using similarly
blatant Egypto-racist arguments to defend Egypt from a Black-racist
takeover.
Bouquets for making your racist position abundantly clear and brickbats for
using such obviously hypocritical arguments.
NL
unutte...@my-deja.com
>
>Afrocentrism is 400 years late. Racism, or Eurocentrisim, came out of
>Western Europe as a smoke screen to hide the humble begining of Western
>European, and also to claim the Romans and the Creeks as their own
>civilization.
**Afrocentrism has been around since the beginning of time - the ancient
Egyptians worshipped Black Gods, so they depicted. This too was a form
of Afrocentrism from a spiritual sense that Europeans don't quite
understand. But surely you've seen the Black Gods...if not, I can supply
you with the names.
It is Eurocentrism that is late. Racism is a European/Anglo-Saxon
invention (sic) - making its ugly way into civilization...
>However, The Greeks and the Romans, at the hieght of their dominance,
>saw western European as a bunch of "uncivilized barbarian savages"
(their words not mine).
**
**Really? Hmmm...
<snip>
>But the problem with Afrocentirsm now is that those same Europeans, at
>least the educated and the librals of them, are the ones who acknowldge
>that and have no problem admitting it, which makes Afrocentrism looks
>so stupid and outdated.
**
**What looks stupid and outdated are Europeans who cry "Afrocentrism"
every-time an opinion comes from a person with an African perspective.
Instead of looking at the assertions as an opinion coming from another
Human-being - INSTEAD - deals with this person as what you all like to
LABEL as "Afrocentrist," which is really our way of thinking. Racists,
BTW, believe the only way is the Eurocentric/Eurocentrism way and see no
problem with it IRREGARDLESS of the fact the world is filled a majority
of people with color, and the evidence surrounding these issues don't
match-up. So, keep using these labels as an excuse not to face the
issues and 'shame on you...'
Another problem I see with Eurocentrism is the fact that it/they try to
dictate history that does not belong to them! Europe is Europe and
Eurocentrism is the arrogant baby in the scheme of things...
>The biggest blunder of Afrocentrists of course is trying to claim
>anceint Egypt on the premises that Egypt is in Africa. That is too
>simplistic of course because there are black Africa and non-black
>Africa, and the majority of Black Africans south of the Sahara belong
>to Cameroonian tribes.
**
**MIGRATIONS. The mixing of color/people usually occur when this
happens. Why must Europeans NOT UNDERSTAND THIS when it comes to Africa?
Not only that, but when the argument over the ancient Egyptians and
their traditional braided hairstyle, the Eurocentricks have claimed all
these people depicted wearing braids all have wigs. Now if that type of
garbage isn't something an African person wouldn't find insulting, yet
you claim it to be so? That is Eurocentricks! The color? They depicted
themselves as having brown, black, and often red color for themselves
and the Eurocentricks have claimed they were "sun-tanned." This makes me
gnash my teeth when in fact these people they call the ancient Egyptians
were Africans - no matter how you wanna see them! But no, the
Eurocentricks simply call them "Egyptians" and leave all other terms
alone (quiet).
>The ancient Egyptians, whether upper or lower, don't identify with
>African blacks. THey certainly expanded their territory and mingeled
>with African blacks, but that doesn't qualify Ancient Egypt as an
>African Black civilization like the ones found in Nigeria and Western
>Africa. And even east Africa and Ethiopia have mingled with Yemenies
>Arabs from prehistoric times, and perhaps with Egyptians also.
**
**Then you claim that ancient Egyptians didn't identify with African
blacks. How in the world would you know that for sure? I see no
citations or references of any sort which seems to be common when things
like this get spewed from Europeans, as if we should just take your word
for it!
For me to argue this point with you is a waste of time. Understand, the
only reason I sit here and argue their color and so forth is simply
because Europeans/White Americans TO-DAY still depict ancient Egyptians
in books, t.v. magazine, etc. as looking like them, or close to it.
<snip>
>The sad side of trying to claim ancient Egypt is that it shows that the
>Afrocentrists have searched all Black Africa but found no worthy
>civilization (which is not true), so they decided to claim a non-black
>African civilization such as Egypt. They foolishly try to claim it in
>vain so they can go back to the whitie racist and say: See, we had an
>impressive civilization in the past!
**
**Our position, with all due respect - HAS NEVER BEEN to show "whitie"
that we had an impressive civilization in the past - as you so
conveniently and mistakenly put it. Most of us want to know the truth of
the matter. The problem is, Eurocentrism as long as it has gotten away
with telling lies and covering up the truth - are now finding themselves
being challenged and can't take the heat! I find this rather amusing.
There are other African civilizations in Africa that we could choose
from, but that includes the North East African civilization called the
Ancient [Egypt]ians and what should the Europeans have to say about it?
That is a major problem with Eurocentrism and Eurocentrists, trying to
control / rewrite other peoples histories...
>I can understand the need to search for ones own identity but to do so
>on the basis of race only, and with such great blunder, is counter
>productive and stupid.
**
**I can see that you believe that that's all other people do but you're
also sadly mistaken on this, too. A reason why many Black people use
race as a measure is because its been shoved down our throats all our
lives, it's a starting point. But its hardly anything wrong since
Europeans have been doing this for all your lives also. Don't start
crying now because we are now doing what you have done all along.
This is just beautiful - condemning Euro-racists, and using similarly
blatant Egypto-racist arguments to defend Egypt from a Black-racist
takeover. Bouquets for making your racist position abundantly clear and
brickbats for using such obviously hypocritical arguments.
NL
**
**Too many freaks, not enough circuses...
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
Byker
<unutte...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8oq30u$hie$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> For me to argue this point with you is a waste of time. Understand, the
> only reason I sit here and argue their color and so forth is simply
> because Europeans/White Americans TO-DAY still depict ancient Egyptians
> in books, t.v. magazine, etc. as looking like them, or close to it.
And the only reason you're here arguing color is because you're just as
racist as Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan and cannot accept the fact that
past black African "civilizations" can't hold a candle to those on other
continents, period.
Shadly
We are all human beings, and we all have the same abilities and frailties
more or less. Some of us have adapted to our environments differently than
others, that is all.
I get the impression sometimes that Afro-Americans feel that there is still
some payback due for the slavery thing.
I am a white American of European Lineage. My ancestors may or may not have
owned slaves I do not know, but I do not feel any responsibility to Black
people for this, after all, my ancesters also gave their lives during the
civil war in order to free slaves. Besides, I see it as their own faults
that they became slaves. They obviously did not fight for their freedom, or
they would never have become slaves. (I would willingly fight to the death
to ensure freedom for future generations)
If people were willing to stand up for themselves then slavery would never
have happened. Instead my ancestors had to make a stand for them.
Give up on the racist crap already, it sucks.
Kaiju
"Shadly" woke up long enough to scribble:
>
> Why all of this Racial stuff? It is tired.
<yadayadayada same ol' self-interested, self-indulgent, tired crap>
> If people were willing to stand up for themselves then slavery would never
> have happened. Instead my ancestors had to make a stand for them.
>
> Give up on the racist crap already, it sucks.
Why? Is the fact that racism still exists and there are people willing
to discuss its ramifications on today's personally burdensome to you?
Heaven forbid you are disrupted when you are indulging in a bit of
typically shallow, revisionist, rather ignorant, racist rhetoric, eh?
Tsk. Go back to sleep, little boy. Come back when you've matured a
bit.
Kaiju
--
Context is everything...
nemo me impune lacessit
G Horvat
> "Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote:
> ><unutte...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > For me to argue this point with you is a waste of time. Understand,
> > the only reason I sit here and argue their color and so forth is
> > simply because Europeans/White Americans TO-DAY still depict ancient
> > Egyptians in books, t.v. magazine, etc. as looking like them, or
> > close to it.
>
> And the only reason you're here arguing color is because you're just
> as racist as Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan and cannot accept the fact
> that past black African "civilizations" can't hold a candle to those
> on other continents, period.
Since the dawn of time, 'greatness' has merely moved around the globe
from place to place (or race to race). One civilization *was* great,
another *is* great, and yet another *will be* great. There is no room
for racial pride in such a scenario.
Gisele
osi...@my-deja.com
world view is being combined with a "pity" for
the Afrocentricist view. It won't work.
Unutterable, has shown again, the obvious fallacy
of Eurocentricism, and despite the fact that many
times in the past I have made the SAME points,
you eurocentricists try and try to slither around
weasel around the overwhelming facts. Even now
you try to attack the foundation of
Afrocentricism by the same old trick
of "redefining it" based on your limited
understanding of it. Just like you try to attack
the foundation of Ancient Egyptian orientation
by "redefining" Black, African, Kemet, Negroid,
etc. You try to box in those definitions of
Cameroun tribes, while trying to make "semetics"
go as far south as Nubia. IT WON'T WORK. Even if
you try to articulate it in such a condescending
and calm manner, you cannot call Egyptians "Not
Black" anymore than you can call modern Black
Americans non Black, or Ethiopians non Black, or
Camerounian Tribes non Black. WE ARE JUST AS
VARIED IN PHENOTYPE AS YOU!
Quit lying about it. The Egyptians were "Black"
in the sense if you took each one from ancient
history and placed him in South Africa, USA,
Brazil, or anywhere else (without trying to make
a under the table reference to his ancient
egyptian culture) , they would be a BLACK MAN!
Culturally I can see what eurocentricists could
not, the outstanding music, which you euros
interpret as this dull, dreary EUROPEAN sounding
music, the dancing, which you have never had the
ability to even conceive, the society, which you
try to take as non black because it was
civilized... This last one is a direct response
to what the man said earlier about Us not finding
a worthy civilization. Whenever we DO find our
civilizations, all you EUros say is "That isn't
yours because it was too civilized to be!" LOL
Come on, the truth can't be whitened up, even
though we know that some of you literally have
tried to....
Yes, I suspsect of how some of you "unbiased
peers" have repainted some of the murals with a
lighter shade... and all of those noses weren't
broken off during antiquity. but THAT is another
discussion. I will let you all cynically deny
this... heck I won't even respond, because unlike
you people, I dont ASSUME things and try to prove
them without having the evidence first.
EUROS - In order to kill afrocentricism, and to
make the Egypt discussion closed once and for
all, YOu have to prove the the first Egyptians
were not from deeper within Africa, and that
their language wasn't already established WITHIN
Africa. YOu cannot just say that "BEing on the
same continent does not mean they were Black
African groups," because the scales in this
debate are already heavily balanced against
that "pseudo-belief". YOu have to explain how
people who are proven to originate from
Uganda/Chad and further south in Sudan, could NOT
be as Black as any other group...
No Afro-ASiatic, no Semetic, no Mediterranean.
Because NONE of these influences EXISTED in a
region that is obviously overwhelmingly
AFRICAN!!!!
Unutterable, THANK you. I haven't had the
opportunity to respond to everyone because I am
too busy. Especially that sniveling brat who
accused us of "stealing everything from Egypt to
Jesus". How can we steal something that was
already ours. Oh let me guess, you euors stole it
first...
In article <8oq30u$hie$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
osi...@my-deja.com
weren't Black!". What a cop out! Your side tried to say that the Benin
people didn't make their sculptures, that the Great Zimbabwe people
weren't Black, You try to bring the "Arab line" in the sahara so LOW on
the map, that it has no end! You can raise the line, and lower it
whenever you feel the need to take away a Black African accomplishment.
You even try to make the Ethiopians a "barely Black" people! All you
think you need to do is to make Black as dark and as limited as can be
in antiquity, then you can divide and share all of the remaining "not
so Black" peoples... Well that isn't working.
You can't accept the fact that no European civilization came around
until at least 500 years after Egypt fell! NONE. And Rome&Greece lasted
for about 700 years. not 3500 years. They were the last of the "great
civilizations" and even they looked at the Ancient Egyptians as Black.
The pity you have is misguided...
> And the only reason you're here arguing color is because you're just
as
> racist as Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan and cannot accept the fact
that
> past black African "civilizations" can't hold a candle to those on
other
> continents, period.
>
>
Neville Lindsay
> And you weasel out of accepting the fact by just saying "Oh they
> weren't Black!".
Afro-centrists, by continually claiming Egypt as being 'black' show how
short they are of worthwhile achievements, having to hijack a non-black
people to provide something of world cultural class. If there is really
something of substance, why not trumpet that rather than this endlessly
recurring attempt to steal the Egyptian heritage?
NL
red...@my-deja.com
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> This is just beautiful - condemning Euro-racists, and using similarly
> blatant Egypto-racist arguments to defend Egypt from a Black-racist
> takeover.
> Bouquets for making your racist position abundantly clear and
brickbats for
> using such obviously hypocritical arguments.
>
> NL
Oh, so I have to appologize now because I am protective of Egypt?
Screw you brother.
I think this race thing began when remarks were made about how _Aryan_
the Bust of Nefertiti is. Let me see...it wasn't the Afrocentrists as I
recall..it was the...gee I can't remember.
Took your words to heart, but I stick to what I wrote.
Wayne Johnson
white pussy then you small motha fuckin white dick boyz yo steal our
heritage and keep us down
Alex
And besides, that would be Charlemagne.
Alex
red...@my-deja.com heeft geschreven in bericht <8ool5t$soo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
unutte...@my-deja.com
osi...@my-deja.com wrote:
**
**Osirica, thank you also for your response, it was great! I'm afraid
your suggestion for the Eurocentricks to be able to kill Afrocentrism
[once and for all] - will not be met. They can barely talk a good talk
without looking ridiculously stupid when it comes to Africa and
its people whether its the ancient Egyptians or any other African. What
gets me is how they arrogantly (think) they know more about Africans
than they know even about themselves! Dumb.
I'd offer DNA testing for melanin content and other definite factors to
help identify and settle the question of ethnicity - once and for all.
Maybe then HOLLYWOOD and <its> racist producers/directors/writers of
films portraying ancient Egyptians and Nubians will use its African
population for its actors/actresses = Kings & Queens and to portray its
indigenous population. Eurocentricks need to get it right and stop with
the lies...
Take "Remember The Time" by Michael Jackson as an example of a fine
portrayal of ancient Egyptians...
Anyway, thanks again for help clearing the smoke...
smiley
[afrocentric junk deleted]
We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
The fact remains that:
EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
--
:-)
unutte...@my-deja.com
smelly <thest...@hotmail.com> cried like a baby:
**
**Stinky is right:
EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
Ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, were and always have been
Africans.
Stinky, I know you believe its all "Afrocentric Horseshit"...but ya
can't change the facts. The fact that Ancient Egyptians were Africans,
well, you can't change that.
You and your Eurosintricks have tried...and failed tremendously.
The fact that you stink, well, you can't change that either...
:-)
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
P.S. I've never taken you seriously stinky, so you know I won't be
answering to your crap again. Have fun stinky...
smiley
[afrocentric junk deleted]
We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
The fact remains that:
EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
Whether you like or NOT!!
--
:-)
smiley
[afrocentric junk deleted]
We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
The fact remains that:
EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
Whether you like it or NOT!!
--
:-)
Neville Lindsay
Cunning Unutterable always starts this line 'Egyptians are Africans'.
Well .... I suppose if you look at an atlas, Egypt is in the continent of
Africa, so I suppose they are Africans in the geographic sense.
'See', he jumps in, 'they are BLACK'.
If you object, he then says 'prove they aren't'.
If you object further, then comes the abuse. A would-be schoolyard bully,
who tries to stand over, and when this fails, gets the sulks, then pops up
again in a couple of weeks with the same line. Never answers the challenge
of forgetting trying to hijack the non-black Egyptian high-civilisation and
talk about a genuine black one of world standard. Silence, and waiting for
another opportunity to get back into the tired old piracy act again.
NL
Osiris
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> "smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:100920001837130919%thest...@hotmail.com...
> > Amenophixsssssssssssssss claims more AFROCENTRIC HORSESHIT:
> > [afrocentric junk deleted]
> >
> > We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
> >
> > The fact remains that:
> >
> > EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
> >
> > Whether you like it or NOT!!
> >
> > --
> > :-)
>
> Cunning Unutterable always starts this line 'Egyptians are Africans'.
> Well .... I suppose if you look at an atlas, Egypt is in the
continent of
> Africa, so I suppose they are Africans in the geographic sense.
Egypt was African in every sense of the word, not *only* in the puerile
geographic sense that you imply. Those who would like to claim that
Egypt was an African civilization are, IMHO, quite justified in doing
so for the following reasons:
1. Biologically, Egyptians were, for the most part, descendant from
indigineous Africans. Many of them you would call "black" but
certainly not *all*.
2. Geographically, Egypt was a corridor to the rest of the African
continent and, as such, influenced and was influenced by other Africans
both to the west and south more so than by *outsiders*.
3. Egyptians were linguistically African in that their language
originated and developed in Africa. It originated some point *south*
of Egypt and was brought into Egypt by other Africans who also,
evidently, brought along their culture and genes.
4. Egyptians shared a common cultural complex with the rest of Africa
which I elaborated on in the following post:
http://x68.deja.com/threadmsg_md.xp?
AN=667689413&CONTEXT=968655896.592773166&thitnum=8
> 'See', he jumps in, 'they are BLACK'.
> If you object, he then says 'prove they aren't'.
According to his definition of "black" they certainly would be. I
personally don't agree with his use of the term "black" to describe
*all* Egyptians throughout *all* of their history as such (if in fact
that is his position). However, you exploit the inaccuracy of the term
just as much as he does.
> If you object further, then comes the abuse. A would-be schoolyard
bully,
> who tries to stand over, and when this fails, gets the sulks, then
pops up
> again in a couple of weeks with the same line. Never answers the
challenge
> of forgetting trying to hijack the non-black Egyptian high-
civilisation and
> talk about a genuine black one of world standard. Silence, and
waiting for
> another opportunity to get back into the tired old piracy act again.
There were plenty of African empires of "world standard", as you say,
and you've been shown these repeatedly. Egypt was just another one of
those African civilizations and your claims of "blacks" stealing
or "hijacking" its heritage are groundless.
> NL
smiley
[...]
> and your claims of "blacks" stealing
> or "hijacking" its heritage are groundless.
I beg to differ!
--
:-)
unutte...@my-deja.com
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> "smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:100920001837130919%thest...@hotmail.com...
> > Amenophixsssssssssssssss claims more AFROCENTRIC HORSESHIT:
> > [afrocentric junk deleted]
> >
> > We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
> >
> > The fact remains that:
> >
> > EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
> >
> > Whether you like it or NOT!!
> >
> > --
> > :-)
**
**Euro-sintricks, by continually claiming Egypt as being everything
except Black shows how shortsighted and ignorant the asserter not
capable of acknowledging African achievements. Eurocentrics have tried
to hijack (theft) a Black African people's history by taking African
people COMPLETELY OUT OF THE STORY - the oldest people on the planet
Earth. The First and original people..
Does this not strike anyone as ludicrous?
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
Neville babbles (without one iota of proof to back-up his statements):
>Cunning Unutterable always starts this line 'Egyptians are Africans'.
>Well....I suppose if you look at an atlas, Egypt is in the continent of
>Africa, so I suppose they are Africans in the geographic sense.
**
**After looking at a map and only "supposing" Egypt is on the continent
of Africa tells me you're not too smart. I would only look bad to
continue arguing with your ignorant ass, despite the fact that your
inane statements are too stupid.
>'See', he jumps in, 'they are BLACK'.
>If you object, he then says 'prove they aren't'.
>If you object further, then comes the abuse.
**
**You Eurocentricks would love for me to be abusive so you can run and
tell and try and get me kicked off, perhaps? I don't need to be abusive,
I only need to tell the truth and use the evidence I have to get people
like you to look and sound stupid. You're doing a great job...
A would-be schoolyard bully,
>who tries to stand over,and when this fails,gets the sulks,then pops up
>again in a couple of weeks with the same line.
**
**Unlike you and that [smelly - thestinki...@hotmail.com]...I have
a life outside of this NG. If you don't see me here in a while...there's
good reasons. But hardly any of your business...
Never answers the
challenge
>of forgetting trying to hijack the non-black Egyptian high-civilisation
and talk about a genuine black one of world standard. Silence, and
waiting for another opportunity to get back into the tired old piracy
act again.
>
>NL
**
**I won't answer to what makes absolutely NO SENSE. Good riddance...
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
P.S. Typical of Euro's to actually expect for me to answer (a damn
thing) while they skip over my points and issues. What gall! K.M.A.
smiley
> **You Eurocentricks would love for me to be abusive so you can run and
> tell and try and get me kicked off,
Paranoid eh!
--
:-)
Osiris
smiley <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <8pie42$v5s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Osiris <osiris_auser@my-
deja.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > and your claims of "blacks" stealing
> > or "hijacking" its heritage are groundless.
>
> I beg to differ!
>
> --
> :-)
And you, of course, are quite free to do so. However, I have presented
ample evidence that there was/is indeed a shared material and spiritual
culture among Africans. If you cannot refute the evidence with counter
evidence and provide an explanation of how AE was completely
disconnected (linguistically, geographically, biologically and
culturally) from the rest of Africa, then your difference of opinion
doesn't really amount to much. It will simply remain a religious
belief, unsupported by any evidence.
smiley
> doesn't really amount to much. It will simply remain a religious
> belief, unsupported by any evidence.
I'm afraid the same applies to you! Haven't seen ANY evidence!
--
:-)
Osiris
smiley <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <8pissk$go7$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Osiris <osiris_auser@my-
deja.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > then your difference of opinion
> > doesn't really amount to much. It will simply remain a religious
> > belief, unsupported by any evidence.
>
> I'm afraid the same applies to you! Haven't seen ANY evidence!
>
> --
> :-)
Are you actually reading the posts you're replying to?
In the post that you previously replied to, I listed 4
different reasons why Egyptians should be considered Africans
and a link to a post where I detailed a further 28 cultural
links between AE's and other Africans as well as several
references to other sources. If you want to ignore it, then
that's fine but don't claim that I haven't provided any
smiley
> different reasons why Egyptians should be considered Africans
> and a link to a post where I detailed a further 28 cultural
> links between AE's and other Africans as well as several
> references to other sources.
I don't consider any of that stuff you posted to be evidence!
--
:-)
Neville Lindsay
True. saying something is so doesn't make it so, especially when it pushes a
particular agenda. But of course, that is how afro-centrists operate.
NL
> --
> :-)
Tamer Abdelgawad
> Egypt was African in every sense of the word, not *only* in the puerile
> geographic sense that you imply. Those who would like to claim that
> Egypt was an African civilization are, IMHO, quite justified in doing
> so for the following reasons:
[snip ...]
You can go ahead and argue about the origins of the ancient Egyptian
language, or about the existence and direction of cultural influence
between Egypt and its southern neighbors. However, one thing you
*cannot* argue about is the simple statement made repeatedly by Smiley
(and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
This simple statement is based on two verifiable facts and a very
straightforward argument. At the risk of boring the hell out of SCE
regulars (and myself!), I'm going to repost this argument one more
time. I ask you, and anyone else considering a response, to read it
carefully and consider its implications before you continue this debate
ad nauseum.
First, let me be a little more precise about the statement that
Egyptians are and always have been Egyptian. Here, I take that to mean:
Modern Egyptians are not phenotypically different from Ancient
Egyptians.
This conclusion is based on two verifiable facts and the application of
simple logic:
1. Approximately 10% of Egypt's current population is Coptic
Christian. The basic rules of inter-marriage between Copts and Muslims,
and the huge social taboos associated with conversion from Islam to
Christianity basically imply that any Arab genetic influence on the
Coptic population has been negligible.
2. Egypt's Coptic population is *phenotypically indistinguishable* from
its
Muslim counterpart.
That's it. The conclusion follows trivially: There was no phenotype
shift due to the Arab/Islamic invasion. To be completely fair, You
could still try to demonstrate a phenotype shift due to genetic
influences of pre-Arab invasions of Egypt, but none of these involved
any significant migrations or population shifts.
In conclusion, if you want to know what the ancient Egyptians looked
like, don't bother watching Hollywood movies or Michael Jackson videos.
Just take a look at the 65 million inhabitants of modern Egypt, because
that's who Egyptians are, and always have been.
--
Tamer Abdelgawad
"A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction
to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
-- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
Osiris
Sure, everyone knows that Budge, Petrie, Lucas and Gadalla were/are all
evil Afrocentrists with a black racist agenda. Their years of
painstaking research are ingeniously disguised attempts to get back at
the "white man".
Right. I suspected that that would be the extent
of your argument. In short, it's obvious that you
haven't a shred of evidence to back up your ridiculous
claim.
So I guess you can go back to making empty accusations
and smiley can go back to ...uhhh... smiling!
Osiris
Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Osiris wrote:
>
> > Egypt was African in every sense of the word, not *only* in the
puerile
> > geographic sense that you imply. Those who would like to claim that
> > Egypt was an African civilization are, IMHO, quite justified in
doing
> > so for the following reasons:
>
> [snip ...]
>
> You can go ahead and argue about the origins of the ancient Egyptian
> language, or about the existence and direction of cultural influence
> between Egypt and its southern neighbors. However, one thing you
> *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made repeatedly by Smiley
> (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
Very true. I would not argue with this statement. Here are a few more
statements I wouldn't argue with: Greeks are, and always have been,
Greeks. Chinese are Chinese, Zulus are Zulus, Indians are Indians.
Your statement about Egyptians is correct but, unfortunately, it says
nothing at all about Egyptian ethnicity or culture. Unless, of course,
you are claiming that Egypt has always existed in a vacuum not
influencing and uninfluenced by her neighbors. Given Egypt's
geographic location near the crossroads of three different continents,
such a position would be untenable.
> This simple statement is based on two verifiable facts and a very
> straightforward argument. At the risk of boring the hell out of SCE
> regulars (and myself!), I'm going to repost this argument one more
> time. I ask you, and anyone else considering a response, to read it
> carefully and consider its implications before you continue this
debate
> ad nauseum.
Before commenting any further, I'd just like to point out that you have
reduced my many comments on this board to a question of phenotype when
I have mainly spoken of culture. I have not claimed anywhere that
Egyptians were a homogenous, "black" civilization. Others may have
and, as I see it, your argument is with them not with me.
If you have reason to believe that AE did not influence or was not
influenced *culturally* by her neighbors then present your findings
since I'd much rather talk about that.
OTOH, if you wish to discuss *only* ethnicity and "race" then I also
have made a few observations that I think are relevant.
> First, let me be a little more precise about the statement that
> Egyptians are and always have been Egyptian. Here, I take that to
mean:
I'll point out, beforehand, that there isn't **one** dominant phenotype
in Egypt. Egyptian phenotypes (note the plural) run the gamut
from "black", more negroid, in the south to "yellowish", more caucasoid
in the north. Today, as in the remotest period in antiquity, Egyptian
ethnicity is extremely diverse.
> Modern Egyptians are not phenotypically different from Ancient
> Egyptians.
As is to be expected. However, I would say "not drastically different,
phenotypically" as opposed to your implied "not *at all* phenotypically
different". And you are wise to focus on phenotype rather than mainly
on skin color.
> This conclusion is based on two verifiable facts and the application
of
> simple logic:
>
> 1. Approximately 10% of Egypt's current population is Coptic
> Christian. The basic rules of inter-marriage between Copts and
Muslims,
> and the huge social taboos associated with conversion from Islam to
> Christianity basically imply that any Arab genetic influence on the
> Coptic population has been negligible.
Are you saying that there were never any Greek, Roman, Armenian, Arab,
etc. Christians in Egypt? If that's not your claim and you realize
their presence, then what is your proof that they did not mix with
Egyptian Christians?
> 2. Egypt's Coptic population is *phenotypically indistinguishable*
from
> its
> Muslim counterpart.
Much of *today's* Coptic (and general) population is also
*phenotypically indistinguishable* from many Morrocans, Tunisians,
Libyans, Algerians, Palestinians, Saudia Arabians, etc. etc. However,
we know for a fact that *ancient* Egyptians were phenotypically
distinguishable from both Libyans and Western Asiatics, which included
the Arabs, as well as the Nubians.
In fact, the people who were the most distant in average phenotype from
the Egyptians were the Libyans west of Egypt. However, today they are
virtually indistinguishable from many Egyptians. So what does that
tell us?
> That's it. The conclusion follows trivially: There was no phenotype
> shift due to the Arab/Islamic invasion. To be completely fair, You
> could still try to demonstrate a phenotype shift due to genetic
> influences of pre-Arab invasions of Egypt, but none of these involved
> any significant migrations or population shifts.
The conclusion that you arrive at so trivially is simply not supported
by the evidence. Of course you cite no real evidence but rely heavily
on a series of assumptions which I believe are flawed. Arabs did indeed
invade Egypt and mixed heavily with the local population. Migration
into Egypt by Arabs, Bedouins, Southern Europeans and Levantine
populations has been duly recorded.
The Arabs themselves conducted a governmental policy, in successive
Caliphates and Dynasties, of forced Arabization and Islamization of
both Egypt and the Sudan. First in the cities and then later amongst
the Fellaheen.
From as early as the 8th C., Arabs have been arriving in Egypt and the
Sudan and mixing with the locals. W.B. Bishai, in his book "The
Transition from Coptic to Arabic", speaks of both the voluntary and
state-sponsored "mass settlement" of Arabs of *all* social strata in
Egypt.[1] M. Brett confirms this in his article "The Arab Conquest and
the Rise of Islam in North Africa" and adds that the Bedouins also
acted as muslim colonizers mixing heavily with the local people.[2]
How then is it quite possible that Egypt has absorbed so many people
from Western Asia, Southern Europe, the Levant and Nubia and not
changed a bit in 5,000 years? Further, how is it that AE's saw a
distinct phenotypic difference between themselves, the Libyans, the
Nubians and the Asiatics yet today many Egyptians look little different
than Libyans and other Arabs?
> In conclusion, if you want to know what the ancient Egyptians looked
> like, don't bother watching Hollywood movies or Michael Jackson
videos.
> Just take a look at the 65 million inhabitants of modern Egypt,
because
> that's who Egyptians are, and always have been.
This is truly an oversimplification of the matter. I think you might
want to review the evidence, in light of the questions I've raised,
before drawing any hard and fast conclusions about the ethnicity of
Ancient Egyptians.
> --
> Tamer Abdelgawad
>
1) Bishai, W.B. The Transition from Coptic to Arabic, in MW 53, 1963,
pp. 145-150
2) Brett, M. The Arab Conquest and the Rise of Islam in North Africa,
in Cambridge History of Africa, vol.2, Cambridge, 1978, pp. 548/9
Regards,
Osiris
smiley
> and smiley can go back to ...uhhh... smiling!
And you can go back to your afrocentric horseshit...
--
:-)
Osiris
>
> > Egypt was African in every sense of the word, not *only* in the
puerile
> > geographic sense that you imply. Those who would like to claim that
> > Egypt was an African civilization are, IMHO, quite justified in
doing
> > so for the following reasons:
>
> [snip ...]
>
> You can go ahead and argue about the origins of the ancient Egyptian
> language, or about the existence and direction of cultural influence
> between Egypt and its southern neighbors. However, one thing you
> *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made repeatedly by Smiley
> (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
It might not be such a good idea to invoke smiley as an
authority on anything except, possibly, as a perennial expert on
"how to substitute logic and evidence with snide one-liners" or
"how to make yourself look even more like a clown than your
name suggest".
Your arguments have merit and can stand on their own without
smiley's "expertise".
smiley
Typical afrocentric response is to kill the messenger when they
don't like the message!
--
:-)
red...@my-deja.com
Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> From as early as the 8th C., Arabs have been arriving in Egypt and the
> Sudan and mixing with the locals. W.B. Bishai, in his book "The
> Transition from Coptic to Arabic", speaks of both the voluntary and
> state-sponsored "mass settlement" of Arabs of *all* social strata in
> Egypt.[1] M. Brett confirms this in his article "The Arab Conquest
and
> the Rise of Islam in North Africa" and adds that the Bedouins also
> acted as muslim colonizers mixing heavily with the local people.[2]
Bullshit. The Arabs were forbiden from the begining to own land anywhere
outside of Arabia. After the conquests of Egypt the Arabs were split
into factions and were busy fighting each other. An Arabized Turk named
Ahmed Ibn Tulun split from the Arabs in Baghdad and established autonomy
in Egypt and Syria around the 8th centruy. When the Abbasis finally
regained control of Egypt, the Fatimids, whom I mentioned in the Nbuian
black pharoahs thread, sized control of Egypt and Syria and then drove
the Abbasis out. Even the Abbasees ceased to be Arabs anymore and their
Army was composed mainly of Turks, and their style of rule were very
much Persian.
After the Fatimids , An Arabized Kurds and Turks (Salaheldin) sized
control of Egypt in order to surround the Crusades.
It is a bad habit to rely on poor scholarship. The majority of the
Egyptians converted to Islam arround during the Ommayad rule, as
evidence from the shortage of the tax collection imposed on
non-Muslims.
Beduin Arabs may have migrated to Egypt because Egypt was certainly
richer, and the borders were very much open, but this is even truer
when it came to migration from Nubia and Sudan, especially in the last
two centuries.
Hey Tamer, you may as well join alt.history.ancient-egypt to see the
whole discussions.
Osiris
All of this is very interesting but nothing more than your personal
opinion. I've supplied you with two books by historians that say
that Egypt was settled by Greeks, Armenians, Arabs and Bedouins,
among others. I can supply you with a dozen more if need be.
Are you claiming that successive Arab governments did not
have policies of Arabization which were designed to expediate
the process of Islamization? Both in Egypt and the Sudan?
The same process is still going on in the Sudan today.
Either provide references to research on the subject by
experts or explain why I should accept your opinion as being
authoritative. Unfortunately, living in Egypt and/or being an
Egyptian doesn't make you an expert on Egyptian history.
> It is a bad habit to rely on poor scholarship. The majority of the
> Egyptians converted to Islam arround during the Ommayad rule, as
> evidence from the shortage of the tax collection imposed on
> non-Muslims.
Poor scholarship? Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with the
way you see it? Considering your past unsupported claims, I am
unwilling to simply take your word as fact on anything.
> Beduin Arabs may have migrated to Egypt because Egypt was certainly
> richer, and the borders were very much open, but this is even truer
> when it came to migration from Nubia and Sudan, especially in the last
> two centuries.
Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full 40%
of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern Sudan)
is Arab. You can verify this here:
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
htm
Are you saying that more Arabs and Bedouins migrated to Sudan
than did to Egypt? Did they all bypass Egypt and head straight
for Sudan? If you are, then show me the proof that led you
to this conclusion.
The Sudanese situation, IMO, brings the whole issue into better
perspective concerning migration to Egypt as well.
red...@my-deja.com
Visit the following link and scroll down to read the Epilouge (to avoid
reading all 15 pages of it). It will give you an idea of what I am
talking about.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html
> > It is a bad habit to rely on poor scholarship. The majority of the
> > Egyptians converted to Islam arround during the Ommayad rule, as
> > evidence from the shortage of the tax collection imposed on
> > non-Muslims.
>
> Poor scholarship? Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with the
> way you see it? Considering your past unsupported claims, I am
> unwilling to simply take your word as fact on anything.
>
> > Beduin Arabs may have migrated to Egypt because Egypt was certainly
> > richer, and the borders were very much open, but this is even truer
> > when it came to migration from Nubia and Sudan, especially in the
last
> > two centuries.
>
> Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full 40%
> of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern Sudan)
> is Arab. You can verify this here:
>
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
> htm
>
> Are you saying that more Arabs and Bedouins migrated to Sudan
> than did to Egypt? Did they all bypass Egypt and head straight
> for Sudan? If you are, then show me the proof that led you
> to this conclusion.
>
> The Sudanese situation, IMO, brings the whole issue into better
> perspective concerning migration to Egypt as well.
Sudan and Moroco may have witnessed more Arab settlers than Egypt of
course, because they were kinda the end of the line of Arab conquests.
However, the Arabs in Sudan look Sudanese and the Arabs in Moroco look
Morocaons, the same way the Mongols in India look like indians.
red...@my-deja.com
>
> Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full 40%
> of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern Sudan)
> is Arab. You can verify this here:
>
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
> htm
>
The link says that 40% of Sudanese speak Arabic. That by itself is the
reason why they are Arabs, not that they are ethnically Arab. This is
based on the Proverb "Arabism is a tongue, whoever speaks Arabic is an
Arab." And that is why the Arab world is called the Arab world.
The modern secular Arab nationalism did not originated from Syria,
mainly among Christian intellectualls.
Osiris
red...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full
40%
> > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
Sudan)
> > is Arab. You can verify this here:
> >
>
http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
> > htm
> >
>
> The link says that 40% of Sudanese speak Arabic. That by itself is the
> reason why they are Arabs, not that they are ethnically Arab. This is
> based on the Proverb "Arabism is a tongue, whoever speaks Arabic is an
> Arab." And that is why the Arab world is called the Arab world.
>
A direct quote from the site:
"In 1983 the people identified as Arabs constituted nearly 40 percent
of the total Sudanese population and nearly 55 percent of the
population of the northern provinces. In some of these provinces (Al
Khartum, Ash Shamali, Al Awsat), they were overwhelmingly dominant. In
others (Kurdufan, Darfur), they were less so but made up a majority. By
1990 Ash Sharqi State was probably largely Arab."
Osiris
Again, interesting article red_sea but it didn't really
contain any information relevant to our discussion. It
spoke nothing of Egyptian ethnicity, demographics or
even the early process of conversion to Islam in North
Africa. The word Egypt only appeared 3 times in the
whole article!
You're welcome to try again but, IMO, you're on a futile
mission.
That's your opinion and my opinion, FWIW, is that the Arabs in
Sudan do not look like "black" Sudanese. There is a large
group of clearly identifiable Arabs in northern Sudan. I've
met some of them personally. The fact is that Arabs have
changed the demographics of Sudan considerably since
the Arab conquest and likewise in Egypt. Possibly even
more so in Egypt.
Egypt clearly has a very strong Arab identity. Arabic is
the official language, their religion is of Arab origin
and their culture is Arab. The country itself is called
the Arab Republic of Egypt!! My guess (and I'm certainly
backed up by the evidence) is that their Arab identity is
derived from the fact that they have much Arab blood!
The Turks are Muslims but they do not speak Arabic or have
an Arab identity. Why? Because Arabs did not settle en
masse in Turkey. Ditto for Persia, Pakistan and many
countries in Africa where Islam is practiced.
Keep in mind that we haven't even begun to discuss the
Persian, Greek, Roman, Turkish, Circassian (Mamluke),
Armenian, British and French influence upon Egyptian
ethnicity. You might want to start talking about
the cultural aspects I mentioned earlier. ;)
red...@my-deja.com
Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > Visit the following link and scroll down to read the Epilouge
> > (to avoid reading all 15 pages of it). It will give you an idea of
> > what I am talking about.
> >
> > http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html
>
> Again, interesting article red_sea but it didn't really
> contain any information relevant to our discussion. It
> spoke nothing of Egyptian ethnicity, demographics or
> even the early process of conversion to Islam in North
> Africa.
The process of "conversion" was simple. Non-muslims pay poll-tax,
Muslims don't.
> The word Egypt only appeared 3 times in the
> whole article!
Maybe if you have bothered to read what I told you to read instead of
using the Edit/Find command in the menue, we would have something to
talk about.
>
> You're welcome to try again but, IMO, you're on a futile
> mission.
>
> Egypt clearly has a very strong Arab identity. Arabic is
> the official language, their religion is of Arab origin
> and their culture is Arab. The country itself is called
> the Arab Republic of Egypt!! My guess (and I'm certainly
> backed up by the evidence) is that their Arab identity is
> derived from the fact that they have much Arab blood!
You guessed wrong. Learning Arabic is important for Muslims because the
Quran is in Arabic. Many Pakistanis speak better Arabic than Saudis
because it is the language of the Quran. Modern Arab nationalism began
in Syria and Nasser was its champion. Saudi Arabia, however, was
against it from the begining. (for Gadalla)
>
> The Turks are Muslims but they do not speak Arabic or have
> an Arab identity. Why? Because Arabs did not settle en
> masse in Turkey. Ditto for Persia, Pakistan and many
> countries in Africa where Islam is practiced.
Ditto? Aramaic and Coptic were/are closer to Arabic than Persians,
which belongs to Indo-European languages. Yet about 50 percent of
spoken persian today consists of Arabic words, and they use the Arabic
Alphabet. The Persians kept their language because the Islamic conquest
defeated a Persian Empire, unlike the case in Egypt and the fertile
crescent when the Arabs defeated the Byzantines and were considered
libarators. Here are accounts of the conquests that should keep you
busy for a while:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/642Egypt-conq2.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/yarmuk.html
> Keep in mind that we haven't even begun to discuss the
> Persian, Greek, Roman, Turkish, Circassian (Mamluke),
> Armenian, British and French influence upon Egyptian
> ethnicity. You might want to start talking about
> the cultural aspects I mentioned earlier. ;)
Yeah, why don't we talk about culture aspects:
".....7,000 words in current Egyptian usage are in fact ancient
Egyptian in origin. These are words that people use everyday without
consciously questioning their origins, they have become part of
Egyptian 'ammiya (colloquial) Arabic.
Many place names are ancient Egyptian in origin, and very often they
have meaningful connotations. Shubra means farm; Shubra Khit is the
northern farm while Shubra Mant is the western farm; Aswan comes from
swain or market, named after the market held there for merchants from
the south and Ethiopia. Qena means embrace, and the city was thus named
because the Nile turns in a half circle -- like an embrace -- at this
spot! Many cities were named after ancient Egyptian deities like
Damanhour, city of the god Horus, Ahnasia, the seat of the child Horus,
Tal Basta in Sharqiya, named after the cat-god Bessa (in fact, many
Egyptians still call cats "bissa.")
Similarly, many first names -- especially ones that are favourites
among Copts -- are ancient Egyptian. Take Bayoumi, meaning "of the
sea:" the name comes from Fayoum, which means lake; Wanis comes from
Onas, meaning the truly existing; Bisa comes from the goddess Isis;
while Bishay is feast.
In addition, many words that we use daily -- and are considered vulgar
or common by many -- are also ancient Egyptian in origin. These include
lakkaka for someone who talks too much without use; fashush, meaning
empty, yibalbat, meaning to wade in water, bahh, meaning finished; kani
mani, meaning butter and honey; and layis, meaning caught in mud. Also,
fangari is someone who wastes money, himm means hurry up, and malqaf
means draught. The ancient Egyptian way of life persists nowhere as it
does among peasants, especially in regulating the agricultural cycles.
Despite the meteorological changes and developments in irrigation and
planting patterns, the Egyptian agricultural calendar retains many of
its ancient characteristics. This is particularly evident in the names
of Coptic months, still in use by peasants. Egyptian farmers have
inherited sayings that define each month according to its weather and
agricultural characteristics."
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2000/493/li1.htm
Osiris
red...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8pm2e2$b5p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > > Visit the following link and scroll down to read the Epilouge
> > > (to avoid reading all 15 pages of it). It will give you an idea of
> > > what I am talking about.
> > >
> > > http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html
> >
> > Again, interesting article red_sea but it didn't really
> > contain any information relevant to our discussion. It
> > spoke nothing of Egyptian ethnicity, demographics or
> > even the early process of conversion to Islam in North
> > Africa.
>
> The process of "conversion" was simple. Non-muslims pay poll-tax,
> Muslims don't.
> > The word Egypt only appeared 3 times in the
> > whole article!
>
> Maybe if you have bothered to read what I told you to read instead of
> using the Edit/Find command in the menue, we would have something to
> talk about.
The discussion on this thread, until now, has been on
Egyptian ethnicity, the origins of Egyptian civilization
and the similarities between Egyptian culture and that of
other Africans.
The article you referenced, while it is interesting and
possibly raises some points worthy of discussion in another
thread, has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand!
> >
> > You're welcome to try again but, IMO, you're on a futile
> > mission.
> >
> > Egypt clearly has a very strong Arab identity. Arabic is
> > the official language, their religion is of Arab origin
> > and their culture is Arab. The country itself is called
> > the Arab Republic of Egypt!! My guess (and I'm certainly
> > backed up by the evidence) is that their Arab identity is
> > derived from the fact that they have much Arab blood!
>
> You guessed wrong. Learning Arabic is important for Muslims because
the
> Quran is in Arabic. Many Pakistanis speak better Arabic than Saudis
> because it is the language of the Quran. Modern Arab nationalism began
> in Syria and Nasser was its champion. Saudi Arabia, however, was
> against it from the begining. (for Gadalla)
And the Arabic language is not the *only* component of Arab
identity!
> >
> > The Turks are Muslims but they do not speak Arabic or have
> > an Arab identity. Why? Because Arabs did not settle en
> > masse in Turkey. Ditto for Persia, Pakistan and many
> > countries in Africa where Islam is practiced.
>
> Ditto? Aramaic and Coptic were/are closer to Arabic than Persians,
> which belongs to Indo-European languages. Yet about 50 percent of
> spoken persian today consists of Arabic words, and they use the Arabic
> Alphabet. The Persians kept their language because the Islamic
conquest
> defeated a Persian Empire, unlike the case in Egypt and the fertile
> crescent when the Arabs defeated the Byzantines and were considered
> libarators. Here are accounts of the conquests that should keep you
> busy for a while:
Let me cut to the chase here because it's obvious that the
temptation for you to stray off onto irrelevant tangents is
simply overwhelming.
My central points in this discussion are listed in this post:
http://x58.deja.com/threadmsg_md.xp?
thitnum=0&AN=668281313.1&mhitnum=18&CONTEXT=968795735.254214164
Your friend Tamer, however, decided to focus more on the
ethnic character of the AEs. In my post to him I cited two
references which stated that Egypt and Sudan were heavily
settled by Arabs among other peoples. You disagreed but
have refused, so far, to provide sources that support your
view point. Instead you've decided to post 4 articles that
have nothing at all to do with the topic of discussion.
If you'd like to continue discussing this, then focus on
the issues raised.
felixsula
-- I just gave a look and must say that although Islam is the dominate
religion it doesn't actually seemed to produce that unionizing effect even
after
600 years. Although culturely the muslim identity
seems to walk hand in hand with that of araby I
believe on closer inspection you might find that
perhaps more bonding could be a hatred of Judism.
Ask a Pakistani about the Jews and prepare for a
shrug but ask a palistinian or an Egyptian and I'm
sure you can be advised upon every infraction of
international law that could be pecieved as having
transpired. My point being other than T.S. Larwance
olny a hatred of the Jews is what has kept arab
unity and with out it rest assured the blood fueds and common distrust would
be even more evident.
I believe the phrase goes some thing like "I am
a friend of my enemies enemy. Perhaps 6000 years
ago the semite was not the egyptian but certainly
during the course of history the semetic line is the
dominate one in Egypt as well as the rest of the near east.
-----------------------------------------------------
"Osiris" <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8pmbul$n2l$1...@nnrp1.deja.> > > > what I am talking about.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html
> > >
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red...@my-deja.com
frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> The Turkish situation may be misleading. The lack of "Arab"
> identity among the Turks is probably influenced by the fact that,
> despite their Islamic heritage, Turks tend to look down on Arabs,
> both because they feel that they (the Turks) are more progressive
> and "European" (Turkey is applying to join the E.U.), and
> also because for many centuries they ruled over large numbers of
> Arabs in the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Turks, who are responsible for modern day Turkey, should
not be confused with all the Turks mentioned during the Islamic
history, who originally came from central Asia. Of course the
Ottomans also came from central Asia but were relitively new comers to
Islam and have looked up to, and adopted much of, the Persian culture.
Osiris
> >
> > In article <39bf0...@goliath.newsfeeds.com>,
> > "felixsula" <feli...@email.msn.com> wrote:
> > >
> > Yes, arab identity is closely linked to muslim identity
> > but there is also a direct correlation between Arab
> > identity and the amount of ones' Arab ancestry.
>
> There *may* be a "correlation", but it is far from being proven to be
a very
> strong one. The original "Arabs" were a relatively small desert
tribe, whose
> language was spread far and wide through the Islamic conquests. (To a
true
> Moslem, the Koran is only valid in Arabic). It is thus unlikely that
*any* of
> the widespread speakers of Arabic today have much "Arab blood", apart
from
> perhaps some of the peoples in Mohammed's home area - the original
Arabs.
> Indeed the progress of acculturation towards an Arab identity can be
followed
> in many places, such as the Maghreb, where the Arabs were very
clearly a tiny
> minority among the mass of Berbers, but where over time Arabic has
gained such
> ground that it is now the majority language - overwhelmingly so in
Algeria and
> Tunisia. This lack of Arab "blood" does not prevent the Maghrebis
from having
> a strong sense of "Arab identity" - any more than it prevents the
Somalis from
> having, if not an identity, certainly a very strong identification
with the
> Arab world (Somalia is a member of the Arab league), despite the fact
that the
> Somalis have probably no more Arab ancestry than the Spaniards.
>
> An analogy from ancient times is the spread of the language of a
small area of
> Italy, Latium, over large parts of Europe, West Asia, and North
Africa,
> through the Roman Empire and the prestige it gave to Latin. No one
would argue
> that the all the speakers of Latin, and of its modern descendants -
French,
> Spanish, Portuguese etc. - had/have much Roman "blood". In fact, most
of them
> probably haven't any.
Stated like this it certainly makes sense. However, seeing as how
you've neglected to reference any sources that agree with you then
I consider it to be just another educated guess. Speculation and
supposition won't shed much light on this rather complex subject.
That's why I've taken the liberty to supply those interested with
sources that support my view. They both say that Arabs were
resettled in Egypt through an aggressive policy of Arabization and
that many migrated to the area (drawn by the wealth of the land) on
their on volition.
> > As I've
> > pointed out, the Turks have a strong muslim identity
> > but do not have a strong Arab identity. That's
> > because the amount of Turks with Arab ancestry is
> > negligible. OTOH, Arab identity in Egypt is almost
> > as strong as it is in majority Arab nations. The
> > obvious conclusion, based on the evidence of Arab
> > conquest and migration, is that Egyptians have a
> > considerable amount of Arab blood.
>
> For all sorts of reasons, this "obvious" conclusion may be wrong. As
I pointed
> out above, the question of "Arab identity" can't be so neatly tied in
to
> "blood".
See above.
> There is no conclusive evidence that the Egyptians have a
*considerable*
> amount of "Arab blood". The idea that they have is largely put around
by those
> who wish to see the Ancient Egyptians as "black Africans", and are
embarassed
> that so many modern Egyptians neither look like, nor consider
themselves
> "Black Africans". In fact, the same applies to the Ancient Egyptians,
but
> that's another subject. There is however much evidence that, in post-
pharaonic
> times, a considerable amount of sub-Saharan "Black African" blood has
entered
> Egypt, via the Trans-Saharan Slave trade. Also, the mass immigration
of
> Nubians into Egypt, starting in Middle Kingdom times, has continued
into the
> modern era. Indeed it accelerated during the period when the Sudan
was under
> part-Egyptian control, and with the re-settlement in Egypt of all the
Nubians
> displaced by the various Aswan Dam reservoirs.
Where's the evidence that the final destination for a "considerable"
amount of "Black" Africans was Egypt? Where's your evidence that
they mixed with any Egyptians? And where's your evidence for "mass
immigration" by Nubians since Middle Kingdom times?
I'd also like to point out that the Nubian population in Egypt in 1990
was 160,000 and the Greek population was 350,000 out of 65,000,000.
> The Turkish situation may be misleading. The lack of "Arab" identity
among the
> Turks is probably influenced by the fact that, despite their Islamic
heritage,
> Turks tend to look down on Arabs, both because they feel that they
(the Turks)
> are more progressive and "European" (Turkey is applying to join the
E.U.), and
> also because for many centuries they ruled over large numbers of
Arabs in the
> Ottoman Empire.
Their lack of Arab identity *may also* be influenced by this factor.
But it, again, is just speculation.
> > > be even more evident.
> > > I believe the phrase goes some thing like "I am
> > > a friend of my enemies enemy. Perhaps 6000 years
> > > ago the semite was not the egyptian but certainly
> > > during the course of history the semetic line is the
> > > dominate one in Egypt as well as the rest of the near east.
> > >
> > I agree wholeheartedly and don't really see why some would
> > like to deny this.
> Who denies this? "Semitic" is a linguistic term, and modern Egyptians,
> speaking a Semitic language, are thereby Semites. So, for that
matter, are
> most highland Ethiopians, since they speak Amharic, Tigrinya, Gurage
etc.,
> which are Semitic languages.
Semite is commonly used to refer to the people who *originated* in
Western Asia and/or speak a Semitic language. Ethiopians are not
usually referred to as Semites but they do speak a Semitic language.
Confusing? Yes. Unscientific? Yes. But this is the way the word is
commonly used and it is in this context that the word was used in the
above post.
Egyptians are considered Semites today because they speak a
Semitic language and are descendant, in part, from Semites. The
evidence supports this view but many have denied the second part
of this statement.
> Frank
Osiris
felixsula
--
-----------------------------------------------------
"Osiris" <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8pokg3$c8d$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <39BF9092...@sbu.ac.uk>,
>
> Semite is commonly used to refer to the people who *originated* in
> Western Asia and/or speak a Semitic language. Ethiopians are not
> usually referred to as Semites but they do speak a Semitic language.
> Confusing? Yes. Unscientific? Yes. But this is the way the word is
> commonly used and it is in this context that the word was used in the
> above post.
>
> Egyptians are considered Semites today because they speak a
> Semitic language and are descendant, in part, from Semites. The
> evidence supports this view but many have denied the second part
> of this statement.
>
> > Frank
>
> Osiris
>
I'm almost sure the word "semite" is originaly intended as Shems sons, he
being one of Noahs'
baby boy's. Also in the koran it speaks of the notion that the langauge is
an important tool in this very thread I believe it spoke to that point ,
well any way if I remember correctly and don't mangle the paraphrase to
badly Gabrial relates to Mohamad that God wants it to be an Arab text for
the Arab people so indeed the langauge is important which allows me to drop
a favorite phase
Words mean things :)
unutte...@my-deja.com
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
**This is some simple shit I'd expect from Neville and stinky.
Stinky (the stinkin...@hotmail.com) doesn't consider any of "that
stuff" to be evidence regardless of the references and sources - simply
cause his empty head can't comprehend the logic and understand. Then
comes Neville co-signing this type of ignorance...
DUMB & DUMBER! Not to mention the fact that you'll get no where fast
with that attitude...
People on here who are taken seriously provide sources and references
for others to research for themselves. None of which you have
provided...neither one of you! NOT ONE SOURCE OR REFERENCE. Pitiful!
Let Truth...be blinded in both eyes,
and let him be given to me as a door-keeper in my house
And the Nine Netchers did what he asked. Now many
days after this, Falsehood raised his eyes to see, and he
observed the Virtue of Truth, his elder brother. Then
Falsehood said to two servants of Truth:
Take your master and throw him to a savage lion...
Then the young man seized him and took Falsehood to
court before the Nine Netchers. He said to the Netchers:
Judge between Truth and Falsehood, I am his son and I
have come to avenge him. (translated by M. Lichtheim)
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
smiley
[...]
> **This is some simple shit I'd expect from Neville and stinky.
> Stinky (the stinkin...@hotmail.com) doesn't consider any of "that
> stuff" to be evidence regardless of the references and sources - simply
> cause his empty head can't comprehend the logic and understand.
Hello DIOPSHIT, looks like your head is full of it!
--
:-)
Osiris
> religion it doesn't actually seemed to produce that unionizing effect
even
> after
> 600 years.
I agree with you. Pan-Arab unity has, indeed,
been elusive.
Although culturely the muslim identity
> seems to walk hand in hand with that of araby
Yes, arab identity is closely linked to muslim identity
but there is also a direct correlation between Arab
identity and the amount of ones' Arab ancestry. As I've
pointed out, the Turks have a strong muslim identity
but do not have a strong Arab identity. That's
because the amount of Turks with Arab ancestry is
negligible. OTOH, Arab identity in Egypt is almost
as strong as it is in majority Arab nations. The
obvious conclusion, based on the evidence of Arab
conquest and migration, is that Egyptians have a
considerable amount of Arab blood.
I
> believe on closer inspection you might find that
> perhaps more bonding could be a hatred of Judism.
In the last 50 years this has certainly been the case.
> Ask a Pakistani about the Jews and prepare for a
> shrug but ask a palistinian or an Egyptian and I'm
> sure you can be advised upon every infraction of
> international law that could be pecieved as having
> transpired. My point being other than T.S. Larwance
> olny a hatred of the Jews is what has kept arab
> unity and with out it rest assured the blood fueds and common
distrust would
> be even more evident.
> I believe the phrase goes some thing like "I am
> a friend of my enemies enemy. Perhaps 6000 years
> ago the semite was not the egyptian but certainly
> during the course of history the semetic line is the
> dominate one in Egypt as well as the rest of the near east.
> -----------------------------------------------------
I agree wholeheartedly and don't really see why some would
like to deny this.
Regards,
Osiris
frank y hung
Osiris wrote:
>
> In article <39bf0...@goliath.newsfeeds.com>,
> "felixsula" <feli...@email.msn.com> wrote:
> >
> Yes, arab identity is closely linked to muslim identity
> but there is also a direct correlation between Arab
> identity and the amount of ones' Arab ancestry.
There *may* be a "correlation", but it is far from being proven to be a very
strong one. The original "Arabs" were a relatively small desert tribe, whose
language was spread far and wide through the Islamic conquests. (To a true
Moslem, the Koran is only valid in Arabic). It is thus unlikely that *any* of
the widespread speakers of Arabic today have much "Arab blood", apart from
perhaps some of the peoples in Mohammed's home area - the original Arabs.
Indeed the progress of acculturation towards an Arab identity can be followed
in many places, such as the Maghreb, where the Arabs were very clearly a tiny
minority among the mass of Berbers, but where over time Arabic has gained such
ground that it is now the majority language - overwhelmingly so in Algeria and
Tunisia. This lack of Arab "blood" does not prevent the Maghrebis from having
a strong sense of "Arab identity" - any more than it prevents the Somalis from
having, if not an identity, certainly a very strong identification with the
Arab world (Somalia is a member of the Arab league), despite the fact that the
Somalis have probably no more Arab ancestry than the Spaniards.
An analogy from ancient times is the spread of the language of a small area of
Italy, Latium, over large parts of Europe, West Asia, and North Africa,
through the Roman Empire and the prestige it gave to Latin. No one would argue
that the all the speakers of Latin, and of its modern descendants - French,
Spanish, Portuguese etc. - had/have much Roman "blood". In fact, most of them
probably haven't any.
> As I've
> pointed out, the Turks have a strong muslim identity
> but do not have a strong Arab identity. That's
> because the amount of Turks with Arab ancestry is
> negligible. OTOH, Arab identity in Egypt is almost
> as strong as it is in majority Arab nations. The
> obvious conclusion, based on the evidence of Arab
> conquest and migration, is that Egyptians have a
> considerable amount of Arab blood.
For all sorts of reasons, this "obvious" conclusion may be wrong. As I pointed
out above, the question of "Arab identity" can't be so neatly tied in to
"blood".
There is no conclusive evidence that the Egyptians have a *considerable*
amount of "Arab blood". The idea that they have is largely put around by those
who wish to see the Ancient Egyptians as "black Africans", and are embarassed
that so many modern Egyptians neither look like, nor consider themselves
"Black Africans". In fact, the same applies to the Ancient Egyptians, but
that's another subject. There is however much evidence that, in post-pharaonic
times, a considerable amount of sub-Saharan "Black African" blood has entered
Egypt, via the Trans-Saharan Slave trade. Also, the mass immigration of
Nubians into Egypt, starting in Middle Kingdom times, has continued into the
modern era. Indeed it accelerated during the period when the Sudan was under
part-Egyptian control, and with the re-settlement in Egypt of all the Nubians
displaced by the various Aswan Dam reservoirs.
The Turkish situation may be misleading. The lack of "Arab" identity among the
Turks is probably influenced by the fact that, despite their Islamic heritage,
Turks tend to look down on Arabs, both because they feel that they (the Turks)
are more progressive and "European" (Turkey is applying to join the E.U.), and
also because for many centuries they ruled over large numbers of Arabs in the
Ottoman Empire.
> > be even more evident.
> > I believe the phrase goes some thing like "I am
> > a friend of my enemies enemy. Perhaps 6000 years
> > ago the semite was not the egyptian but certainly
> > during the course of history the semetic line is the
> > dominate one in Egypt as well as the rest of the near east.
> >
> I agree wholeheartedly and don't really see why some would
> like to deny this.
Who denies this? "Semitic" is a linguistic term, and modern Egyptians,
speaking a Semitic language, are thereby Semites. So, for that matter, are
most highland Ethiopians, since they speak Amharic, Tigrinya, Gurage etc.,
which are Semitic languages.
The problem comes when anyone tries to use "Semitic" - a linguistic term - as
a "racial" term. Various Racist groups (e.g. the Nazis) have always done this
- but scientifically speaking it is largely illegitimate to do so.
Frank
Tamer Abdelgawad
[snip ...]
> Before commenting any further, I'd just like to point out that you have
> reduced my many comments on this board to a question of phenotype when
> I have mainly spoken of culture. I have not claimed anywhere that
> Egyptians were a homogenous, "black" civilization. Others may have
> and, as I see it, your argument is with them not with me.
I had no intention of reducing your comments to anything. I read SCE,
and only responded to what I saw posted there.
One advantage to specializing the argument is that it avoids extended
discussions about differences in semantics, although in this case, we
still do have a substantive disagreement.
> If you have reason to believe that AE did not influence or was not
> influenced *culturally* by her neighbors then present your findings
> since I'd much rather talk about that.
I have no disagreement with this statement. Culturally speaking, Egypt
has influenced and has been influenced by many neighboring nations and
civilizations over its long history.
> OTOH, if you wish to discuss *only* ethnicity and "race" then I also
> have made a few observations that I think are relevant.
For the purposes of this discussion, let's stick to that.
> > First, let me be a little more precise about the statement that
> > Egyptians are and always have been Egyptian. Here, I take that to
> > mean:
>
> I'll point out, beforehand, that there isn't **one** dominant phenotype
> in Egypt. Egyptian phenotypes (note the plural) run the gamut
> from "black", more negroid, in the south to "yellowish", more caucasoid
> in the north. Today, as in the remotest period in antiquity, Egyptian
> ethnicity is extremely diverse.
I should have been more precise. Let's then talk about the Egyptian
*distribution* of phenotypes, and how that distribution has evolved over
time.
> > Modern Egyptians are not phenotypically different from Ancient
> > Egyptians.
>
> As is to be expected. However, I would say "not drastically different,
> phenotypically" as opposed to your implied "not *at all* phenotypically
> different".
Again, let me clarify what I am claiming to avoid confusion: You cannot
distinguish an ancient Egyptian from a modern Egyptian based on
appearance. On average, we are neither 'lighter' nor 'darker' than we
used to be; we don't have curlier or straighter hair, narrower or
flatter noses, etc.; There has been no observable 'drift' in the
Egyptian phenotype distribution.
To be honest, I'm not interested in defending this position from attacks
based on environmental causes of possible phenotype drift (I suppose the
average modern Egyptian could be taller than his ancient ancestor
because of changes in diet, for example). I am claiming, however, that
no drift has occurred due to genetic causes.
> And you are wise to focus on phenotype rather than mainly
> on skin color.
I'm not sure what this means. Since phenotype is a super-set of skin
color, I'm committing myself to defending a much wider claim. That
doesn't gain
*me* any argumentative advantages.
> > This conclusion is based on two verifiable facts and the application
> > of simple logic:
> >
> > 1. Approximately 10% of Egypt's current population is Coptic
> > Christian. The basic rules of inter-marriage between Copts and
> > Muslims,
> > and the huge social taboos associated with conversion from Islam to
> > Christianity basically imply that any Arab genetic influence on the
> > Coptic population has been negligible.
>
> Are you saying that there were never any Greek, Roman, Armenian, Arab,
> etc. Christians in Egypt? If that's not your claim and you realize
> their presence, then what is your proof that they did not mix with
> Egyptian Christians?
Invasion does not necessarily imply immigration and genetic mixing.
Egypt has
been invaded by Hyksos, Cushites, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Turks,
French, British (I'm sure I've missed a few). Some of these invasions
were long in duration, led to the establishment of ruler dynasties, and
had significant cultural impact on Egypt. None (AFAIK) involved
significant immigration and genetic mixing.
Please note several things: First, in some cases, it is hard to prove a
negative. If you believe that significant immigration and genetic
mixing has taken place, I'd be interested in your sources/documentation.
Second, the 'significant' in "significant immigration and genetic
mixing" is important. Of course every one of the invasions I (and you)
mentioned trivially involved *some* immigration and genetic mixing. But
an invading force of 10,000 soldiers is hardly going to affect the
phenotype distribution of several million inhabitants, even if the
soldiers decided to 'go native'.
Third, the 'and' in "significant immigration and genetic mixing" is
necessary to making your point. Immigrant groups that remain distinct
obviously do not affect the genetic makeup of the original population
Fourth, I can actually offer positive proof that the Arabs did not
genetically mix with the Copts:
1. Muslim women are prohibited from marrying non-muslim (including
Coptic) men, and the children of Muslim men and non-muslim (including
Coptic) women are automatically Muslim.
2. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is, shall we say, 'highly
discouraged'.
So if you're a modern day Copt, you certainly do not have any Arab
ancestors. Of course, if you're a modern day Egyptian Muslim, you
probably don't have any Arab ancestors either, but that's a conclusion
to my argument, not an assumption (The transformation of Egyptians into
an Arabic speaking, mostly Muslim population had little to do with
genetics, and a lot to do with religious conversion).
> > 2. Egypt's Coptic population is *phenotypically indistinguishable*
> > from its Muslim counterpart.
>
> Much of *today's* Coptic (and general) population is also
> *phenotypically indistinguishable* from many Morrocans, Tunisians,
> Libyans, Algerians, Palestinians, Saudia Arabians, etc. etc.
That's not true. Egyptians (Copts and Muslims) are phenotypically
distinguishable from other Arab populations (it's subtle, but people
from the region can do it).
> However,
> we know for a fact that *ancient* Egyptians were phenotypically
> distinguishable from both Libyans and Western Asiatics, which included
> the Arabs, as well as the Nubians.
I don't disagree, although I'd be curious to know the source of this
fact.
> In fact, the people who were the most distant in average phenotype from
> the Egyptians were the Libyans west of Egypt. However, today they are
> virtually indistinguishable from many Egyptians. So what does that
> tell us?
Wrong on the second count, and probably on the first as well. How do
you know that Libyans were the "most distant" phenotypically from
Egyptians?
> > That's it. The conclusion follows trivially: There was no phenotype
> > shift due to the Arab/Islamic invasion. To be completely fair, You
> > could still try to demonstrate a phenotype shift due to genetic
> > influences of pre-Arab invasions of Egypt, but none of these involved
> > any significant migrations or population shifts.
>
> The conclusion that you arrive at so trivially is simply not supported
> by the evidence. Of course you cite no real evidence but rely heavily
> on a series of assumptions which I believe are flawed.
Whatever assumptions I made, I made explicitly. Both happen to be true;
the first assumption is true by virtue of the fact that its converse is
impossible (the Arabs *could not* have genetically influenced the
Copts), and the second is verifiable by direct observation of modern
Egyptians.
I did point out that my argument does *not* rule out pre-Arab genetic
influences, but the main thrust of *your* argument has been about the
Arabs. I therefore await your documentation about significant pre-Arab
immigration and genetic mixing from outside Egypt.
> Arabs did indeed
> invade Egypt and mixed heavily with the local population. Migration
> into Egypt by Arabs, Bedouins, Southern Europeans and Levantine
> populations has been duly recorded.
I am aware that a few whole Arab tribes were transported from Arabia
into Egypt to increase Arab presence. Do you know how many people
constitute a 'whole Arab tribe'? A few hundred, possibly one or two
thousand individuals.
Also, there are bedouin tribes that remain distinct in Egypt to this
day.
> The Arabs themselves conducted a governmental policy, in successive
> Caliphates and Dynasties, of forced Arabization and Islamization of
> both Egypt and the Sudan. First in the cities and then later amongst
> the Fellaheen.
I wasn't aware that learning a language and adopting a religion could
change your phenotype :-)
> From as early as the 8th C., Arabs have been arriving in Egypt and the
> Sudan and mixing with the locals. W.B. Bishai, in his book "The
> Transition from Coptic to Arabic", speaks of both the voluntary and
> state-sponsored "mass settlement" of Arabs of *all* social strata in
> Egypt.[1] M. Brett confirms this in his article "The Arab Conquest and
> the Rise of Islam in North Africa" and adds that the Bedouins also
> acted as muslim colonizers mixing heavily with the local people.[2]
[snip ...]
Since I don't have easy access to these references (ok, I'm being a bit
lazy, so I will dig them up), could you tell me any *numbers* these two
authors mention, and whether they're guesstimates or based on primary
sources? Again, the 'mass' movement of a few Arab tribes into Egypt is
a drop in the figurative genetic bucket. I say this with some
confidence because the Copts certainly *were not* affected by *any* Arab
migration or mixing, and if modern Copts and Egyptian Muslims are
indistinguishable, then the Muslims weren't affected either.
If my argument is susceptible, it's going to be because of evidence of
immigration and genetic mixing by someone other than non-Egyptian
Muslims.
Tamer Abdelgawad
[snip ...]
> Hey Tamer, you may as well join alt.history.ancient-egypt to see the
> whole discussions.
Sorry, but my news server doesn't carry it. I suppose I can request it,
but maybe this thread will be over by the time they actually add it (I'm
being naive, right?) :-)
Tamer Abdelgawad
From Merriam Webster Online:
http://www.britannica.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
Main Entry: Ar戢b
Pronunciation: 'ar-&b, 'er-; dial also 'A-"rab
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin Arabus, Arabs, from Greek Arab-,
Araps
Date: 14th century
1 a : a member of the Semitic people of the Arabian peninsula
b : a member of an Arabic-speaking people
HTH,
Osiris
Of course, here, the emphasis is on the first definition since there
is a sizable percentage of distinctly identifiable Arabs, as the
article states, from Arabia in the north of Sudan. That's not to say
that many haven't mixed with the native population over the years, but
there remains a large group of people who speak Arabic and look no
different from Arabs in Arabia.
> HTH,
>
> --
> Tamer Abdelgawad
>
> "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless
interaction
> to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
> -- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
Regards,
Osiris
Alex
Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> However, one thing you *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made
> repeatedly by Smiley (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
To say that Egyptians have been Egyptians as long as there has been
a country called Egypt is pretty obvious.
However, if this statement meanst that the ethnic make-up of Egypt
has remained the same throughout the millennia, then that's pretty
much inaccurate.
Ancient Egypt was built upon the foundation of the pre-dynastic and
early Nile Valley cultures that are associated with ancient Nubia.
As a result, their ethnicity then (and to a considerable extent still
today) is closely aligned with that of the people further south
in the Nile Valley.
Ancient Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language, the origin of which
is in the area of Somalia/Ethiopia/The Sudan.
This origin is also extremely clear when looking at the AE's depictions
of themselves, and especially clear in their facial features.
However, especially from the New Kingdom onward, there was a
small but steady influx of Levantines and Aegeans into Egypt,
in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
"As a result of his third victory over the Indo-Aryans, he <Ramses III>
took an exceptional number of prisoners. This enabled him to increase
appreciably the slave labor force on the royal construction sites
and in the army. Such was invariably the procedure for acclimating
white-skinned persons in Egypt, a process that became especially
widespread during the low period."
Hence, there has been an trickling into Egypt of people from outside
of Africa even in the 13th/12th century BC, let alone during the
Greek, Roman, Islamic, Turkish, French and British periods, or
the pharao's marriage to foreign royalty and nobilities.
Alex
smiley
> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > However, one thing you *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made
> > repeatedly by Smiley (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
>
> To say that Egyptians have been Egyptians as long as there has been
> a country called Egypt is pretty obvious.
> However, if this statement meanst that the ethnic make-up of Egypt
> has remained the same throughout the millennia, then that's pretty
> much inaccurate.
This is just another unsupported assertion!
> Ancient Egypt was built upon the foundation of the pre-dynastic and
> early Nile Valley cultures that are associated with ancient Nubia.
>
> As a result, their ethnicity then (and to a considerable extent still
> today) is closely aligned with that of the people further south
> in the Nile Valley.
> Ancient Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language, the origin of which
> is in the area of Somalia/Ethiopia/The Sudan.
>
> This origin is also extremely clear when looking at the AE's depictions
> of themselves, and especially clear in their facial features.
That is YOUR opinion!
>
> However, especially from the New Kingdom onward, there was a
> small but steady influx of Levantines and Aegeans into Egypt,
> in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
Not this Afrocentric Diopshit again!
>
> "As a result of his third victory over the Indo-Aryans, he <Ramses III>
> took an exceptional number of prisoners. This enabled him to increase
> appreciably the slave labor force on the royal construction sites
> and in the army. Such was invariably the procedure for acclimating
> white-skinned persons in Egypt, a process that became especially
> widespread during the low period."
>
> Hence, there has been an trickling into Egypt of people from outside
> of Africa even in the 13th/12th century BC, let alone during the
> Greek, Roman, Islamic, Turkish, French and British periods, or
> the pharao's marriage to foreign royalty and nobilities.
>
> Alex
Egyptians are and have always been Egyptians.
--
:-)
Osiris
Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Osiris wrote:
> >
> > In article <39BDA002...@yahoo.com>,
> > Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [snip ...]
>
> > Before commenting any further, I'd just like to point out that you
have
> > reduced my many comments on this board to a question of phenotype
when
> > I have mainly spoken of culture. I have not claimed anywhere that
> > Egyptians were a homogenous, "black" civilization. Others may have
> > and, as I see it, your argument is with them not with me.
>
> I had no intention of reducing your comments to anything. I read SCE,
> and only responded to what I saw posted there.
>
> One advantage to specializing the argument is that it avoids extended
> discussions about differences in semantics, although in this case, we
> still do have a substantive disagreement.
Yes, we are in disagreement. Unfortunately, because of the very nature
of the argument, there can never be any universally accepted
resolution. We are forced to simply state our opinions on the matter
and provide as many sources as possible that are in agreement with us.
For this reason I'm somewhat disappointed that you've, thus far,
refused to cite any documention to buttress your view point. You're
basically asking me to take your word for it. At this point, I'm
simply not prepared to do that.
Until you supply some evidence, your arguments will be confined to the
realm of speculation and conjecture.
What evidence? Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Here is why I believe your argument is flawed.
1. You claim that Copts are an unmixed group of native Egyptians who
LOOK exactly like their ancestors. This is an assumption that you ask
me to accept. I don't. As I stated earlier, I agree that their
phenotype may not be "drastically different" but I don't believe that
its exactly the same as you've stated. Especially since there were
plenty of pre- Arab invasion foreign communities in Egypt.
The Greeks built whole cities during their occupation that were
populated primarily by Greeks. Alexandria was probably the most
heavily populated. Add to that Syrian, Armenian, Roman, Chaldean
Christians, Hebrew (Yes, Hebrew. The first Christians were Hebrews.
Many fled persecution by immigrating to Egypt), etc. I can't prove
that they all mixed, but their presence certainly casts doubts on your
claim that they were completely unmixed.
2. You then claim that Muslim Egyptians look no different than Coptic
Egyptians. This too is an assumption. I fully accept that this has
been your observation but, minus any real proof, it remains nothing
more than your observation.
Unfortunately (for you), you'll be at somewhat of a disadvantage when
trying to prove that modern Egyptians LOOK like ancient Egyptians.
Craniometry won't do this for you since it obviously cannot tell us
anything about a persons hair, skin color, etc.
So, with that in mind, I'll make a few comments below but they are in
response to statements that are largely irrelevant.
[...]
> > > First, let me be a little more precise about the statement that
> > > Egyptians are and always have been Egyptian. Here, I take that to
> > > mean:
> >
> > I'll point out, beforehand, that there isn't **one** dominant
phenotype
> > in Egypt. Egyptian phenotypes (note the plural) run the gamut
> > from "black", more negroid, in the south to "yellowish", more
caucasoid
> > in the north. Today, as in the remotest period in antiquity,
Egyptian
> > ethnicity is extremely diverse.
>
> I should have been more precise. Let's then talk about the Egyptian
> *distribution* of phenotypes, and how that distribution has evolved
over
> time.
Fine. What exactly WAS the phenotype distribution in ancient Egypt?
What is it today?
> > > Modern Egyptians are not phenotypically different from Ancient
> > > Egyptians.
> >
> > As is to be expected. However, I would say "not drastically
different,
> > phenotypically" as opposed to your implied "not *at all*
phenotypically
> > different".
>
> Again, let me clarify what I am claiming to avoid confusion: You
cannot
> distinguish an ancient Egyptian from a modern Egyptian based on
> appearance. On average, we are neither 'lighter' nor 'darker' than we
> used to be; we don't have curlier or straighter hair, narrower or
> flatter noses, etc.; There has been no observable 'drift' in the
> Egyptian phenotype distribution.
More assumptions.
Considering the fact that you've agreed that Egyptians ran the full
phenotypic range (yellow to black skin, wooly hair to straight, wide
noses to thin noses), I'm quite interested to see how you'll prove that
these features have remained proportionately constant for the last
5,000 years.
[...]
> > >
> > > 1. Approximately 10% of Egypt's current population is Coptic
> > > Christian. The basic rules of inter-marriage between Copts and
> > > Muslims,
> > > and the huge social taboos associated with conversion from Islam
to
> > > Christianity basically imply that any Arab genetic influence on
the
> > > Coptic population has been negligible.
> >
> > Are you saying that there were never any Greek, Roman, Armenian,
Arab,
> > etc. Christians in Egypt? If that's not your claim and you realize
> > their presence, then what is your proof that they did not mix with
> > Egyptian Christians?
>
> Invasion does not necessarily imply immigration and genetic mixing.
> Egypt has
> been invaded by Hyksos, Cushites, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Turks,
> French, British (I'm sure I've missed a few). Some of these invasions
> were long in duration, led to the establishment of ruler dynasties,
and
> had significant cultural impact on Egypt. None (AFAIK) involved
> significant immigration and genetic mixing.
Untrue. I've supplied you with two sources that speak of "mass
immigration" by Arabs into Egypt in accordance with state-sponsored
Arabization and Islamization policies.
If you don't have access to them, then here are several online sources
for you that deal with Egyptian ethnicity.
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,108482+2+106015,00.ht
ml
Here are some of the statements you'll see there:
"The population of the Nile Valley and the Delta (comprising about 99
percent of Egypt) forms a fairly homogeneous group whose dominant
physical characteristics are the result of the admixture of the
indigenous pre-Islamic Hamitic-Armenoid population with Arab stock. The
peasant, or fellah, is less racially mixed than the town dweller. In
the towns--the northern Delta towns especially--the foreign invader,
Persian, Roman, Greek, crusader, and Turk, has left behind a more
heterogeneous mixture."
[...]
"The inhabitants of the Western Desert, outside the oases, claim Arab
descent but are a mixture of Arab and Berber stock. They are divided
into two groups, the Sa'adi and the Murabitin. The Sa'adi regard
themselves as descended from Banu Hilal and Banu Sulayman, the great
Arab tribes that immigrated into North Africa in the 11th century."
[...]
"The Nubian, though having Arab blood, have preserved racial
characteristics that are non-Arab."
Even the Nubians have mixed with Arabs! Being only 160,000 strong I
doubt they've had much influence on the overall population in the last
couple thousand years, though. The population growth has been
phenomenal over that time period and most of the biological influence
has come from non-Africans.
Here's another:
http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/ARTICLES/0050/00590848_A.html
"Most Egyptians are Hamitic Arabs. They are descendants of the Hamites
of ancient Egypt and of the Arabs who migrated to Egypt after the
Muslim conquests of the 7th century."
And one more:
http://www.ibnkhaldun.org/newsletter/1996/april/minor.html
"The major factors which contributed to the Arabization of Egypt were
the Arab migration from the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt in large
numbers."
How do we know they actually mixed with the local population?
1. That was the primary aim of the government settlement policies.
They knew a strong Arab Muslim presence would facilitate them in their
attempt to convert the Egyptians.
2. AFAIK, there remains no identifiably distinct Arab community in
Egypt as is the case in the Sudan.
Far from being insignificant, as you say, my sources show that Egypt
has had a considerable amount of Arab migration in the last 1,300
years. Therefore, its not surprising that Egytpians have a strong Arab
identity and are referred to as Arabs by many.
I'm also a bit surprised that you would say there's been no
significant "genetic mixing" considering the numerous anthropological
studies on *modern* North Africans, Eastern Mediterranean people and
Southern European populations which all suggest a significant genetic
link. All the invasions and mass migrations can not be ruled out as
significant contributors to this genetic continuity. Its, also, quite
likely that there's been a good deal more genetic mixing in the last
2500 years in Egypt than in the period prior to then.
> Please note several things: First, in some cases, it is hard to
prove a
> negative. If you believe that significant immigration and genetic
> mixing has taken place, I'd be interested in your
sources/documentation.
I believe that I've provided quite enough.
[snip]
> Fourth, I can actually offer positive proof that the Arabs did not
> genetically mix with the Copts:
>
> 1. Muslim women are prohibited from marrying non-muslim (including
> Coptic) men, and the children of Muslim men and non-muslim (including
> Coptic) women are automatically Muslim.
>
> 2. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is, shall we say, 'highly
> discouraged'.
Completely irrelevant.
[...]
> > Much of *today's* Coptic (and general) population is also
> > *phenotypically indistinguishable* from many Morrocans, Tunisians,
> > Libyans, Algerians, Palestinians, Saudia Arabians, etc. etc.
>
> That's not true. Egyptians (Copts and Muslims) are phenotypically
> distinguishable from other Arab populations (it's subtle, but people
> from the region can do it).
I didn't say *all* but *some*. Of course there's a certain overlap but
the differences between the average representatives of these countries
is barely visible. You confirm as much when you say the "distinction
is subtle but the people from the region can do it". This implies that
someone not familiar with people from these countries may have a rather
difficult time distinguishing between them.
> > However,
> > we know for a fact that *ancient* Egyptians were phenotypically
> > distinguishable from both Libyans and Western Asiatics, which
included
> > the Arabs, as well as the Nubians.
>
> I don't disagree, although I'd be curious to know the source of this
> fact.
>
> > In fact, the people who were the most distant in average phenotype
from
> > the Egyptians were the Libyans west of Egypt. However, today they
are
> > virtually indistinguishable from many Egyptians. So what does that
> > tell us?
>
> Wrong on the second count, and probably on the first as well. How do
> you know that Libyans were the "most distant" phenotypically from
> Egyptians?
Right on both counts. One very good reason that my first point is
accurate, is that the AEs left a pretty good indication of the
differences between themselves and their neighbors. I'm sure you're
familiar with the paintings depicting Libyans, Nubians, Western
Asiatics and Egyptians. The Nubians are painted black, the Asiatics
yellow and the Egyptians a medium brown color intermediate between the
the Nubians and Asiatics. The Libyans are often depicted as having
white skin (two shades lighter than the Egyptians) and sometimes as
yellow like the Asiatics. This leads me to believe that the *average*
Egyptian was quite distinguishable from the Asiatics and quite possibly
even more so from the Libyans.
My point is that those distinctions that the AEs saw are no longer
applicable today as a result of the many non-African peoples who've
conquered and mixed with the indigenous populations.
There HAVE been changes in phenotype. To what degree have people
mixed? Well.... we may never have a clear answer on that question but
all the evidence suggests that it isn't "insignificant" as you claim.
> Tamer Abdelgawad
>
> "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless
interaction
> to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
> -- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
frank y hung
Osiris wrote:
>
> In article <39BF9092...@sbu.ac.uk>,
> frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Osiris wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <39bf0...@goliath.newsfeeds.com>,
> > > "felixsula" <feli...@email.msn.com> wrote:
> > An analogy from ancient times is the spread of the language of a
> small area of
> > Italy, Latium, over large parts of Europe, West Asia, and North
> Africa,
> > through the Roman Empire and the prestige it gave to Latin. No one
> would argue
> > that the all the speakers of Latin, and of its modern descendants -
> French,
> > Spanish, Portuguese etc. - had/have much Roman "blood". In fact, most
> of them
> > probably haven't any.
>
> Stated like this it certainly makes sense. However, seeing as how
> you've neglected to reference any sources that agree with you then
> I consider it to be just another educated guess.
There are no "sources" for the fact that most modern-day French, Spanish,
Portuguese etc. speakers do not have any original Roman or Latin ancestry,
because it would be regarded as a truth so obvious that it wouldn't need
stating! For that matter, the only modern-day speakers of Romance languages
who did/do claim such an ancestry were/are the Italian fascists, and certain
Romanian nationalists. In both cases the motivation is rightwing nationalism,
and has no basis in history.
As far as the Arab conquest situation is concerned, the situation is more
complex. For the Maghreb, there is reliable evidence that the whole area
remained predominantly Berber in both language and culture until way after the
Islamic takeover. Read *any* reliable history of the area, and that's what
they say. This is why the Moslems who invaded Spain are usually referred to as
"Moors" rather than as "Arabs", although this was an extension of the "Arab"
conquest of North Africa. In fact, although the area is now predominantly
Arabic-speaking, it still retains many Berber cultural features, and there is,
especially in some areas of Morocco, a strong sense of Berber identity, which
doesn't preclude a strong sense too of Arab identity.
As far as most of the rest of the Arab conquest of the lands, the only thing
we have to go on is "guesswork", since we have no reliable and comprehensive
statistical records about the number of "Arab" settlers vis-a-vis the native
population numbers. Hence, although you say:
> Speculation and
> supposition won't shed much light on this rather complex subject.
Speculation and supposition are actually all that anyone can offer. And,
actually that's all that you offer.
> That's why I've taken the liberty to supply those interested with
> sources that support my view. They both say that Arabs were
> resettled in Egypt through an aggressive policy of Arabization and
> that many migrated to the area (drawn by the wealth of the land) on
> their on volition.
As my server behaves very erratically, and only gives me certain posts on
certain NG sites, I eventually tracked down your sources on another NG. I
haven't yet managed to obtain either (the University at which I work sadly
tends to concentrate on boring subjects such as Law and Business
Studies)[incidentally, what is MW an abbreviation for?]. However they are not
primary sources (which would be stuff like ancient census rolls), so I suspect
that their conclusions are also the result of speculation and supposition,
i.e. guesswork.
That *isn't* a criticism of them! We can't get away from some degree of
guesswork in this field. The real question is whether the guesswork is good or
not - and it stands much more chance of being good if it is (i) educated, and
(ii) as objective as possible.
Educated guesswork would in this instance reject both the idea that there was
a *wholesale* replacement of AE indigenes by invading Arabs, and also the idea
that there was *no* Arab infiltration. However scholars might then need to go
on to guess at the proportion of the population of Egypt which the Arab
intruders represented. If Bishai and Brett do say what you are saying, and no
more, neither is actually giving an answer to this. For even if "Arabs were
resettled in Egypt through an aggressive policy of Arabization and ... many
migrated to the area...on their own volition", this begs the question "how
many?", to which "many" is not an answer at all.
Here the question of "objectivity" becomes important. And here all those
driven by strong ideological motivation are at a big disadvantage, at least
initially. Those who want to see the AE as largely "black" or "African",
whatever these may mean, will tend to guess at as large a figure for Arab and
other post-pharaonic northern immigration as they can, so that they can
thereby explain the large number of modern Egyptians who undoubtedly don't
either look like, nor consider themselves to be, "black" or "African". OTOH,
those who wish to see the AE as "white" or "caucasian", whatever these may
mean, will tend to guess at as large a figure for post-pharaonic Black African
immigration as they can, so that they can explain the large number of "black"
looking modern Egyptians. Each ethnocentrism will also tend at the same time
to minimize the extent of the post-pharaonic immigration beloved by their
opponents, and in this case they really are opponents :).
I feel that I have given as educated and as objective a guess as I can. But of
course I may be wrong - but so might you. I do admit that I was to some extent
reacting against the glorious over-confident certainty with which you so often
present "conclusions", given the rather sketchy nature of most of the
"evidence" in this field. But of course your "opponents" in this would be
equally, IMO, over-confident. Indeed, were people to post on this subject from
an Eurocentric "white AE" perspective, I might actually be quoting the sort of
evidence you are bringing forward to counter their simplistic
over-confidence!
> > that's another subject. There is however much evidence that, in post-
> pharaonic
> > times, a considerable amount of sub-Saharan "Black African" blood has
> entered
> > Egypt, via the Trans-Saharan Slave trade. Also, the mass immigration
> of
> > Nubians into Egypt, starting in Middle Kingdom times, has continued
> into the
> > modern era. Indeed it accelerated during the period when the Sudan
> was under
> > part-Egyptian control, and with the re-settlement in Egypt of all the
> Nubians
> > displaced by the various Aswan Dam reservoirs.
>
> Where's the evidence that the final destination for a "considerable"
> amount of "Black" Africans was Egypt? Where's your evidence that
> they mixed with any Egyptians?
Actually there's quite a bit of evidence for this. The d infamous Darb
el-Arba'in, "road of the 40 days", was one of the busiest slaving routes. It
started in Darfur in the Sudan, where Black sub-Saharan African slaves were
concentrated before being sent northwards on the long journey (theoretically
about 40 days) to Asyut in Middle Egypt. Asyut had one of the biggest slave
markets in the whole of the Islamic world. Of course, many of the slaves would
be sent on further to Islamic lands in Asia, but it would be rather
"preposterous" to claim that many (most?) of them didn't remain in Egypt - a
claim that would bear the burden of proof rather than the opposite.
As for evidence that they "mixed with any Egyptians", it would be quite
extraordinary if they didn't. Are you suggesting that they were all infertile?
Or that their sexual relationships were purely with other slaves? And if so,
where are their progeny today?
In fact there is good circumstantial evidence that much mixing of Black
African slaves with the Egyptians took place. In Egypt, as in other North
African and West Asian countries with a wide variety of physical types, there
is a very clear correlation whereby the upper and middle classes and the
intelligentsia tend to be on average "whiter" and more European looking than
the lower classes, where the bulk of the "Black African" looking "Arabs" are
to be found. Now two explanations have been put forward to explain this
phenomenon:
(i) "Whites" are genetically more intelligent, harder-working, responsible,
capable etc. than "Blacks", and thus tend to rise to the top more often than
"Blacks".
(ii) "Blacks" formed the great majority of the menial slaves. Even when freed,
this would put them at a vast disadvantage (as it has in the USA), and it is
this terrible legacy, rather than any innate incapability, which accounts for
their generally lowly position.
Alternative (i) above is a clearly Racist explanation. Although, from a strict
scientific perspective, it would be impossible at the start to entirely rule
out a Racist explanation, I believe that a non-Racist explanation is *always*
to be preferred, unless there is no alternative to a Racist one - which,
however, I am glad to say, has never been the case. No one has ever proved
Black, or any other racial, inferiority, so I will continue to prefer
sociological explanations.
As a small additional piece of evidence, I remember reading somewhere a claim
that the area around Asyut has, or had, a higher proportion of "Black African"
looking Egyptians than most other parts of Egypt. If so, this might be another
piece of evidence for the presence of a large amount of "Black" ancestry in
modern Egypt through the slave trade.
> And where's your evidence for "mass
> immigration" by Nubians since Middle Kingdom times?
And I thought you'd actually rather like that one!
Mentioning the fact of Black African slavery in post-pharaonic Egypt, and
elsewhere, has sometimes elicited a furious response (from David, for example)
along the lines that by mentioning it I am somehow enjoying doing down "Black"
people. Let me emphasize that I do not believe that the fact that so many
slaves were "Black" indicates that "Blacks" are somehow inferior, any more
than the fact that the Children of Israel were slaves in AE indicates that
*they* were. Even so, because of the sensitivities of those such as David, I
felt glad to be able to mention one migration of "Blacks" into Egypt, and
indeed one which dates back to pharaonic times, which certainly was not
largely connected with slavery - the migration of the Nubians.
Actually the earliest evidence of Nubians settled in Egypt dates back to the
6th.Dynasty [late O.K.]. From the Middle Kingdom onwards there is copious
evidence, both from literature and art, of widespread Nubian settlement in AE.
It is for me one of the most joyous and heartening things about AE how free
they were of "colour" prejudice. Hence Libyans, Asiatics, and Nubians could
all settle in AE, and individuals from all these could reach high office.
While remaining to some extent in separate communities, they seem to have
become as integrated as, say, the Irish in England, with much intermarriage
with the AE. And one Nubian, Maiherpri (in the 18th.dynasty), was even
accorded a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a great privilege only accorded to
a few "commoners".
> I'd also like to point out that the Nubian population in Egypt in 1990
> was 160,000 and the Greek population was 350,000 out of 65,000,000.
But there has been massive assimilation of Nubians to the Egyptian population
right from the Middle Kingdom to the present day. The late President Anwar
Sadat was half Nubian. The fact that, despite this assimilation, there is
still to this day a noteable Nubian presence, especially in Upper Egypt, is
actually indicative of the size and long time of Nubian presence in Egypt.
OTOH, the Greeks have, right from their first entry, been very keen to
maintain their separateness from the native Egyptians, and their presence has
been overwhelmingly concentrated in the Alexandria area. This doesn't mean of
course that there has been *no* gene flow from Greek sources, but I am as sure
as can be that it is tiny compared with the Nubian inflow.
> > The Turkish situation may be misleading. The lack of "Arab" identity
> among the
> > Turks is probably influenced by the fact that, despite their Islamic
> heritage,
> > Turks tend to look down on Arabs, both because they feel that they
> (the Turks)
> > are more progressive and "European" (Turkey is applying to join the
> E.U.), and
> > also because for many centuries they ruled over large numbers of
> Arabs in the
> > Ottoman Empire.
>
> Their lack of Arab identity *may also* be influenced by this factor.
> But it, again, is just speculation.
Yes, I speculate, you speculate, he/she speculates. As I've pointed out,
that's basically what we're all largely doing.
But I do feel there is one difference between you and me in all this. It is a
difference which pervades all of our discussions on AE and Africa.
I actually have no strong ideological position on AE. I do have a view on many
aspects of AE, and African, ethnic and cultural identity, but it would not
cause me great sorrow if anyone were to show that I have been largely wrong in
my views - indeed I would be glad to have had any wrong ideas righted. I am
not committed to seeing the AE as "white", "black", or anything else other
than as AE - but am quite prepared to be persuaded by anyone to any viewpoint
- provided that person does it in a legitimately scientific and logical sort
of way - and will be persuaded if the balance of the real evidence appears to
support their case. I am not prepared to accept grandiose claims about ethnic
and cultural identities, whether about the AE, or anyone else, if I feel that
the evidence just isn't enough - and the more grandiose, wide-ranging, and
confidently the claim is made, the greater rigour I would require in the
presentation and interpretation of the "evidence". It will be of no surprise
to you that I feel that your claims, in the great majority of cases, are just
not supported sufficiently by the evidence and arguments you put forward.
However that does *not* mean that I think that thereby you are necessarily
wrong.
You, OTOH, clearly have a very strong ideological motivation, which drives
much of your interest in, and posting on, AE and African ethnicity and
culture. Now, there's nothing *wrong* about being strongly ideologically
motivated. In fact, it has generally been the strongly ideologically motivated
who have done the most good (and sometimes the most harm) in the world.
Indeed, if it were not for the ideologically motivated, I suspect that we'd
all still be, for better or worse, in the Old Stone Age.
However, strong ideological motivation can lead to serious flaws in the
strategy of research, and in the subsequent method of presentation. Karl
Popper, the philosopher, probably got nearer than most to a definition of
"science", (which distinguishes it from non-science, or, even more important,
from pesudo-science). This is the principle of "falsifiability". What it says
is that in essence, a statement/theory/conclusion which cannot be falsified is
not a scientific statement (Popper was not claiming that it couldn't
nevertheless be *true* - he wasn't against Metaphysics).
This has especially important consequences for ideologically motivated
researchers such as yourself.
Those who are relatively non-ideological will tend to start with the evidence
as they see it, and see if any coherent picture emerges, from which theories
can emerge and conclusions can be reached. Thus "falsification" ought to be
automatically part of the process. From the evidence before him/her, the
scholar is drawn to theory 'A'. As more evidence appears, it *may* confirm
'A', so that it becomes more and more evident that 'A' is in fact a good
description of what was/is true. Or the new evidence may "falsify",
contradict, 'A'. In which case, the theory will have to be modified 'A1', say.
But it may be that eventually the whole 'A' complex may have to be scrapped
and a new model 'B' proposed. And good scientists, even if for various reasons
devoted to 'A', will eventually be glad, because a falsehood has been replaced
by a new possible truth. Of course, the complexities of life, the universe,
and everything, may one day result in 'A' being resurrected. What matters is
not 'A' 'B' or what-you-will - what matters is that at any point we either
have, or can have a discusion about what is, the theory most logically
consonant with the evidence as we have it.
OTOH, those with strong ideological motivations tend to *start* with the
theory/conclusions, and then to look around for evidence to support them. Now,
this *need* not be an anti- or pseudo-scientific way of research, providing
that the researcher realises this and plans his/her research thereby. Here
again, the question of falsification comes in.
You have a very strong belief in the cultural unity of Africa, including AE.
This also involves, for you, strong beliefs concerning the physical "racial"
characteristics of the AE and of Africans in general (Note that, unless you
are a Racist and believe that culture is somehow genetic, this is not a
necessary corollary to your beliefs about cultural unity). However when I look
at the evidence and argumentation for your theories, I find that they are
fundamentally flawed. Not just because a great deal of the "evidence" is
itself highly dubious (please get off Budge if you want to get anywhere - no
present day scholar regards him as highly reliable - and in any case his views
on the ethnic connections of the AE and the origin of AE civilization were not
what you claim they are - in many ways just the opposite) and tendentious
(when will those who use Afrocentric sources realize that these are
*extremely* biased).
A much more fundamental flaw in your research is your method. To support your
case, you have obviously concentrated your research in AE and Africa. However,
from a scientific viewpoint, it would be of much more value if, before posting
again with massive theories of African cultural unity over time and space, you
were to concentrate, for a while, your research on cultures *outside* Africa -
and I mean research, not just regurgitating Afrocentric doctrine. Only in that
way would it be possible for the principle of falsification to work in your
research strategy, leading to a possible radical change of view. Now I realize
that you don't *want* to change your view - you love the idea of the great
"African cultural and physical unity - as against the rest of the world" far
too much for it to be easy, or even possible for you to give it up - and
indeed in the end you may not need too! The evidence, properly gathered,
presented, and disussed scientifically may actually give you a resounding
triumph over the evil Eurocentrists (I rather hope it does). But if you are
not prepared to make your theory vulnerable to *possible* falsification by
yourself, believe me that others would be only too glad to do it - and maybe
many valuable findings by yourself would be lost in the process.
I realize that this will be (i) rather hard work - but you are clearly a hard
worker - and (ii) not anywhere as congenial to yourself as the excited finding
of more AE - Black Africa links - but it *must* be done - if your findings are
to receive anything more than a cursory glance and dismissal from those
outside the circle of those who already believe as you do.
For, to put it at its simplest, it is a waste of time to "prove" that the AE
shared certain, or a vast number, of cultural/physical traits with "Africa",
if your presentation misrepresents the situation in the rest of the world,
because you haven't researched enough as to whether these traits might also be
widespread elsewhere.
Frank
frank y hung
Alex wrote:
> in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
Cheikh Anta Diop is ignored by mainstream Egyptology today, not because he was
an Afrocentrist, but because he was a pseudo-scientific charlatan.
For instance, among other erroneous beliefs, he claimed that "whites" have no
melanin in their skins (they do - some actually have quite a lot), and that
the AE were closely related to the peoples of West Africa because they both
had blood group B, which is, according to Diop, an African characteristic. In
fact group B is found over most of the world. He also claimed that blood group
A2 was an European characteristic, and pushed for the Cairo Royal mummies to
be blood-grouped, obviously (over-)confident that the group A2 - which is rare
anywhere - wouldn't turn up.
Rather amusingly - blood-grouping was done, and Tutankhamen and two others
proved to have A2 - which, according to Diop ought to have made them
Europeans!
Frank
Coleman E. Howard
difficult decision to make. Are they willing to let this nation
inevitably become a Third World society, or are they willing to stand
up and fight, while they still can, for their heritage, traditions, and
values?
Multi-Culturalism and "Diversity" are lies. The non-White birthrate,
coupled with massive immigration (both legal and illegal) and racial
intermarriage, will reduce the founding people of America into a
minority in our own nation. As the racial composition of America
changes, so will America. Our children and theirs will live in an
America where alien cultures and values will not simply be present, but
will dominate us.
It may be politically-incorrect to state it, but this alien influxis a
disaster for our country, our people, and our families. Crime will
continue to escalate, as schools deteriorate, corruption increases, and
quality of life plummets.
One can see clearly the change coming by observing America's capitol,
where despite the federal flood of our tax money, brutal crimes of
violence, drugs, illiteracy, and corruption flourish.
This transformation is personified in the mayor of Washington, Marion
Barry. Barry was ousted in 1990 when, as DC's mayor, he was caught on
videotape, smoking crack cocaine in the hotel room of a prostitute. He
was convicted, but received very little jail time. Upon release, he ran
for the DC City Council and was elected! And after "serving" without
distinction on the DC City Council for one term, he ran for Mayor and
was elected!
Many other cities are also becoming unlivable. The city of New Orleans
has a young mulatto mayor who has fathered at least one illegitimate
child, and has been hospitalized for a drug abuse. He, too, was elected
by the overwhelming Black bloc. His first three years in office
correspond with a murder rate in New Orleans of more than 1-per-day
(city population just over 500,000).
Louis Farakhan (who is virulently anti-White) is the most popular Black
leader in America. He attracts the largest Black turnouts of any
"Afro-American" and although the "Million Man March" did not draw
enough devotees to live up to its name, the Muslim minister had still
orchestrated the largest Black demonstration in American history, a day
long orgy of anti-White hatred.
When the American people saw the LA riots and crowds of Blacks cheering
O.J. Simpson (who was acquitted by the almost all Black jury), they
received a peek into their future.
Could a Marion Barry or Louis Farakhan-type eventually become President
of the United States? Unthinkable? Remember that a Marion Barry as
mayor of our country's capitol, LA riots, and Affirmative Action also
would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago.
Most of the largest cities in America now have nonwhite mayors,
councils and judges. Many parts of the Southwest and sections of
American cities more closely resemble Mexico than "Anglo" America.
Check out Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, El
Paso, Houston, Miami, Midland-Odessa, Las Cruces, or Albuquerque.
Non-white majorities are now on the horizon in many states, with
California and Texas acutely in danger. However, it will not take a
numerical majority of aliens to bring us down, just a sizeable enough
minority.
It is not necessary to dwell too long on the implications for America.
The darkening of our nation mimics histories of many other nations. The
nations of the Caribbean, Central, and South America, are predictive
examples of the fate that awaits us. The Third World awaits our
children. It is on our streets, in our taxpayer subsidized housing
projects, in our jails, and in our mayor's chairs. Whites in Haiti once
produced most of the world's sugar and their nation was called the
"Jewel of the Caribbean." Most of them could not have imagined the
Haiti of today. Are we so short-sighted that we cannot see where
America is heading?
Great nations do fall. In history, every great nation which once graced
this planet with high civilization and great achievement - has fallen.
America though, is a young nation. We should be vibrant and entering
our greatest age. Instead our children grow up in an alien society that
our forefathers would not recognize.
The Government and the mass media have become enemies of the founding
heritage of this nation.
They support immigration quotas that are over 90 percent non-White.
They have made sure that we do not adequately enforce our laws and
protect our borders.
They have supported and financed (with our own tax money) a massive
non-White welfare birthrate that is producing chronic crime,
degenerated schools and cities, huge costs in welfare, medical care,
education, housing, policing, courts, and incarceration.
They have fostered intense discrimination against White people in jobs,
promotions, scholarships, college admissions and union hiring.
They have destroyed the quality of many of our schools, the civilized
quality of our major cities, and the safety of our neighborhoods with
forced integration and HUD subsidized housing.
They have attacked our heritage with an endless array of hate
literature, movies, and television that vilifies our White history,
character, values, and traditions.
They have hurt American businesses and workers, and are reducing the
overall standard of living and independence of the American people
through New World Order inspired trade policies such as NAFTA and GATT.
They have attacked our Christian values, heritage, and traditions.
We must strive to save our nation and its beseiged heritage. I will
fight to stop the massive immigration, and the welfare-financed,
illegitimate birthrates that are reducing us to a minority in our own
land. We must awaken our people of the disaster that looms before us,
and inspire them to join the fight for our survival.
We must fight to limit the power of the Federal Government that is
taking more and more of our hard-earned money and more and more of our
hard-won rights.
We must fight for personal responsibility. The welfare system that
proliferates the underclass and all its social ills must end as we know
it.
We must fight to limit overpopulation and protect our environment by
stopping illegal immigration and almost all "legal immigration" into
America.
We must fight for a simple and fair national sales tax to abolish the
income tax and the abusive IRS.
We must fight for the constitutional right of Americans to Keep and
Bear Arms.
We must fight for reform in the Political process by ending all large
political contributions and having free and open broadcast time and
debates for all qualified candidates.
We must fight for freedom of choice in education and in association by
ending forced busing and integration.
We must fight for an absolute end to the racial discrimination called
"affirmative action."
We must fight for fair trade and against agreements such as NAFTA and
GATT that hurt the American people.
We must fight for real freedom of speech for the American people not
just for the politically correct by ending the control of a few
conglomerates over the American media.
We must fight for America First by putting an end to foreign aid and
the New World Order.
Although the media has unfairly depicted us as racists and haters, we
are neither. For although I recognize the important inherent
distinctions between the races, I do not seek to oppress Blacks and
other minorities, nor do I hate them.
I do, though, have an abiding love for our White race and the
civilization and values that it created. I want my children and all my
descendants to live in a free and healthy society, not a Third World
hovel. I want to preserve the unique character and beauty of my people
the same way that, as an ecology-minded individual, I desire the
preservation of the Blue Whale or the great African Elephant.
I demand the same things for our progeny that all healthy people
throughout history have sought: the right for us to live and go on
generation after generation;
for our heritage to be enriched rather than degraded;
for us to be free and not constrained by tyranny;
for us to be safe and secure in our homes and when about in society;
for us to be happy and fulfilled, and not alienated in a culture
foreign to us;
for us to achieve all that our talents and abilities allow.
America is at the crossroads.
Now is the time for all real Americans to fight for these values.
Together we can secure the existence of our people, and a bright future
for our children.
I am asking for you to join our efforts to save our heritage and our
country.
"Tamer Abdelgawad" <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39C0618D...@yahoo.com...
Coleman E. Howard
Educators are puzzled by data which show that middle-class and
upper-income black students perform below levels achieved by
white students of comparable background.
o While students of all races do better if their parents
have more education, blacks whose parents have at least
one graduate degree averaged 191 points lower than whites
whose parents had the same amount of education, according
to an analysis of 1995 SAT scores.
o Blacks whose parents had no high school diploma averaged
137 points behind whites whose parents had none.
o Thus the gap between black and white performance is wider
at higher achievement levels than at lower levels.
o As for family income, blacks whose parents earned less
than $10,000 scored 183 points lower than whites with
similar backgrounds -- while those with family incomes
above $70,000 scored 144 points below whites from
comparable families.
Discussions with students, teachers, researchers and parents
reveal a multitude of theories to explain the disparity. The
explanations range from lingering racial inferiority complexes,
to peer pressure, low teacher expectations, curriculum, parental
involvement, access to information and vestiges of racism in
schools.
Educators and others who have long blamed socioeconomic
differences for lagging performance by black students are
reportedly uncomfortable talking about the evidence that academic
achievement among black parents and higher black household income
are not having the desired effect on their children.
"This is not something that a lot of people feel comfortable
talking about," reports Edmund W. Gordon, a professor emeritus of
psychology at Yale University and the co-chairman of the National
Task Force on Minority High Achievement, formed in 1997 by the
College Board.
Some black students report that peer pressure keeps them from
speaking correct English or outperforming in the classroom.
Also, a national study asked students to name the lowest grade
they could take home without their parents becoming angry. Black
students consistently named lower grades than Asian, white or
Hispanic students.
Source: Pam Belluck, "Reason is Sought for Lag by Blacks in
School Effort," New York Times, July 4, 1999.
"Tamer Abdelgawad" <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39C06351...@yahoo.com...
Coleman E. Howard
Black Racism
By Ying Ma
In what passes for discussions on race these days, small problems are often
blown up large, while real traumas are completely ignored. For instance,
despite what President Clinton's "Race Initiative" panel has said, the very
rawest racial conflicts in present-day America don't even fit into the tidy
mold of white-majority-oppressing-colored-minority that activists constantly
promote. Though civil rights groups and most of the media studiously ignore
this fact, the nation's most fractious racial battles are now conflicts
between minority populations. Particularly horrific is the animosity
directed at Asian Americans by blacks in low-income areas of urban America.
At age ten, I immigrated from China to Oakland, California, a city filled
with crime, poverty, and racial tension. In elementary school, I didn't wear
name-brand clothing or speak English. My name soon became "Ching Chong,"
"Chinagirl," and "Chow Mein." Other children laughed at my language, my
culture, my ethnicity, and my race. I said nothing.
After a few years, I began to speak English, but not well enough to trade
racial insults. On rides home from school I avoided the back of the bus so
as not to be beaten up. But even when I sat in the front, fire crackers,
paper balls, small rocks, and profanity were thrown at me and the other
"stupid Chinamen." The label "Chinamen" was dished out indiscriminately to
Vietnamese, Koreans, and other Asians. When I looked around, I saw that the
other "Chinamen" tuned out the insults by eagerly discussing movies,
friends, and school.
During my secondary school years, racism, and then the combination of
outrage and bitterness that it fosters, accompanied me home on the bus every
day. My English was by now more fluent than that of those who insulted me,
but most of the time I still said nothing to avoid being beaten up. In
addition to everything else thrown at me, a few times a week I was the
target of sexual remarks vulgar enough to make Howard Stern blush. When I
did respond to the insults, I immediately faced physical threats or attacks,
along with the embarrassing fact that the other "Chinamen" around me simply
continued their quiet personal conversations without intervening. The
reality was that those who cursed my race and ethnicity were far bigger in
size than most of the Asian children who sat silently.
The racial harassment wasn't limited to bus rides. It surfaced in my high
school cafeteria, where a middle-aged Chinese vendor who spoke broken
English was told by rowdy students each day at lunch time to "Hurry up, you
dumb Ching!" On the sidewalks, black teenagers and adults would creep up
behind 80-year-old Asians and frighten them with sing-song nonsense:
"Yee-ya, Ching-chong, ah-ee, un-yahhh!" At markets and in the streets of
poor black neighborhoods, Asians would be told, "Why the hell don't you just
go back to where you came from!"
When it came time for college, I left this ugly world for a beautiful school
far away. Finally, it was possible to pursue a life without racial
harassment backed by the threat of violence. I chose not to return to my old
neighborhood after college, but I am often reminded of the racial
discrimination I endured there. On a bus not too long ago I saw a black
woman curse at a Korean man, "You f---ing Chinese person! Didn't you hear
that I asked you to move yo' ass? You too stupid to understand English or
something?"
In poor neighborhoods across this country Asians endure daily racial hatred
just as I did. Because of their language deficiencies, their small size,
their fear of violent confrontations, they endure in silence. Unlike me,
many of them will never depart for a new life in a beautiful place far, far
away. So each day they grow more bitter against a group that much of America
refuses to acknowledge to be capable of racism: African Americans.
In a fair and peaceful world, racial harassment will be decried without
regard to its source. The problem today is that prominent black leaders rule
out even the possibility of black racism. Activists like Al Sharpton and
Jesse Jackson intone that racism equals "prejudice plus power," and that
since blacks in America lack power, they are simply not capable of
practicing racism against anyone. John Hope Franklin, chair of President
Clinton's race panel, angrily insists that racism is something suffered, not
dished out, by blacks. Many black professors, writers, polemicists, and
politicians repeat the same mantra. What might appear to be black racism,
writes syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, actually boils down not to racism
but to acts of crime and rudeness from the perpetrators, and tough luck for
the recipients.
Rationalizers of black racism ignore the fact that identical actions
inflicted by whites would be universally decried as intolerable. Ultimately,
their arguments simply grease the skids for further traumatizing of
"unlucky" victims. And to real-life casualties of racial animosity,
motivation is not especially relevant. Loss is loss. Pain is pain.
Unfortunately, Asian Americans-and especially their leaders-have failed to
speak out on this matter. Complaints from wounded individuals regularly boil
into public view, however. In mid-August, I attended a crowded press
conference held in New York's Chinatown to discuss Indonesia's history of
discrimination against ethnic Chinese (which peaked this May in a wave of
bloody anti-Chinese riots). One woman at the event began to hysterically
scream out her frustrations over black American racism against Asians. The
woman, Mee Ying Lin, shouted, "Chinese suffer from racial discrimination by
blacks every day. We should help persecuted Chinese overseas, but why is no
one dealing with our own troubles in America?"
Rose Tsai, head of the San Francisco Neighbors Association, and candidate
for a seat on the city's Board of Supervisors, suggests that everyday Asians
rarely defend themselves against ghetto racism because "Asian culture is
just not that confrontational.. Asians are unlike blacks who got to where
they are in politics by being militant."
Tsai explains that Asian involvement in politics is at a nascent stage, that
it is difficult for her organization even to convince Asian immigrants to
vote, let alone make a political stink against racial harassment. "Asians
are just not used to standing up for our own rights," says another Bay Area
Chinese activist with frustration.
That might explain the quiescence of recent immigrants who speak imperfect
English. But what about the growing cadre of Asian activists? They are far
from passive or non-confrontational. In just the past two years,
organizations like the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the National
Asian-Pacific American Legal Consortium, the Organization for Chinese
Americans, and others have voiced loud condemnations of "racism" in American
society. But they have focused on events like the recent investigation of
Asian donors of illegal campaign funds, the Republican opposition in
Congress to Bill Lann Lee's nomination as director of the Office of Civil
Rights, a cover drawing for National Review that showed the President, Vice
President, and First Lady dressed in Manchurian garb, and even a recent
cover photo for this magazine that showed a handsome Asian male scowling
angrily at the camera.
If vocal Asian activists are able to work themselves into a frenzy attacking
everyday political tussles and editorial cartoons for their alleged racist
motivations, they are obviously capable of confrontation. Why then do we
never hear these national activists condemning black racism against Asians
in our inner cities?
Some Asian-American activists say the reason they have not confronted
anti-Asian racism among blacks is because the tension does not exist on the
national level, but is merely confined to some local areas. Karen Narasaki
of the National Asian-Pacific American Legal Consortium claimed in a recent
interview that black animosity is different in each city and ought to be
handled differently in each case by local organizations. David Lee,
executive director of one such local organization, the San Francisco Voters
Education Committee, concurs: "There may be a few communities and a few
areas where tensions exist-so it is better for community groups rather than
a national organization like the Organization of Chinese Americans to deal
with such problems."
Representatives of national Asian organizations also cite resource
constraints to explain their quiescence. They say black-Asian clashes are
not a serious enough national issue to expend scarce time and money on.
There is a difference, however, between not being able to expend effort and
not wanting to. Asian activists on the national level also matter-of-factly
justify black racism in inner cities as a direct result of competition
between Asians and their black neighbors over limited economic resources.
Narasaki, while acknowledging she is not an inner city expert, insists that
many black and Asian conflicts "have to do with the lack of economic
opportunities" in cities. Echoing this refrain, Stanley Mark, program
director of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, asserts that "we can't
talk about race without talking about economic disparities."
In this vein, Asian activists consistently mention that racial problems
occur when Asian merchants move into predominantly black neighborhoods and
flourish. The vicious year-long black boycott of a Korean store in Brooklyn
in 1990, and the looting and burning of Korean stores in south-central Los
Angeles during the 1992 Rodney King riots serve as shining examples of
conflicts linked to economic disparities.
The excuse of economic disparities fails miserably to justify violence and
harassment, however. For some observers, it also brings up memories of Nazi
persecution of Jews, African attacks on Indian merchants, and recent
murders, rapes, and robberies of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. All of these
atrocities were committed against people deemed economically well off by
larger masses facing difficult times.
In any case, the economic disparities rationale falls apart in the many
instances where racism flourishes in the absence of class differences. At
San Francisco's Hunter's Point public housing complex, for instance,
low-income Southeast Asian residents, who are in the minority, have
consistently encountered racial harassment from their black neighbors.
Racial slurs, physical threats, violence, and destruction of property have
festered for years. Philip Nguyen of the Southeast Asian Community Center,
who has worked on the case for years, notes that there are no economic
differences between the Asian and black families in the complex. The Asians,
he says, are very quiet and have made every effort to befriend the black
residents, yet serious friction has persisted for ten years.
Joe Hicks, executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations
Commission, painstakingly tried to bring blacks and Asians together after
the Rodney King riots. He believes that "much of the hostilities are due to
blacks' jealousy of Asian economic success, a sense of alienation, and the
self-perpetuating belief that blacks will always lose out in the racial
equation in America." He adds that "certainly economics gives a basis to
many of the problems," but asserts that "even if tomorrow we can have a
level playing field for both racial groups, we would still have animosity
and racial strife" because prejudices would still remain.
Asian activists who are not otherwise inclined to ignore prejudice are often
strangely anxious to apologize for black racism. In interviews, they note
that Asians harbor many prejudices against blacks too. This explanation,
however, has no power to explain the kind of harassment I and many others
like me experienced as young immigrant children beginning life with no
animus toward anyone.
Asian prejudice toward blacks surely exists. But whatever biases might be
harbored in the minds of Asian immigrants, many of whom had never seen a
black person before arriving in the U.S., they certainly don't rate at the
level of destroying black people's property, scaring their elderly folk, or
threatening and assaulting their children-the kinds of pressures Asians in
many urban areas now endure routinely. Asian youths in particular typically
start out with little or no inclination to distrust or dislike African
Americans. Young Asians are usually far more willing than their parents to
accept a new country and new friends, including black ones. In many cases,
it was only after innumerable frightening chases, assaults, and humiliations
that Asian attitudes toward blacks turned defensive. Those of us whose open
minds were confronted with hostility and hatred will never accept the
insulting assertion that our suffering resulted from our own prejudices.
It seems that leaders of the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Asian
American Legal Defense Fund, and related groups are disconnected from the
real concerns of many of the Asians they claim to represent. David Lee,
whose Bay Area organization is attempting to promote local dialogue among
minority journalists, believes that a fundamental disconnection exists
between the national Asian spokesmen and the new majority of Asians who are
recent immigrants. The prominent Asian civil rights leaders, he notes, tend
to be American born, to speak little of their ethnic languages, and to be
unable to read the local ethnic newspapers. Many of them do not know or
understand the problems in low income areas, because they live comfortable
middle-class lives. And so "it is not surprising that they are silent about
black-on-Asian discrimination," Lee summarizes.
Bong Hwan Kim, executive director of the Korean Youth and Community Center
in Los Angeles and an active member of the Black-Korean Alliance that
attempted to bring African- and Korean-Americans together in the eight years
before the south-central riots, describes a disconnection in the Korean
community between first-generation immigrants and acculturated second
generation residents with less familiarity with inner-city life. After the
shops of Koreatown were looted or burned, he reports, the more suburbanized
Koreans pushed inter-ethnic bridge-building efforts, while the
first-generation immigrants who toiled in menial jobs, bridled at having to
sit across the table from those who looted and burned their property.
Meanwhile, few of the prominent national Asian organizations even condemned
the violence perpetrated against Koreans in L.A.
Stanley Mark of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund argues in defense of
the national Asian organizations that people hear less from the Asian
leaders about black-on-Asian racism than white-on-Asian racism simply
because there is less of the former than the latter. Mark insists he knows
of no case where an Asian was seriously hurt or killed by a racist black
American.
Underlining the disconnect between national and local perceptions, Liu
Yu-xi, an organizer of the New York coalition of Chinese Americans that
mobilized hundreds of thousands of normally politically apathetic Chinese to
protest Indonesian violence against Chinese residents, chuckled at Stanley
Mark's ignorance of cases of black racism. Liu, who has known of many
racially motivated physical attacks against Chinese in New York, observes,
"Such crimes are reported often in the local Chinese papers, but the
national Asian activists obviously do not know how to read Chinese."
When asked why prominent Asians have said little about racial harassment by
African Americans, Bill Tam of San Francisco's Chinese Family Alliance
flatly stated, "I think they are afraid to say anything." To him, it appears
that Asian leaders are often fearful of the national black leadership.
National Asian organizations generally follow the lead of black civil rights
groups like the naacp so slavishly, another Bay Area activist told me, that
even when the latter's stances (for instance, on quotas and preferences) are
opposed to the interests and beliefs of many Asian citizens, the Asian
activists don't challenge their allies.
Rose Tsai of the San Francisco Neighbors Association was a little more
blunt: "Most Asian leaders do not wish to acknowledge that there exists a
problem because they do not want the minorities to fight amongst
themselves." As a result, national Asian spokesmen speaking for their
brethren are without any inkling of the real problems they face, or what
kind of racism is dragging them down. Recognizing the complex issues between
blacks and Asians, Philip Nguyen of the Southeast Asian Community Center has
a simple proposal: "Fight, not against or for any group, but against racial
discrimination."
Ying Ma, who immigrated to the United States in 1985, is a research
associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
http://www.theamericanenterprise.org/taend98c.htm
>Vandal Watcher <Vandal_Watch@No_Liberal.B.S.com> wrote in message
>news:37bce644...@news.enteract.com...
>> Black hate and violence know no barriers. All
>> nationalities and races are legitimate fodder for black
>> hate, and, therefore, also hated by knee-jerk liberal
>> "agendists," such as those in the Boston Housing
>> Authority, who claim the symbol of the shamrock is in
>> the same class as the swastika and confederate flag.
>> * * *
>> In Los Angeles, Koreans and other Asians are fair
>> game in the minds of blacks for murder and violence ;
>> in Boston it's now the Irish.
>>
>> http://www.enteract.com/~jps/vandals/bha-shamrock.html
>>
>> The Vandal Watch
>>
>> http://www.enteract.com/~jps/vandals/vandal.html
>
>
"Tamer Abdelgawad" <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39C0735A...@yahoo.com...
Tamer Abdelgawad
>
> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > However, one thing you *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made
> > repeatedly by Smiley (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
>
> To say that Egyptians have been Egyptians as long as there has been
> a country called Egypt is pretty obvious.
> However, if this statement meanst that the ethnic make-up of Egypt
> has remained the same throughout the millennia, then that's pretty
> much inaccurate.
[snip ...]
Please. I did not make the statement above in a vacuum. Nor did I make
it without explaining what I meant as precisely as possible. Do me the
courtesy of reading all that I wrote, not putting words in my mouth, and
answering my posts on a point-by-point basis.
If you just want to post your opinions, be my guest, but don't pretend
that you're *responding* to my arguments.
Osiris
frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
Frank,
I apologize for not being able to respond to your post point by point.
The time consuming efforts required for putting together a worthwhile
post are certainly beginning to outweigh the benefits of having my
thoughts critiqued in a scholarly fashion. Thoughts, incidentally,
which are not rock solid convictions, as you may believe, but
continually evolving as I acquire new evidence.
With that being said, I'll make a few comments below but can't promise
that I'll respond to your reply, if you choose to do so.
I realize this and consider it to be a pointless discussion. There are
simply too many ill-defined variables for anybody to be able to put
forth their claim with a large degree of certainty. Questions that can
never be answered may be extremely important. Questions such as: How
many soldiers of foriegn armies were garrisoned in Egypt for an
extended period of time and either married or impregnated Egyptian
woman? How many people over the last 2500 years migrated to Egypt from
non-Islamic, non-African countries but have now taken on the Arab and
Muslim identity? What was the population of Egypt before the Greeks
arrived (the Bible claims that the Egyptians would be slaughtered and
the remnant dispersed after the Babylonian invasion Jer. 46:25-26,
Ezek. 29: 10-14)? If that happened, as the Hebrews claimed, then how
did it effect the Egyptian ethnic makeup (You've mentioned on a usenet
thread that you're a Christian, so I thought you might find that info
interesting)? How could the Arab conquest so drastically alter the
ethnic composition of the Sudan but only marginally impact
the "phenotypic distribution" in Egypt?
Questions like these abound and the answers may also have a significant
bearing on the issue.
[snip]
I think you do and it's evident in the way that you portray
Afrocentrists. You seek to vilify Cheik Anta Diop at every turn and
have repeatedly claimed that he was a "psuedoscientific charlatan".
The errors in his work are nothing more than an indication of flawed
methodology and possibly overzealousness. They are NOT proof that he
fabricated evidence or that he willingly published work that he knew to
be in error.
If he was "white" and had the same views, the "rigorousness" of his
scholarship would be questioned but it's doubtful that you would call
him a charlatan.
I believe that some of his work was inaccurate but also realize that
he, along with others, has contributed immensely to the study of Egypt
by forcing Egyptologists to reevaluate their ideas about Egypt and
present a much more balanced view. Not too long ago, Ancient Egypt was
seen as "white" but today most would call it "multiracial". That, IMO,
is largely due to Afrocentric opposition to the prevailing Eurocentric
view.
I haven't quoted *one* Afrocentrist. Not one. Even if I had, your
duty as an objective observer is to ascertain the reliablity of that
particular author and assess the merits of his arguments regardless of
his skin color or assumed bias.
You can label me an Afrocentrist if you wish. I don't believe that its
fitting and would prefer not to be labeled at all but I also realize
that the necessity to categorize people just seems to be a part of
human nature. The only thing that really matters is that you, and
others, address the issues raised in an honest manner.
[snip]
> Frank
Regards,
frank y hung
many of your assertions - you're a gentleman! More than can be said for some
of the posters on this NG
Best Wishes
Frank
Osiris wrote:
>
red...@my-deja.com
> > Western Asia and/or speak a Semitic language. Ethiopians are not
> > usually referred to as Semites but they do speak a Semitic language.
> > Confusing? Yes. Unscientific? Yes. But this is the way the word is
> > commonly used and it is in this context that the word was used in
the
> > above post.
> >
> > Egyptians are considered Semites today because they speak a
> > Semitic language and are descendant, in part, from Semites. The
> > evidence supports this view but many have denied the second part
> > of this statement.
> >
> > > Frank
> >
> > Osiris
> >
> sons, he being one of Noahs' baby boy's.
Biblical stories should be taken as theological stories, not accurate
historical events.
> Also in the koran it speaks of the notion that the langauge is
> an important tool in this very thread I believe it spoke to that
> point, well any way if I remember correctly and don't mangle the
> paraphrase to badly Gabrial relates to Mohamad that God wants it to
> be an Arab text for the Arab people so indeed the langauge is
> important which allows me to drop a favorite phase
> Words mean things :)
You are somewhat correct. The source of the proverb "Arabism is a
tounge, whoever speaks Arabic is an Arab" is basically the Koran. It is
called an "Arabic Koran" and in other verses "revealed in an Arabic
tongue." So what makes the Koran "Arabic" is that it was revealed in
an "Arabic tongue," not that it was intended for the Arabs only.
skippy
hahahahahahhahaaaa
"smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:140920001049281622%thest...@hotmail.com...
> In article <39c0d6be$0$1096@reader4>, Alex <vand...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > However, one thing you *cannot* argue about is the simple statement
made
> > > repeatedly by Smiley (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have
been Egyptian.
> >
> > To say that Egyptians have been Egyptians as long as there has been
> > a country called Egypt is pretty obvious.
> > However, if this statement meanst that the ethnic make-up of Egypt
> > has remained the same throughout the millennia, then that's pretty
> > much inaccurate.
>
>
> This is just another unsupported assertion!
>
>
> > Ancient Egypt was built upon the foundation of the pre-dynastic and
> > early Nile Valley cultures that are associated with ancient Nubia.
> >
> > As a result, their ethnicity then (and to a considerable extent still
> > today) is closely aligned with that of the people further south
> > in the Nile Valley.
> > Ancient Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language, the origin of which
> > is in the area of Somalia/Ethiopia/The Sudan.
> >
> > This origin is also extremely clear when looking at the AE's depictions
> > of themselves, and especially clear in their facial features.
>
>
> That is YOUR opinion!
>
>
> >
> > However, especially from the New Kingdom onward, there was a
> > small but steady influx of Levantines and Aegeans into Egypt,
> > in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
>
>
skippy
"Shadly @home.com>" <lwilloughby4<NOSPAM> wrote in message
news:Ubbs5.15728$Sh4.1...@news1.rdc1.ne.home.com...
> Why all of this Racial stuff? It is tired.
>
> Besides, I see it as their own faults
> that they became slaves. They obviously did not fight for their freedom,
or
> they would never have become slaves. (I would willingly fight to the death
> to ensure freedom for future generations)
>
> If people were willing to stand up for themselves then slavery would never
> have happened. Instead my ancestors had to make a stand for them.
>
Something tells me that this guy spends way too much time watching those
made for t.v. *based on a true story* movies.
This guy must need to recharge his brain at the end of each day.
Sherif Elshafei
between any humans in general based on color.. diffrentiation between ppl
based on color, religion or ethenicty..etc has only been embraced and made
legal by caucasians.. examples are clear when we look at the history of
caucasians wanderers (e.g. Dutch and Purtogese..etc) in their sea trips
(for example to the Philipines, east african coast..etc) More recent the
german and english (anglosacksons) in south africa.. and more and more
recent the americans who are considered sons of caucasian)..
On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, Neville Lindsay wrote:
>
> "smiley" <thest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:100920001837130919%thest...@hotmail.com...
> > Amenophixsssssssssssssss claims more AFROCENTRIC HORSESHIT:
> > [afrocentric junk deleted]
> >
> > We DON'T have to prove ANYTHING!
> >
> > The fact remains that:
> >
> > EGYPTIANS were and are always Egyptians.
> >
> > Whether you like it or NOT!!
> >
> > --
> > :-)
>
> Cunning Unutterable always starts this line 'Egyptians are Africans'.
> Well .... I suppose if you look at an atlas, Egypt is in the continent of
> Africa, so I suppose they are Africans in the geographic sense.
> 'See', he jumps in, 'they are BLACK'.
> If you object, he then says 'prove they aren't'.
> If you object further, then comes the abuse. A would-be schoolyard bully,
> who tries to stand over, and when this fails, gets the sulks, then pops up
> again in a couple of weeks with the same line. Never answers the challenge
> of forgetting trying to hijack the non-black Egyptian high-civilisation and
> talk about a genuine black one of world standard. Silence, and waiting for
> another opportunity to get back into the tired old piracy act again.
>
> NL
>
>
>
Coleman E. Howard
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
THE MODERN VERSION
___________________
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving. CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC show up
to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the
ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America and the world is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
is allowed to suffer so?
Then a representative of the NAAGB (National Association of Green
Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with "green bias", and
makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years
of greenism.
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody
cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS
Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do
everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the
prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the
Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the "Temperatures of the
80's."
Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the
ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an
immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act".
Retroactive to the beginning of the summer, the ant was fined for
failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having
nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by
the government.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happens
to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know
how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the
TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food,
they are showing Bill Clinton and Janet Reno standing before a wildly
applauding multituede of federal employees announcing that a new era
of "fairness" has dawned in America.
http:
//users.erols.com/cehoward/
"Tamer Abdelgawad" <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39C197D3...@yahoo.com...
Coleman E. Howard
THE MODERN VERSION
___________________
http://users.erols.com/cehoward/
"Osiris" <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8ptauu$q46$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
frank y hung
Osiris wrote:
>
> In article <39C121B0...@sbu.ac.uk>,
> frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Frank,
> I apologize for not being able to respond to your post point by point.
> The time consuming efforts required for putting together a worthwhile
> post are certainly beginning to outweigh the benefits of having my
> thoughts critiqued in a scholarly fashion. Thoughts, incidentally,
> which are not rock solid convictions, as you may believe, but
> continually evolving as I acquire new evidence.
>
> With that being said, I'll make a few comments below but can't promise
> that I'll respond to your reply, if you choose to do so.
I also feel that maybe we're both using up too much time on this. So, like
you, I'll just make a few comments, without necessarily expecting a reply.
> > As far as most of the rest of the Arab conquest of the lands, the
> only thing
> > we have to go on is "guesswork", since we have no reliable and
> comprehensive
> > statistical records about the number of "Arab" settlers vis-a-vis the
> native
> > population numbers. Hence, although you say:
>
> I realize this and consider it to be a pointless discussion. There are
> simply too many ill-defined variables for anybody to be able to put
> forth their claim with a large degree of certainty. Questions that can
> never be answered may be extremely important.
That's it in a nutshell. This means that scholars may get very different
answers depending on their differing assumptions. That doesn't matter so long
as they acknowledge their assumptions, and the fact that others may, quite
validly, have very different assumptions. This doesn't mean however that all
assumptions have equal validity.
> Questions such as: How
> many soldiers of foriegn armies were garrisoned in Egypt for an
> extended period of time and either married or impregnated Egyptian
> woman? How many people over the last 2500 years migrated to Egypt from
> non-Islamic, non-African countries but have now taken on the Arab and
> Muslim identity?
Indeed. And also: How many people from African countries have now taken on
the Arab and Muslim identity? If we are talking about "Africans" in general,
then the Maghrebis represent a large group of "Africans" who seem to have done
so - since they are largely Berber in "racial" terms. But "Black Africans "
are also involved in this (see below).
> What was the population of Egypt before the Greeks
> arrived (the Bible claims that the Egyptians would be slaughtered and
> the remnant dispersed after the Babylonian invasion Jer. 46:25-26,
> Ezek. 29: 10-14)? If that happened, as the Hebrews claimed, then how
> did it effect the Egyptian ethnic makeup (You've mentioned on a usenet
> thread that you're a Christian, so I thought you might find that info
> interesting)?
Yes, I'm a Christian, and I do have a high view of the historicity of the
Bible - but I am not a fundamentalist. It's quite clear to me that the Hebrew
Bible (Old Testament) recounts in many places what is simplified, idealised
history. For instance, it seems pretty certain that when it tells of the
Israelites being taken into captivity (ten tribes in 722BC by the Assyrians,
and the other two in 587BC by the Babylonians), this only refers to a minority
of the people (perhaps only part of the ruling and intellectual classes).
And with regard to the two passages you quote - note that they are both
*prophecies*. Now the characteristic of prophecies in the Bible is not that
they would inevitably come to pass, but that unless something was done to
avert them, they would happen. This is very clear in many "prophetic"
passages, the Book of Jonah being a good example. In quite a number of cases
the motivation behind the prophecy seems to be largely to encourage the
Israelites when they are in great difficulties - undergoing persecution,
facing a crisis etc. Thus it's not true that just because something is
prophesied in the Bible, the Hebrews/Israelites actually believed that it
*had* happened.
In any case, neither of the passages you quote, even if taken as a description
of what had happened, would support your thesis of large changes in the
Egyptian ethnic makeup. The Jeremiah passage prophesies that "those who rely
on Pharaoh" will be handed over to the Babylonians, but again, as with the
Israelites this may only refer to a small proportion of the population. And,
most importantly, Jeremiah immediately goes on to say that "Later, however,
Egypt will be inhabited *as in times past*". No sign of great change there.
The Ezekiel passage is even more explicit in this. Although it does prophesy
that Egypt will be uninhabited for 40 years, it goes on immediately to say
"...At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations
where they were scattered. I will bring them from captivity and return them
Upper Egypt...". Incidentally, anyone who wants to propose that Ezekiel is
prophesying something which actually literally happened will have to point to
a period of 40 years, after the mid-6th.century BC, in which Egypt was totally
uninhabited. AFAIK, no one has found any evidence of such a remarkable
period.
> How could the Arab conquest so drastically alter the
> ethnic composition of the Sudan but only marginally impact
> the "phenotypic distribution" in Egypt?
How drastically did the Arab conquest alter the ethnic composition of the
Sudan? Most of the Arabs in the Sudan look very unlike the original Arabs of
West Asia - in fact most of them look like the local type of "Black African"
(Nubians, Beja, Somali etc.), which is what, "racially", they very probably
are. In fact, Somalia represents an earlier stage in this process of
"Arabization", since, while Somalis are now overwhelmingly Islamic, and regard
themselves as partly Arabic in identity, they remain almost completely
Somali-speaking, and Somali in "racial" type.
It is true that the people of the Arabic Islamic north of the Sudan do look on
average rather different from those of the Christian/Animist south, but that
is quite likely a reflection of a basic indigenous difference going back well
before the Islamic conquest. Note that the Nubians, Beja, and Somalis,
although on average quite dark in skin colour, all otherwise look more "North
African" than do the various southern Sudanese peoples (Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer,
Shankalla etc.). There may be some indication that the AE recognized this,
since Cushite Nubians are sometimes clearly distinguished (narrower noses,
thinner lips) from other "Black Africans".
Even if it could be shown that the Arab conquest, which probably involved
relatively few "racial" Arabs, did have a considerable effect on the ethnic
make-up of the northern Sudan, this wouldn't necessarily mean that it had
anything like the same effect in Egypt. Note that Egypt has always had a
relatively much larger population than the northern Sudan - thus any invading
group would have had less "racial" effect in Egypt than in the Sudan, unless
the number of invaders who settled and intermarried in Egypt were very much
larger.
> > > I'd also like to point out that the Nubian population in Egypt in
> 1990
> > > was 160,000 and the Greek population was 350,000 out of 65,000,000.
Incidentally, if this figure of 160,000 for declared Nubians in Egypt in 1990
is correct, it would be further evidence for the continuing assimilation of
Nubians into Egypt. When the High Aswan dam was being built in the 1960s a
considerable number of people, almost all Nubians, were displaced from their
homes and settled further downstream. I have seen a figure of 800,000 given
for the number displaced. If this figure is anywhere near accurate, this would
mean that there were *at least* 800,000 Nubians in Egypt as a whole in the
'60s - perhaps many more than this, since there would have been many Nubians
already settled in the rest of Egypt. For 800,000 plus in the '60s to reduce
to 160,000 in 1990, while the population of Egypt experienced a massive
*increase* over the same period, suggests very strongly that the Nubians are
continuing to do what they probably have been doing for millennia - becoming
culturally fully Egyptianized, and ceasing to be identifiably Nubians.
> > But I do feel there is one difference between you and me in all this.
> It is a
> > difference which pervades all of our discussions on AE and Africa.
> >
> > I actually have no strong ideological position on AE.
>
> I think you do and it's evident in the way that you portray
> Afrocentrists.
Well, if you want to think I have a strong ideological postion on the AE,
that's your privilege, but my portrayal of Afrocentrists should have nothing
to do with it.
Because I oppose many of the beliefs and theories of the Afrocentrists, who
certainly do have a very strong ideological stance on the AE, does not mean
that I must thereby have a strong rival ideological viewpoint. (An analogy - I
strongly disagree with the theories of extreme rightwing Racists, but that
doesn't mean that I'm an extreme leftwing socialist)
And my main reason for opposing Afrocentrism, at least of the Diopian variety,
isn't actually because I basically dislike Afrocentric ideology - it's because
all Afrocentrists I have come across use pseudoscientific methods (as do
Eurocentrists), while believing, or pretending to believe, that their
arguments are scientific.
> You seek to vilify Cheik Anta Diop at every turn and
> have repeatedly claimed that he was a "psuedoscientific charlatan".
> The errors in his work are nothing more than an indication of flawed
> methodology and possibly overzealousness. They are NOT proof that he
> fabricated evidence or that he willingly published work that he knew to
> be in error.
While I think that you are over-charitable about the characteristics of Diop's
work, I have not accused him of "fabricating evidence" or of "willingly
publishing work that he knew to be in error".
The problem may lie in the word "charlatan". This word actually has a number
of meanings, not all of which imply dishonesty of the sort you are reading
into it. Perhaps I ought to be more careful in using the word in future to
avoid misunderstanding. However I must say that the word "charlatan", when
*not* implying dishonesty, does imply culpable ignorance - which is why I used
a word which is actually ambiguous about motivation.
> If he was "white" and had the same views, the "rigorousness" of his
> scholarship would be questioned but it's doubtful that you would call
> him a charlatan.
Don't try to mindread! Actually I think I would be more likely to call him
even worse things if he were a "white" Euro-(or Afro-)centrist, as I would be
less likely to excuse him for his actions (if that's "double-standards", then
so be it in this case - while I find Afro-centrism and Euro-centrism equally
unacceptable from a *scientific* viewpoint, I have rather more sympathy with
the sort of motivation which produces Afrocentrism among "blacks" - given the
racist contempt with which they are so often viewed).
> I believe that some of his work was inaccurate but also realize that
> he, along with others, has contributed immensely to the study of Egypt
> by forcing Egyptologists to reevaluate their ideas about Egypt and
> present a much more balanced view.
You may have a point, but I believe that you grossly underestimate Diop's
mistakes/wrongdoings, and at the same time overestimate his contribution
towards making Egyptologists present a more balanced view of AE.
"Some of his work was inaccurate" doesn't begin to describe it. The vast
majority of Diop's work was scientifically worthless - baseless assumptions,
faulty evidence, flawed methodology, etc.etc. The examples of this are so
numerous that it would be painful to go on about it, but I'll just quote in my
next post two examples which do deal with human biology, a field I have been
both a student in, and formerly also professionally involved. I'm afraid it
will have to be my next post, as I've once again run out of time.
Best Wishes
Frank
unutte...@my-deja.com
frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>>Alex wrote:
>
>>>in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
>
>Cheikh Anta Diop is ignored by mainstream Egyptology today, not because
>he was an Afrocentrist, but because he was a pseudo-scientific
>charlatan.
**
**DIOP authored many books, researched extensively in Africa and
particularly on the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians, and you
call him a pseudo-scientific charlatan?
I believe you and a few others are negative towards DIOP because he's
EXPOSED the "mainstream Egyptologists" that you hold in high esteem to
be fraudulant authors of ancient Egyptian history. DIOP helped organize
a total offensive against the mentacidal project of "dishonest"
Egyptologists which had to be waged.
Charlatan is a word I'd use to describe a few people on this NG...but
hardly for DIOP.
>For instance, among other erroneous beliefs, he claimed that "whites"
>have no melanin in their skins (they do - some actually have quite a
>lot)
**
**What do you consider "quite a lot?" I happen to agree with DIOP and a
few other authors on the subject of Melanin and you're not even close to
describing what other experts had to say. Overall, Melanin is a chemical
trait found in most peoples of color, excluding White people. Sure,
there are small amounts of melanin found in many Whites, but hardly
"quite a lot" as you put it. I'd like to know what your source or
reference is for such a statement while you denounced DIOP as a quack...
>,and that the AE were closely related to the peoples of West Africa
>because they both had blood group B, which is, according to Diop, an
>African characteristic. In fact group B is found over most of the
>world. He also claimed that blood group A2 was an European
>characteristic, and pushed for the Cairo Royal mummies to
>be blood-grouped, obviously (over-)confident that the group A2 - which
>is rare anywhere - wouldn't turn up.
>
>Rather amusingly - blood-grouping was done, and Tutankhamen and two
>others proved to have A2 - which, according to Diop ought to have made
>them Europeans!
>
>Frank
**
**It's hard to take stuff like this serious without providing some type
of source or reference for your claims. Your sentence directly above
sounds like a bad interpretation, on your part. I just can't buy into
someone's opinion when they fail to provide proof of their statement(s)
for one to even [consider] to believe...
Unutterable One
unutte...@my-deja.com
Katherine Griffis
alt.history.ancient-egypt, wrote the following:
R.G. Harrison, R. C. Connolly and A. Abdalla. "Kinship of Smenkhkare and
Tutankhamen Demonstrated Serologically." (Nature 224, October 25,
1969): 325-326.
SUMMARY: [Quote]
"The results of these investigation suggest that both Tutankhamen and
Smenkhkare are blood group A2, and that they are both MN. It is
considered that these results are specific to the blood groups of the
individuals involved and not to microbial contamination for instance."
(325)
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Member, American Research Center in Egypt
International Association of Egyptologists
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.griffis-consulting.com
Reading mail from me in a Usenet group does not
grant you the right to send me unsolicited commercial e-mail.
All senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail will be
reported to their postmasters as Usenet abusers.
frank y hung
unutte...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> In article <39C12801...@sbu.ac.uk>,
> frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >Cheikh Anta Diop is ignored by mainstream Egyptology today, not because
> >he was an Afrocentrist, but because he was a pseudo-scientific
> >charlatan.
> **
> **DIOP authored many books, researched extensively in Africa and
> particularly on the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians, and you
> call him a pseudo-scientific charlatan?
Diop authored many books, "researched" in Africa, and particularly on the
subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians. So have such "scholars" as John
Anthony West and Murry Hope, who believe the intellectual elite of the AE were
blue-eyed blonds with extra-terrestrial connections!!! I would like to
emphasize here that I certainly do *not* believe in West and Hope's theories -
nor in the allied ones of such as Graham Hancock.
Diop's "researches" were not that *extensive*, since he was obsessed with a
few basic ideas (the AE were "Black Africans" related to the Wolof, AE was the
source of "Black African" culture etc.). His work is full of unsupported
assertions, unreliable evidence, and flawed methodology. The adjective
"pseudoscientific" fits most of his work perfectly. Since the word "charlatan"
can be ambiguous - and I have been misunderstood by others on this (I do *not*
mean to accuse Diop of deliberate dishonesty) - I will stop using it, but
"pseudoscientific" will remain.
> I believe you and a few others are negative towards DIOP because he's
> EXPOSED the "mainstream Egyptologists" that you hold in high esteem to
> be fraudulant authors of ancient Egyptian history. DIOP helped organize
> a total offensive against the mentacidal project of "dishonest"
> Egyptologists which had to be waged.
I do not hold "in high estem" any fraudulent authors of AE history. I am
"negative towards Diop" precisely because he was another such author. Yes, a
war was needed, and still needs, to be waged against "white" Racist
Eurocentric interpretations of history and archaeology, and not just with
regard to AE, but Diop and the Afrocentrists are going about it the wrong way.
They have taken up all the worst features of Eurocentric pseudoscience, and
adapted them for Afrocentric ends. Thus, from a genuine scientific viewpoint,
their work is largely worthless.
> >For instance, among other erroneous beliefs, he claimed that "whites"
> >have no melanin in their skins (they do - some actually have quite a
> >lot)
> **
> **What do you consider "quite a lot?" I happen to agree with DIOP and a
> few other authors on the subject of Melanin and you're not even close to
> describing what other experts had to say. Overall, Melanin is a chemical
> trait found in most peoples of color, excluding White people. Sure,
> there are small amounts of melanin found in many Whites, but hardly
> "quite a lot" as you put it. I'd like to know what your source or
> reference is for such a statement while you denounced DIOP as a quack...
Diop believed that "white" people don't have melanin in their skins. They do.
[I notice that you change your stance on this within two sentences: (see
above) "...Melanin is a chemical trait found in most peoples of color,
excluding White people. Sure, there are small amounts of melanin found in many
Whites..."]
As for "quite a lot" - it was Diop who described the amount of melanin he
purportedly found in the skins of the mummies he "studied" as at a level
"which is non-existent in the white races". That's all he ever reported. He
never published any data to support his assertions. And remember that he quite
erroneously believed that melanin wasn't present in the skins of "whites".
[And since he doesn't define the unscientific term "white", all that one could
conclude from his assertions, even *if* they were accepted in their entirety
(which no true scientist could do - given that absolutely no data were
produced) is that he means that the AE had darker skins than the average
European. Hardly surprising - and far from showing that the AE were "Black
Africans".] So, in the context of this discussion "quite a lot" means simply
"rather more than Diop thought that 'whites' had". If you want to define
"quite a lot" in quantititive terms - go ahead - and then we'll see how
"blacks", "whites" and the AE fit into the schema. Without this, I can still
point out that average skin colour in north Africa is not greatly different
from that in southern Europe - and I presume that most people would accept
Greeks, Spaniards, Sicilians etc. as "white". If you don't accept the amount
of melanin in these people's skins as "quite a lot" - well then, neither did
the AE have "quite a lot".
As for "Diop and a few other authors" and your "experts" (Please quote some
refs.), how knowledgeable are they about physical anthropology and human
biology? If their knowledge is little or no greater than Diop's, their
testimony is largely worthless. And what real data have they published to show
that the AE were "Black Africans"?
For support for my viewpoint - just go to any reliable scientific work on
human biology or physical anthropology. Here's one for starters: Alice Brues
"People and Races" (1977) chapter 5, pages 87 - 97.
> >,and that the AE were closely related to the peoples of West Africa
> >because they both had blood group B, which is, according to Diop, an
> >African characteristic. In fact group B is found over most of the
> >world. He also claimed that blood group A2 was an European
> >characteristic, and pushed for the Cairo Royal mummies to
> >be blood-grouped, obviously (over-)confident that the group A2 - which
> >is rare anywhere - wouldn't turn up.
> >
> >Rather amusingly - blood-grouping was done, and Tutankhamen and two
> >others proved to have A2 - which, according to Diop ought to have made
> >them Europeans!
> >
> >Frank
> **
> **It's hard to take stuff like this serious without providing some type
> of source or reference for your claims. Your sentence directly above
> sounds like a bad interpretation, on your part. I just can't buy into
> someone's opinion when they fail to provide proof of their statement(s)
> for one to even [consider] to believe...
Katherine Griffis has provided the ref. for Tut's blood group. As for Diop's
statements on blood groups and race, see the UNESCO General History of Africa
Vol.II Ancient Civilizations of Africa (1981 & 1990), pages 20 and 37, for
starters. On p.20 Diop writes "It is a notable fact that even today Egyptians,
particularly in Upper Egypt, belong to the same Group B as the populations of
Western Africa on the Atlantic seaboard and not to the A2 Group characteristic
of the white race prior to any cross-breeding". I invite you to take this, and
Diop's other statements on blood groups, melanin etc., to any reliable,
knowledgeable human biologist, and see what she/he makes of them. You could
almost say that these statements, in themselves, cast considerable doubt (to
say the least) on Diop's competence to say *anything* worthwhile about the
"race" of the Ancient Egyptians.
Frank
frank y hung
frank y hung wrote:
>
("Osiris" wrote)
> > > > I'd also like to point out that the Nubian population in Egypt in
> > 1990
> > > > was 160,000 and the Greek population was 350,000 out of 65,000,000.
>
> Incidentally, if this figure of 160,000 for declared Nubians in Egypt in 1990
> is correct, it would be further evidence for the continuing assimilation of
> Nubians into Egypt. When the High Aswan dam was being built in the 1960s a
> considerable number of people, almost all Nubians, were displaced from their
> homes and settled further downstream. I have seen a figure of 800,000 given
> for the number displaced. If this figure is anywhere near accurate, this would
> mean that there were *at least* 800,000 Nubians in Egypt as a whole in the
> '60s - perhaps many more than this, since there would have been many Nubians
> already settled in the rest of Egypt. For 800,000 plus in the '60s to reduce
> to 160,000 in 1990, while the population of Egypt experienced a massive
> *increase* over the same period, suggests very strongly that the Nubians are
> continuing to do what they probably have been doing for millennia - becoming
> culturally fully Egyptianized, and ceasing to be identifiably Nubians.
I've re-read the sources, and from this it appears that the number of Nubians
re-settled in Egypt in the 1960s as a result of the Aswan High Dam Reservoir
was about 400,000 - the other 400,000 or so being re-settled in the Sudan.
Even this lower figure would still point to large numbers of Nubians becoming
so Egyptianized that they disappear from the record - if the figure of 160,000
Nubians in Egypt in 1990 is correct.
Frank
Coleman E. Howard
<unutte...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8q6si6$eg6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Coleman E. Howard
"Katherine Griffis" <k.gr...@griffis-consulting.com> wrote in message
news:8n1esss0cbk2iihom...@4ax.com...
Eye Contact
unutte...@my-deja.com
>
>In article <39C12801...@sbu.ac.uk>,
>frank y hung <hun...@sbu.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>he was an Afrocentrist, but because he was a pseudo-scientific
>>charlatan.
>**
>**DIOP authored many books, researched extensively in Africa and
>particularly on the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians, and you
>call him a pseudo-scientific charlatan?
>Diop authored many books, "researched" in Africa, and particularly on
>the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians. So have such "scholars"
>as John Anthony West and Murry Hope, who believe the intellectual elite
>of the AE were blue-eyed blonds with extra-terrestrial connections!!!
<snip>
**
**I certainly wouldn't compare DIOP to scholar(s) asserting the AE were
blue-eyed blonds with extra-terrestrial connections! It's like comparing
apples to oranges...it doesn't fit - so you ought to quit!
Pseudo-Scientific, BTW, fit most contemporary scholars and historians
who have written on Ancient Egypt - speculating and theorizing each
opinions, therefore <your opinion> that DIOP 'fits into this same
category' is acceptable. Nonetheless, DIOP has contributed many
important facts and findings in the field of Egyptology...
Diop's "researches" were not that *extensive*, since he was obsessed
with a few basic ideas (the AE were "Black Africans" related to the
Wolof, AE was the source of "Black African" culture etc.). His work is
full of unsupported assertions, unreliable evidence, and flawed
methodology.
**
**I disagree with your opinion that his researches weren't that
extensive, especially in view of exposing your disapproval of DIOP's
interest in proving a Black African relationship to the Ancient
Egyptians. In fact, DIOP has gone farther than prove a kinship between
the AE and other Black Africans and I intend on pushing forward with
(t)his information, with or without the approval of others.
You say his work is full of unsupported assertions, unreliable evidence
and flawed methodology yet I don't see where you provided even one (1)
example of your accusation. Besides, DIOP has authored many books,
surely you can't mean what you say for ALL of his works...
>The adjective "pseudoscientific" fits most of his work perfectly. Since
>the word "charlatan" can be ambiguous - and I have been
>misunderstood by others on this (I do *not* mean to accuse Diop of
>deliberate dishonesty) - I will stop using it, but "pseudoscientific"
>will remain.
**
**And I repeat:
Most contemporary scholars and historians in regards to ancient Egypt
would fit into that same category...Pseudoscientific.
>I believe you and a few others are negative towards DIOP because he's
>EXPOSED the "mainstream Egyptologists" that you hold in high esteem to
>be fraudulant authors of ancient Egyptian history. DIOP helped organize
>a total offensive against the mentacidal project of "dishonest"
>Egyptologists which had to be waged.
>I do not hold "in high estem" any fraudulent authors of AE history. I
>am "negative towards Diop" precisely because he was another such
>author.
**
**Let the truth be told. You say above that "you do not mean to accuse
Diop of deliberate dishonesty" yet its clear that you've placed him
amongst the fraudulent authors of AE history, as you confirm above.
(EURO-sinTRICKs.) To <denounce the messenger> and totally <dismiss the
message> irregardless of the numerous other contributions he has given
in the field of Egyptology. For those of us who are of African descend,
we can appreciate Dr. Diop's hard work and efforts.
>Yes, a war was needed, and still needs, to be waged against "white"
>Racist Eurocentric interpretations of history and archaeology, and not
>just with regard to AE, but Diop and the Afrocentrists are going about
>it the wrong way. They have taken up all the worst features of
>Eurocentric pseudoscience, and adapted them for Afrocentric ends. Thus,
>from a genuine scientific viewpoint, their work is largely worthless.
**
**First you claim that Diop and "the Afrocentrists" are going about it
the wrong way...and have taken up all the worst features of "Eurocentric
pseudoscience" and yet once again - you left us <empty> of any examples
of your claim...thus making your viewpoint - LARGELY WORTHLESS.
>>For instance, among other erroneous beliefs, he claimed that "whites"
>>have no melanin in their skins (they do - some actually have quite a
>>lot)
>**
>**What do you consider "quite a lot?" I happen to agree with DIOP and a
>few other authors on the subject of Melanin and you're not even closeto
>describing what other experts had to say.Overall, Melanin is a chemical
>trait found in most peoples of color, excluding White people. Sure,
>there are small amounts of melanin found in many Whites, but hardly
>"quite a lot" as you put it. I'd like to know what your source or
>reference is for such a statement while you denounced DIOP as a
>quack...
Diop believed that "white" people don't have melanin in their skins.
They do. [I notice that you change your stance on this within two
sentences: (see above) "...Melanin is a chemical trait found in most
peoples of color, excluding White people. Sure, there are small amounts
of melanin found in many Whites..."]
**
**Thank you for pointing this out. Making myself clearer...the small
amount of melanin found in many Whites pertains to the "color" of their
HAIR, eyes, and in some cases - skin color. Ever notice how some whites
have tans (they look shiny and copper-brown...) while most whites burn.
They burn like hell! The Doctors all say - stay out of the sun!
The example I've provided above is an example when there is a LACK OF
melanin in the skin. Therefore, MELANIN is what gives living animals (in
particular, homo-sapiens) a COLOR, thus a protection against the harsh
ultra-violet rays of the sun. While Black people maintain the highest
levels of melanin, whites on the other hand maintain the lowest amounts
and its usually a small amount (i.e. dark hair/eyes).
>As for "quite a lot" - it was Diop who described the amount of melanin
>he purportedly found in the skins of the mummies he "studied" as at a
>level "which is non-existent in the white races". That's all he ever
>reported.
**
**Surely you're not crying over spilled milk. Hell, I never learned of
any of the great civilizations of Africa in my school days. All I know
what they "taught" about Black people, was that Blacks were Slaves and
that's how our history started. <this is what our "eduma-cational"
system taught in the public schools...> Nowadays, many of us waste time
with racist idiots who run around and repeat this false garbage like
cackling parakeets...
So because DIOP happened to leave out information for your better
understanding, its possible you either missed it or some other good
explanation, but to dismiss DIOP entirely based on your
dissatisfaction - without proof...is hilarious.
>He never published any data to support his assertions. And remember
>that he quite erroneously believed that melanin wasn't present in the
>skins of "whites". [And since he doesn't define the unscientific
>term "white", all that one could conclude from his assertions, even
>*if* they were accepted in their entirety (which no true scientist
>could do - given that absolutely no data were produced) is that he
>means that the AE had darker skins than the average European. Hardly
>surprising - and far from showing that the AE were "Black Africans".]
>So, in the context of this discussion "quite a lot" means simply
>"rather more than Diop thought that 'whites' had".
**
**This argument is weak. I'd suggest...reading a bit more information on
melanin before espousing DIOP as some quack, er, charlatan based on your
misunderstanding of what melanin is, and how it works overall.
>If you want to define "quite a lot" in quantititive terms - go ahead -
>and then we'll see how "blacks", "whites" and the AE fit into the
>schema. Without this, I can still point out that average skin colour in
>north Africa is not greatly different from that in southern Europe -
>and I presume that most people would accept Greeks, Spaniards,
>Sicilians etc. as "white". If you don't accept the amount of melanin in
>these people's skins as "quite a lot" - well then, neither did the AE
>have "quite a lot".
**
**Aaaaahhhh...I see you have proven the point I've already made - some
whites have melanin, while most do not. But <hardly> is their melanin
content QUITE A LOT in comparison to his BLACK counterpart - wouldn't
you agree??? If Diop pointed out the similarities between the AE and
other Blacks, then I'd say you have DIOP mistaken.
>As for "Diop and a few other authors" and your "experts" (Please quote
>some refs.), how knowledgeable are they about physical anthropology and
>human biology? If their knowledge is little or no greater than Diop's,
>their testimony is largely worthless. And what real data have they
>published to show that the AE were "Black Africans"?
**
**In due time I can provide what you ask, but you'll need to give a
little to get a little...
>For support for my viewpoint - just go to any reliable scientific work
>on human biology or physical anthropology. Here's one for starters:
>Alice Brues "People and Races" (1977) chapter 5, pages 87 - 97.
**
**Why can't you just provide a sample of her "reliable scientific work"
in your response so that we can all be our own judge of it. But please,
spare me the paper chase...
Frank
**
**As to your very last statement, I'd say the same about you...minus the
babble about Blood Groups. This is an example of academic and
unscientific little "hurdles" that Black people often need to jump
through to prove any relationship between Blacks of Africa and the
Ancient Egyptians of Africa - debating on "Blood Groups" and "melanin
content" when the ancient Egyptians made it quite clear who they were
when they painted themselves DARK SKINNED, often portraying their GOD'S
they worshipped - BLACK AS COAL and always wearing their traditional
BRAIDS.
All the hurdles...and d.e.c.e.p.t.i.o.n.
Katherine Griffis
soc.culture.egyptian, wrote the following:
>unutte...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>**It's hard to take stuff like this serious without providing some type
>>of source or reference for your claims. Your sentence directly above
>>sounds like a bad interpretation, on your part. I just can't buy into
>>someone's opinion when they fail to provide proof of their statement(s)
>>for one to even [consider] to believe...
<frank hung>:
>Katherine Griffis has provided the ref. for Tut's blood group. As for
>Diop's statements on blood groups and race, see the UNESCO General
>History of Africa Vol.II Ancient Civilizations of Africa (1981 &
>1990), pages 20 and 37, for starters. On p.20 Diop writes "It is a
>notable fact that even today Egyptians, particularly in Upper Egypt,
>belong to the same Group B as the populations of Western Africa on the
>Atlantic seaboard and not to the A2 Group characteristic of the white
>race prior to any cross-breeding". I invite you to take this, and Diop's
>other statements on blood groups, melanin etc., to any reliable,
>knowledgeable human biologist, and see what she/he makes of them. You
>could almost say that these statements, in themselves, cast considerable
>doubt (to say the least) on Diop's competence to say *anything*
>worthwhile about the "race" of the Ancient Egyptians.
<unutterable1 responded>:
>**
>**As to your very last statement, I'd say the same about you...minus the
>babble about Blood Groups. This is an example of academic and
>unscientific little "hurdles" that Black people often need to jump
>through to prove any relationship between Blacks of Africa and the
>Ancient Egyptians of Africa - debating on "Blood Groups" and "melanin
>content" when the ancient Egyptians made it quite clear who they were
>when they painted themselves DARK SKINNED, often portraying their GOD'S
>they worshipped - BLACK AS COAL and always wearing their traditional
>BRAIDS.
Well, this certainly flies in the face of your earlier statement where
you were saying Frank Hung hadn't provided any references or scientific
evidence, and berating him as unbelievable for not citing references.
Once given such references or evidence, it is _you_ who absolutely go
ballistic on him, label his statements and citations as "Eurocentric,"
and merely repeat jingoistic statements which have no basis in fact (and
have been shown to have been false time and again).
You ignore whatever evidence you have been given which you could easily
read and respond in the "scholarly" fashion you always claim that you
require. It's no wonder why Afrocentrism has a reputation as a pseudo
science, as Hung indicates.
However, there is ample _scientific_evidence for the diversity of
peoples in Africa as well, and have so since ancient times, which lays
false your claim that later "variations" to the ancient Egyptian
population as seen in their artistic representations are due to
"invading" peoples altering the "true African" nature of the Egyptians.
As S.O.Y. Keita, a geneticist, has pointed out:
"The diversity of Africans, includes ancient Egyptian and Berber
speakers, is real and largely indigenous [thus, not traced to "later"
invasion of peoples from the north, as Afrocentrism scholars have liked
to claim - KGG]. An evolutionary perspective helps use understand why
Modern Homo sapiens have lived in Africa longer than anywhere else,
according to most scholars. The length of time means that more random
genetic mutations, the ultimate source of genetic variation, have
accumulated in Africa. Furthermore, Africa is climatically and
ecologically diverse. This favors diversification by Darwinian
selection. The continent is large, which allows for greater movements
and fissioning of populations. This promotes genetic variation, since
small portions of larger populations rarely accurately represent the
range of genetic variations in a larger group, whether it is ancestral
or exists at the same time.
<...>
Admixture with non-Africans probably does not explain the bulk of
variation from Algeria to South Africa, although Northern Africa was
more affected in this regard. At the DNA level great African
continent-wide diversity preceded the minor European and Near Eastern
migrations of later Holocene times...Even 'new' 'non-African' genes
would be subject to the human and physical environment of Africa and
hence would become reworked, thereby becoming part of the African
biohistory, just as recent tropical African genes have been processed in
Greece, Sicily and Portugal. In any case, it is important to reiterate
that Africa equals diversity. Evolutionary theory predicts and
extrapolations from molecular analyses and skeletal remains all indicate
an early and ongoing diversity in the indigenous populations of Africa.
The implication of this is the terms like 'Negro,' 'Caucasian,'
'Hamite,' etc. are misleading and unscientific as applied to Africa."
"The Diversity of Indigenous Africans," S.O.Y. Keita, _Egypt in Africa_,
Theodore Celenko, (ed.), (Indianapolis Museum of Art: Indianapolis,
1996), p. 103-104.
In the same volume of _Egypt in Africa_, the article, "The Geographical
Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians,"
S.O.Y. Keita and A.J. Boyce (both of Oxford University), states, as
noted in other works that genetically, "Native Egyptians were variable.
Foreigners added to this variability." (p. 28). This supports Hoffman's
findings of population diversity in Egypt as well, as show in his work,
Michael Hoffman, _Egypt Before the Pharaohs_, 1979:260 ff., 310 -313,
noted above.
FWIW, Egyptian gods were, throughout most of Egyptian history, portrayed
as gold-skinned (and were described as gold-skinned throughout, as a
symbol of divinity). Cosmic gods were portrayed sometimes with blue
skin, as signifying their connection with the sky and stars. Osiris was
the main god portrayed as either green or black, and more the former
than the latter. The coloration of /km/ [black] and /wAdj/ [green] are
signs of resurrection, and production of new life, as in crops. Osiris
was, and has always been, acknowledged as a grain god, for example, and
so, this coloration refers to his _function_ in Egyptian art, and not
his "ethnicity."
Coloration of Egyptian gods with red-brown russet [or 'human'/Egyptian]
coloration in Egyptian art did not occur until the late 18th/19th
Dynasty, or about the time Unutterable1 would have one believe the
Egyptians were thoroughly "cross-bred" with "migrating" peoples. [See:
Message-ID: <8oq30u$hie$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, dated Sep 2, 2000, as one of
many examples of such statements by him, for example).
Again, for alt.history.ancient-egypt readers' use, I note a very good
discussion on the use and symbolism of color in Egyptian art can be
found in many publications on Egyptian art by Everson, Schafer, etc.
The most concise and recent description of color symbolism can be found
in _Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art_, Richard M. Wilkinson (Thames and
Hudson: London, 1994): 104-125.
frank y hung
post has often become mixed up with my post (in printing style).
unutte...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> unutte...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >**
> >**DIOP authored many books, researched extensively in Africa and
> >particularly on the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians, and you
> >call him a pseudo-scientific charlatan?
[Frank Hung wrote]
> >Diop authored many books, "researched" in Africa, and particularly on
> >the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians. So have such "scholars"
> >as John Anthony West and Murry Hope, who believe the intellectual elite
> >of the AE were blue-eyed blonds with extra-terrestrial connections!!!
> <snip>
> **
> **I certainly wouldn't compare DIOP to scholar(s) asserting the AE were
> blue-eyed blonds with extra-terrestrial connections! It's like comparing
> apples to oranges
Well, at least they're both fruit :)
In context: you wrote "DIOP authored many books, researched extensively in
Africa, and particularly on the subject of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians,
and you call him a pseudo-scientific charlatan?" - as if the fact that Diop
had authored many books etc.etc. meant that, ipso facto, he could not be a
pseudo-scientific charlatan. I pointed out that others, such as West and Hope,
had also authored many books etc.etc., but that certainly didn't mean that
*they* weren't thereby pseudo-scientific charlatans - on which I expect you
would agree with me. To be fair then, one can't use the argument that Diop had
authored many books etc.etc. as a defence against accusations of any
pseudoscientific shenanigans on his part.
>...it doesn't fit - so you ought to quit!
So this statement is irrelevant - my point being not that Diop was necessarily
comparable to West, Hope etc., but merely that the "argument" you used to
defend Diop could also be to defend West, Hope etc., and was therefore
worthless.
> Pseudo-Scientific, BTW, fit most contemporary scholars and historians
> who have written on Ancient Egypt - speculating and theorizing each
> opinions, therefore <your opinion> that DIOP 'fits into this same
> category' is acceptable.
Well, that's *your opinion*. IMO the majority of *contemporary* scholars and
historians who have written on AE are honest researchers, seeking by as
scientific a way as is possible to reach the truth about AE. Yes, there is
inevitably a deal of speculation and theorizing, but in most cases the
methodology is at least scientific, and the evidence presented is balanced,
rather than highly selected. Of course there are a few who don't adhere to
these standards, and, yes, I would put them into the same category as Diop.
> Nonetheless, DIOP has contributed many
> important facts and findings in the field of Egyptology...
Very very few.
[Frank Hung wrote]
> Diop's "researches" were not that *extensive*, since he was obsessed
> with a few basic ideas (the AE were "Black Africans" related to the
> Wolof, AE was the source of "Black African" culture etc.). His work is
> full of unsupported assertions, unreliable evidence, and flawed
> methodology.
[unutterable1 wrote]
> **
> **I disagree with your opinion that his researches weren't that
> extensive, especially in view of exposing your disapproval of DIOP's
> interest in proving a Black African relationship to the Ancient
> Egyptians.
I *don't* disapprove of Diop's interest in "proving" a Black African
relationship to the Ancient Egyptians! What I disapprove of are the methods he
used to "prove" this - and especially of his passing off unscientific methods
of investigation and interpretation as scientific - that is the essence of
pseudoscience.
> In fact, DIOP has gone farther than prove a kinship between
> the AE and other Black Africans and I intend on pushing forward with
> (t)his information, with or without the approval of others.
Of course! If this is what you believe Diop has done, you have a perfect right
to push (t)his information forward, with or without the approval of others!
And of course, others then have the perfect right to explain that (t)his
information is a load of codswallop!
> You say his work is full of unsupported assertions, unreliable evidence
> and flawed methodology yet I don't see where you provided even one (1)
> example of your accusation.
I gave some! His highly erroneous views on melanin and blood groups, two
fields of study essential in his theorizing about the "race" of the AE. I
could add further examples from his linguistic and cultural "studies".
> Besides, DIOP has authored many books,
> surely you can't mean what you say for ALL of his works...
All of his work in the fields of which I know something (biology, archaeology,
linguistics, cultural anthropology), is full of unreliable evidence, flawed
methodology etc. This doesn't mean that all his conclusions in these fields
are necessarily wrong - but it would take an almost complete re-working of his
"studies" to determine what was or wasn't. This makes the vast majority of his
work scientifically worthless, as in most cases any new researcher might just
as well start back at square one.
(snip)
[unutterable1 wrote]
> >I believe you and a few others are negative towards DIOP because he's
> >EXPOSED the "mainstream Egyptologists" that you hold in high esteem to
> >be fraudulant authors of ancient Egyptian history. DIOP helped organize
> >a total offensive against the mentacidal project of "dishonest"
> >Egyptologists which had to be waged.
>
[Frank Hung wrote]
> >I do not hold "in high estem" any fraudulent authors of AE history. I
> >am "negative towards Diop" precisely because he was another such
> >author.
> **
> **Let the truth be told. You say above that "you do not mean to accuse
> Diop of deliberate dishonesty" yet its clear that you've placed him
> amongst the fraudulent authors of AE history, as you confirm above.
Let's put this into context. It was *you* who introduced the word "fraudulent"
to describe "mainstream Egyptologists". I will overlook the fact that the
great majority of contemporary mainstream Egyptologists, whatever their
individual failings, cannot fairly be described as fraudulent - and say that
there are a small number (and more in the past) whose methodology was/is
highly suspect. Whether this is due to *deliberate dishonesty*, I am not going
to debate here. However, as their methodologies are extremely similar to
Diop's - even though their "conclusions" may be very different - well, *if*
they are to be described as "fraudulent" then so is Diop to be so described.
But I wouldn't have used the word to describe either, without your use first.
> (EURO-sinTRICKs.) To <denounce the messenger> and totally <dismiss the
> message> irregardless of the numerous other contributions he has given
> in the field of Egyptology.
I "denounce" the messenger because he has provided ample proof that he is
untrustworthy as a messenger, and so his "message" becomes also suspect, since
it may bear little or no resemblance to the original "message" anyway.
> For those of us who are of African descend,
> we can appreciate Dr. Diop's hard work and efforts.
(snip)
> **
> **First you claim that Diop and "the Afrocentrists" are going about it
> the wrong way...and have taken up all the worst features of "Eurocentric
> pseudoscience" and yet once again - you left us <empty> of any examples
> of your claim...thus making your viewpoint - LARGELY WORTHLESS.
I could write a whole book on the pseudoscientific ways in which both
Eurocentric "white" Racists and Diopian Afrocentrists abuse and misuse
archaeology, human biology, linguistics etc. - and indeed I intend to do so
one day (after I've retired from full-time employment). I've certainly got
enough evidence to start doing so. I'll just again draw your attention to
Diop's laughably inadequate knowledge on such subjects as melanin, blood
groups, comparative linguistics etc.
(snip)
[Frank Hung wrote]
> Diop believed that "white" people don't have melanin in their skins.
> They do. [I notice that you change your stance on this within two
> sentences: (see above) "...Melanin is a chemical trait found in most
> peoples of color, excluding White people. Sure, there are small amounts
> of melanin found in many Whites..."]
[unutterable1 wrote]
> **
> **Thank you for pointing this out. Making myself clearer...the small
> amount of melanin found in many Whites pertains to the "color" of their
> HAIR, eyes, and in some cases - skin color.
No. Melanin in *all* whites, apart from full albinos, occurs in hair, eyes,
and *skin*
> Ever notice how some whites
> have tans (they look shiny and copper-brown...) while most whites burn.
Actually, the majority of "whites" tan and go brown (and in many cases quite
dark brown, yes, "copper-brown", like the AE mostly seem to have done), it is
the minority who don't tan. You are possibly misled by the fact that the
leading "white" countries in the world - and especially the USA - have large
numbers of whites who are descendents of English, Irish, Scandinavians,
Germans etc., who have a relatively high proportion of the sort of people who
don't tan very much - and even they have some melanin in their skins!
> They burn like hell! The Doctors all say - stay out of the sun!
Actually, all humans (except possibly the very darkest people with almost
jet-black skins) burn - it's just that fair-skinned people tend to burn more
easily. When the sun is at its strongest, Doctors would advise all people to
limit their exposure to it.
> ultra-violet rays of the sun. While Black people maintain the highest
> levels of melanin, whites on the other hand maintain the lowest amounts
> and its usually a small amount (i.e. dark hair/eyes).
Depends what you mean by "small". And again, not just hair and eyes , but
*skin*.
>
> >As for "quite a lot" - it was Diop who described the amount of melanin
> >he purportedly found in the skins of the mummies he "studied" as at a
> >level "which is non-existent in the white races". That's all he ever
> >reported.
> **
> **Surely you're not crying over spilled milk. Hell, I never learned of
> any of the great civilizations of Africa in my school days.
? What on earth is the relevance of these statements of yours????!!!!
I mention the simple fact that, concerning the amount of melanin in the skins
of the mummies he studied, Diop never reported anything other than that it
was, according to him, at a level "which is non-existent in whites", and
that's all he ever reported on *this*. You then accuse me of crying over spilt
milk - relevance escapes me - and start a rant about how *you* were never
taught properly at school!
Let's make one thing quite clear. I deplore the Eurocentric white Racist
outlook which used to dominate so much of history teaching in the west - and
to some extent still does. That's why, although from a scientific viewpoint I
cannot accept either Eurocentrism or Afrocentrism, I nevertheless have much
greater sympathy with the sort of psychological and sociological motivations
which drive Afrocentric theory. I fully understand why many "Black Africans"
and their descendants, would want to establish a glorious past for their
"race", seeing how that "race" has been degraded for centuries. The trouble is
that Diop and the Afrocentrists have gone about things entirely the wrong
way...
> All I know
> what they "taught" about Black people, was that Blacks were Slaves and
> that's how our history started. <this is what our "eduma-cational"
> system taught in the public schools...> Nowadays, many of us waste time
> with racist idiots who run around and repeat this false garbage like
> cackling parakeets...
...and the wrong way is to take up the same sorts of false methodology that
the "racist idiots" have used, to create an alternative pile of garbage and
run around repeating this like mindless automatons (sorry, I rather like
parakeets :))
> So because DIOP happened to leave out information for your better
> understanding, its possible you either missed it or some other good
> explanation,
Diop *never* published any scientific data to support his views on AE
mummy-skin melanin. There can be no *good* explanation for this - *if* he had
the data, why didn't he publish it? He had plenty of time and opportunity to
do so.
> but to dismiss DIOP entirely based on your
> dissatisfaction - without proof...is hilarious.
To dismiss a grand assertion by Diop because he provided no scientific data to
support it, is not a case of personal dissatisfaction - it is the inevitable
outcome of applying true scientific method to the matter at hand. The fact
that you dismiss this as "hilarious", suggests that you have little or no
appreciation of what scientific method actually involves.
Note that I do not say that Diop's grand assertion is *wrong*. What I say is
that he has not provided any scientific data to support his assertion, so for
the time being that's all it is - an unsupported assertion. When someone,
Euro-, Afro-, or any -centric, makes a grand assertion, it is up to that
person to prove his/her points. It is not up to the rest of us, who are not
making grand unsupported assertions, to disprove them.
(snip)
> >So, in the context of this discussion "quite a lot" means simply
> >"rather more than Diop thought that 'whites' had".
> **
> **This argument is weak. I'd suggest...reading a bit more information on
> melanin before espousing DIOP as some quack, er, charlatan based on your
> misunderstanding of what melanin is, and how it works overall.
OTOH, it is quite clear from your posts that it is *you* who needs to read up
more on melanin, as it seems that you have swallowed Diop's mistaken
assumptions wholesale. See below.
> >If you want to define "quite a lot" in quantititive terms - go ahead -
> >and then we'll see how "blacks", "whites" and the AE fit into the
> >schema. Without this, I can still point out that average skin colour in
> >north Africa is not greatly different from that in southern Europe -
> >and I presume that most people would accept Greeks, Spaniards,
> >Sicilians etc. as "white". If you don't accept the amount of melanin in
> >these people's skins as "quite a lot" - well then, neither did the AE
> >have "quite a lot".
> **
> **Aaaaahhhh...I see you have proven the point I've already made - some
> whites have melanin, while most do not.
I think you need to retake Logic 101 - or whatever it's called in your neck of
the woods. I can't see how what I wrote could possibly "prove" the point you'd
already made - especially, as I keep pointing out - your point, which was
Diop's, is *totally erroneous*.
So - for the umpteenth time - let me point out the situation with regard to
melanin in the skin, and add some further interesting points (these are all
mentioned in Alice Brues "People and Races" 1977, pp.87ff.)
(i) All people have melanocytes (melanin producing cells) in their skins.
(ii) The number of melanocytes is essentially the same for all colours of
skin.
(iii) The amount of melanin produced by each melanocyte differs from person to
person - it is this which is the principal way in which skin colours differ.
(iv) However the *only* people who do not produce any melanin in their skins
are true full albinos (who can occur in all "races" - including "Black
Africans") - those with "pink" eyes. *All* other people have melanin in their
skins.
(v) Skin colour is also affected by the way the melanin granules produced by
the melanocytes are distributed. If clumped into groups, the skin appears
lighter than if the granules are dispersed - hence two people with the same
amount of skin melanin can have markedly different skin colour.
(vi) Skin colour is also affected by the thickness of the stratum corneum.
(vii) All skin "tans" to some extent on exposure to sunlight. However very
pale individuals, especially those with red hair, may never develop enough tan
to withstand much exposure to the sun. In dark skins the tanning effect is
less noticeable to the eye, but is still present.
That's enough for now. Most crucial in this context is point (iii), on which
Diop, and you too it seems, were/are gravely mistaken.
So - I repeat, all "normal" (apologies to full albinos) people, including ALL
WHITES, HAVE MELANIN IN THEIR SKINS! Got it????
Note BTW that anyone who thinks (s)he can determine the skin colour of a
person by counting the density of melanocytes, is on a loser from the start.
> But <hardly> is their melanin
> content QUITE A LOT in comparison to his BLACK counterpart - wouldn't
> you agree???
Depends (i) on who is being described as "white" or "black" - these being
terms which actually have no scientific definition and (ii) that the melanin
content has actually been determined scientifically and the data published
properly.
But, for what it's worth, when I went to Greece, or when I see representative
numbers of Spaniards, Italians etc. I see many people who clearly would have
"quite a lot" of melanin in their skins.
> If Diop pointed out the similarities between the AE and
> other Blacks, then I'd say you have DIOP mistaken.
I'm not sure of what you're saying here.
If you're suggesting I'm mistaken about what Diop was trying to do in his
supposed study of AE mummy skins - well, I'm not. It's quite clear that he was
trying to claim that the AE had the same amount of melanin in their skins as
"other blacks".
If OTOH, you are asserting that Diop did actually prove such a similarity -
well, I'm afraid he didn't, and all you're doing is making one baseless
assertion about another.
> >As for "Diop and a few other authors" and your "experts" (Please quote
> >some refs.), how knowledgeable are they about physical anthropology and
> >human biology? If their knowledge is little or no greater than Diop's,
> >their testimony is largely worthless. And what real data have they
> >published to show that the AE were "Black Africans"?
> **
> **In due time I can provide what you ask, but you'll need to give a
> little to get a little...
I'll be interested to see *any real* data on this issue.
> >For support for my viewpoint - just go to any reliable scientific work
> >on human biology or physical anthropology. Here's one for starters:
> >Alice Brues "People and Races" (1977) chapter 5, pages 87 - 97.
> **
> **Why can't you just provide a sample of her "reliable scientific work"
> in your response so that we can all be our own judge of it. But please,
> spare me the paper chase...
I've already indicated what she says. And its pointless me or anyone else
posting refs. if you aren't going to be bothered to do some paper-chasing. I
know it may be very boring as compared with the pursuit of the glorious
Wolof-like "Black African" AE, but it's precisely such boring work which will
need to be done, by yourself and other Afrocentrists, if you are to get
anywhere near establishing your case in a scientific way. And it's only by
doing that, that you will get much of a hearing outside the circle of
confirmed Afrocentrist true believers. Otherwise most others will probably
conclude that the Diopian Afrocentrist view of the AE is just another
pseudoscientific myth, born of wishful thinking.
> >>Rather amusingly - blood-grouping was done, and Tutankhamen and two
> >>others proved to have A2 - which, according to Diop ought to have made
> >>them Europeans!
> >>
> >>Frank
> >**
> >**It's hard to take stuff like this serious without providing some type
> >of source or reference for your claims. Your sentence directly above
> >sounds like a bad interpretation, on your part. I just can't buy into
> >someone's opinion when they fail to provide proof of their statement(s)
> >for one to even [consider] to believe...
[Frank Hung wrote]
> Katherine Griffis has provided the ref. for Tut's blood group. As for
> Diop's statements on blood groups and race, see the UNESCO General
> History of Africa Vol.II Ancient Civilizations of Africa (1981 &
> 1990), pages 20 and 37, for starters. On p.20 Diop writes "It is a
> notable fact that even today Egyptians, particularly in Upper Egypt,
> belong to the same Group B as the populations of Western Africa on the
> Atlantic seaboard and not to the A2 Group characteristic of the white
> race prior to any cross-breeding". I invite you to take this, and Diop's
> other statements on blood groups, melanin etc., to any reliable,
> knowledgeable human biologist, and see what she/he makes of them. You
> could almost say that these statements, in themselves, cast considerable
> doubt (to say the least) on Diop's competence to say *anything*
> worthwhile about the "race" of the Ancient Egyptians.
>
> Frank
[unutterable1 wrote]
> **
> **As to your very last statement, I'd say the same about you...minus the
> babble about Blood Groups.
This would be highly amusing if it weren't rather sad :(
Diop introduces blood groups as another area where he claims he has evidence
for his views. I point out that, from *his own mouth* as it were, he reveals
that he has little or no knowledge of blood groups and their distribution, and
you dismiss this as "babble"? Blood groups, melanin etc. - these are *central*
features in Diop's "proofs" of his views. You could claim that I am wrong on
blood groups etc., and Diop was right - and if so, you would have to provide
the *scientific* evidence for that - but what you shouldn't do is to dismiss
all this as "babble" - because it is of very great importance in determining
whether Diop has any scientific credibility in this particular field.
> This is an example of academic and
> unscientific little "hurdles" that Black people often need to jump
> through to prove any relationship between Blacks of Africa and the
> Ancient Egyptians of Africa
No - this is an example of the *scientific* hurdles which *anyone* of *any*
"race" would need to jump over in order to prove *any* theory in *any* field
of study, which could justifiably called *scientific*.
Diop makes much of blood groups and melanin in his arguments about the "race"
of the AE. To ask that his supporters now provide the scientific data, which
he never did, to support his theories, is not an impertinence, it is an
absolute necessity.
> - debating on "Blood Groups" and "melanin
> content" when the ancient Egyptians made it quite clear who they were
> when they painted themselves DARK SKINNED, often portraying their GOD'S
> they worshipped - BLACK AS COAL and always wearing their traditional
> BRAIDS.
Far better scholars than myself have demonstrated over and over and over
again, that the sort of thing you've just written is largely erroneous, and
totally misleading.
But again it's almost amusing that as soon as you come across some real
scientific facts which don't suit your case, you try to dismiss the subject by
retreating to a different field of study. In my experience that's about par
for the course for Afrocentrists.
> All the hurdles...and d.e.c.e.p.t.i.o.n.
And you talk about deception!
Frank
frank y hung
frank y hung wrote:
>
> So - for the umpteenth time - let me point out the situation with regard to
> melanin in the skin, and add some further interesting points (these are all
> mentioned in Alice Brues "People and Races" 1977, pp.87ff.)
>
> (i) All people have melanocytes (melanin producing cells) in their skins.
> (ii) The number of melanocytes is essentially the same for all colours of
> skin.
> (iii) The amount of melanin produced by each melanocyte differs from person to
> person - it is this which is the principal way in which skin colours differ.
> (iv) However the *only* people who do not produce any melanin in their skins
> are true full albinos (who can occur in all "races" - including "Black
> Africans") - those with "pink" eyes. *All* other people have melanin in their
> skins.
> (v) Skin colour is also affected by the way the melanin granules produced by
> the melanocytes are distributed. If clumped into groups, the skin appears
> lighter than if the granules are dispersed - hence two people with the same
> amount of skin melanin can have markedly different skin colour.
> (vi) Skin colour is also affected by the thickness of the stratum corneum.
> (vii) All skin "tans" to some extent on exposure to sunlight. However very
> pale individuals, especially those with red hair, may never develop enough tan
> to withstand much exposure to the sun. In dark skins the tanning effect is
> less noticeable to the eye, but is still present.
>
> That's enough for now. Most crucial in this context is point (iii), on which
> Diop, and you too it seems, were/are gravely mistaken.
Sorry. This should of course read "Most crucial in this context is point
*(iv)*, on which Diop ...etc."
Frank
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
Black Shoot out in Nightclub
A shoot-out between a patron and an armed security guard at Prichard
nightclub Leo's Lounge early Sunday killed one bystander and sent two
others to the hospital, authorities said.
No arrests had been made by Sunday evening, Prichard city spokesman
Harry McGadney said. He also said police did not know whether the
guard or the patron fired the shots that struck three young women.
The shooting was the third since July at a local nightclub. The city
of Mobile shut down the Curtis II Lounge and the Club on Fire after
shootings there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crime news and statistics | Speak your mind
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven people were wounded July 2 after a fight at the Club on Fire
spilled outside the downtown night spot and erupted into gunfire.
Three days later, a security guard was killed at Curtis' on Michigan
Avenue after an altercation among three men led to gunfire in the
parking lot.
The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board has since revoked both
clubs' liquor licenses.
In the latest shooting, Prichard police were called to Leo's Lounge on
Wilson Avenue at about 4 a.m. Sunday, McGadney said.
There, witnesses told them, three women had been shot after a security
guard and a patron had exchanged gunfire, he said. The women appeared
to have been walking out the front door during the shoot-out and were
not otherwise involved in the incident, he said.
The shoot-out began outside the club after the guard asked the patron
to leave, McGadney said. The patron had apparently been involved in an
altercation inside the club, he said.
By the time police arrived on scene, the patron had fled.
Killed was Christine Denson, 23, of Mobile. Takisha Todd, 19, of
Prichard and Keisha Law, 25, of Mobile, were also shot.
A spokesman for the University of South Alabama Medical Center said
Law was treated there and released and that Todd was listed in serious
condition Sunday evening.
Police declined to identify the guard involved in the shoot-out.
The fatal gunshot Denson suffered Sunday was the second time in as
many weeks that she'd been shot as an innocent bystander while out
partying, according to police and her family.
On the night before Labor Day, a man opened fire on a crowd of
partyers just a few blocks from Sunday's shooting. There, two young
men died and four people, including Denson, were injured. Denson, a
1996 Vigor High School graduate, suffered a minor gunshot wound to her
hand in that incident.
On Sunday, Leo Scott, who said he has owned Leo's Lounge for eight
years and that it has been in his family for 16 years, said he was in
his office above the bar when the gunfire broke out.
He said he keeps five security guards on duty on weekends - two
unarmed guards inside and three armed guards outside. His security
chief, who he identified as Billy Joe Wilson, told him that one of the
guards and a patron had exchanged gunfire outside the club and that
some people had been shot, he said. Scott said he did not know which
guard was involved in the shoot-out.
He said he has noticed a different clientele at his club in recent
weeks, since Curtis' and the Club on Fire were shut down, but wasn't
sure where the new customers came from.
"It's different," he said Sunday afternoon as a small crowd of
regulars drank beer and listened to jazz. "I know it's a different
crowd, but I can't really say it's coming from there."
He said Sunday's violence was the first serious incident he can
remember at the club. He acknowledged that an occasional drive-by
shooting occurs on busy Wilson Avenue just outside the club's front
door, but said no one ever gets hurt.
In fact, he said, someone had shot out a car's window in the club's
parking lot just a few hours before the fatal shooting, but he didn't
know if the two incidents were related.
Though some club patrons who would not give their names said Sunday
that guards pepper sprayed a man who was arguing with another man
inside the club immediately before the shooting, Scott said he knew
nothing about that.
Witnesses to July's Club on Fire incident said the shooting there was
also preceded by guards using pepper spray to break up a fight.
As police searched for the patron who fled from Sunday's shooting,
Denson's family gathered at their La Pine Drive home to remember the
23-year-old woman, who they described as an only child who grew up to
love children herself.
"She never let anything bother her," said her mother, Sylvia Denson.
"She loved kids. She never had one herself, but she always wanted one.
The kids loved her."
Denson said her daughter worked at a day care center and spent the
last five or six summers as a pool attendant at a local park. She said
Christine, who the family called Chrissy, worked at the "kiddie pool."
"She was playful," Denson said, as about a dozen family members and
friends gathered on her porch. "She just loved children."
"Something drew them to her," said Christine's aunt, Nellie Allen.
"They loved her."
She remembered her petite niece mostly for the things the young woman
loved.
"She was a neat little lady," the aunt said, gazing back in time. "I
can see her come to my house during the holidays. She loved sweets,
you know? She always wanted to know what I made. She just loved the
brownies."
Christine's mother said that her daughter was more of a follower than
a leader and that she had recently begun to hang around the wrong
crowd. She'd also been slacking off in attending church, Nazaree
Baptist, Denson said.
After the shooting incident two weeks ago, "She had promised she
wasn't going to go out anymore," Denson said.
"I hope they clear up who did it," Denson said. "I want to know what
happened."
And though the family wants to know exactly what happened, they said
they'll probably never know why.
"You know," said Allen, the aunt, "years ago my mother died. I kept
asking why. Why her? She was a good woman, never hurt anybody, went to
church. Then, the pastor said to me, 'If there was a big field of
flowers, which one would you pick? The most beautiful one.'
"God has picked the most beautiful flower."
On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:45:17 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <39C0735A...@yahoo.com>,
> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Osiris wrote:
>> >
>> > In article <8plvhj$7fr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > > In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > > Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A
>full
>> > 40%
>> > > > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>> > Sudan)
>> > > > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> > > >
>> > >
>> >
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > > > htm
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > The link says that 40% of Sudanese speak Arabic. That by itself
>is the
>> > > reason why they are Arabs, not that they are ethnically Arab.
>This is
>> > > based on the Proverb "Arabism is a tongue, whoever speaks Arabic
>is an
>> > > Arab." And that is why the Arab world is called the Arab world.
>> > >
>> >
>> > A direct quote from the site:
>> > "In 1983 the people identified as Arabs constituted nearly 40
>percent
>> > of the total Sudanese population and nearly 55 percent of the
>> > population of the northern provinces. In some of these provinces (Al
>> > Khartum, Ash Shamali, Al Awsat), they were overwhelmingly dominant.
>In
>> > others (Kurdufan, Darfur), they were less so but made up a
>majority. By
>> > 1990 Ash Sharqi State was probably largely Arab."
>>
>> From Merriam Webster Online:
>>
>> http://www.britannica.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
>>
>> Main Entry: Ar戢b
>> Pronunciation: 'ar-&b, 'er-; dial also 'A-"rab
>> Function: noun
>> Etymology: Middle English, from Latin Arabus, Arabs, from Greek Arab-,
>> Araps
>> Date: 14th century
>> 1 a : a member of the Semitic people of the Arabian peninsula
>> b : a member of an Arabic-speaking people
>
>
>Of course, here, the emphasis is on the first definition since there
>is a sizable percentage of distinctly identifiable Arabs, as the
>article states, from Arabia in the north of Sudan. That's not to say
>that many haven't mixed with the native population over the years, but
>there remains a large group of people who speak Arabic and look no
>different from Arabs in Arabia.
>
>> HTH,
>>
>> --
>> Tamer Abdelgawad
>>
>> "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless
>interaction
>> to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
>> -- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
>
>Regards,
>
>Osiris
Wayne Johnson
[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 9.17.2000]
AJC Southern Poll
Black women reveal discontent
in relationships with black men
By Jill Young Miller
Call them the women of discontent: Legions of African-Americans who
can't find suitable husbands or boyfriends, or whose mates disappoint
them.
RELATED STORIES
Author Donna Franklin says black men and women must be willing to
change.
Meet five black women, some single, some married.
A new poll of Southerners found that 62 percent of black women say
relations between the sexes have "gotten worse." Neither black men nor
whites of either sex have such a negative opinion of gender relations,
according to the poll, which was conducted for the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. (View a pop-up chart of poll results.)
The rumblings of discontent have been around for some time, but the
subject hasn't often been broadly discussed, in part because of
African-Americans' reluctance to add one more negative to the
community's image.
"I hate to report anything that can be construed against us as a
people," says Donna L. Franklin, a professor at Smith College's school
for social work. Nonetheless, she has written a provocative new book
exploring the rift. "We can't ignore that these problems exist any
more," she says. "Relationships between black men and women in America
are in crisis."
The AJC poll results provide another reason to examine the issue.
Asia Hudson, 20, a black secretary from Decatur, participated in the
survey. Last year, she had what she calls "the perfect boyfriend,"
someone more gentle and respectful than most other black men she has
met.
Hervey Pean / AJC photo
Asia Hudson's 'perfect boyfriend' was killed last year.
"He was the first guy that my parents accepted 100 percent," Hudson
says. "He asked me my opinion on things. He never raised his voice. He
never raised his hands. He was a true gentleman."
But last September, her boyfriend, a security guard, was shot dead
during his rounds at an Atlanta apartment complex. Adding to Hudson's
grief is the feeling that other suitable, eligible black men are few
and far between.
"I will never meet another person like that," Hudson says sadly.
"These days, men, boys and teenagers take women for granted. They feel
like they can walk all over them."
Black women aren't the only people with complaints about the opposite
sex. Disenchantment cuts across race and gender, with 43 percent of
white women and about half of black men and white men saying relations
are worsening. Yet the degree of grievance is substantially higher
among black women, and it's chronic. In a 1993 AJC poll of
Southerners, 68 percent of black women said relations had changed for
the worse. (The polls did not include large enough samples of other
races to make valid comparisons.)
The crisis spans the spectrum, from attempting to date, to forging
relationships, to marrying, to staying together. And it looms large
enough to rival racial discrimination in its damage to
African-Americans, Franklin says.
"If everything that we wanted in terms of a civil rights agenda were
given us, we still wouldn't move forward because of the personal
crisis we're in, in terms of our personal relationships with each
other," says Franklin, whose book is "What's Love Got to Do With It?
Understanding and Healing the Rift Between Black Men and Women."
"It's the thing that's really holding us back."
Says poll respondent Myra Malone, 33, a black security officer in
Houston who's separated from her husband of two years: "We just can't
seem to get along."
One problem is that there simply aren't enough black men to go around.
Black Americans are experiencing the largest gender imbalance since
the start of the U.S. Census, reports Larry Davis, a social
psychologist at Washington University.
"You have too few men with too few resources," he says. "So women, in
some respects, are really unhappy with men."
For every 100 black women living, there are about 85 black men,
according to a census estimate for 2000. One of many reasons: A black
man between 18 and 24 is eight times more likely to be slain than a
white man in the same age group.
But the imbalance is even more pronounced when you consider that many
black men, while living, are unavailable. More black men -- more than
a quarter million across the country -- are behind bars than in
college, according to census and U.S. Justice Department statistics.
Factoring in unemployment and drug addiction, the number of suitable
romantic candidates dwindles to about five black men for every 10
black women, estimates Davis, author of "Black and Single: Meeting and
Choosing a Partner Who's Right for You."
The upshot for many black women who want a black man in their lives is
loneliness and compromise.
"It's a very frustrating portrait," observes Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a
professor of women's studies and director of the Women's Research &
Resource Center at Spelman College. "There are large numbers of
African-American women who are voluntarily and involuntarily celibate,
and who are resigned in some sense to a life of being alone."
Some even resort to knowingly dating men who have another partner, be
it a wife or a girlfriend, she says. "I think that's the reality for a
lot of African-American women -- not what they want or they would
prefer, but what is happening."
The imbalance puts eligible Mr. Rights are at a distinct advantage.
"They have tremendous options," Davis says. "And so they're exercising
them. They're thinking, 'Why get married?'"
Louie Favorite / AJC photo
Professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall of Spelman College sees a 'frustaiting
portrait' for black women who want relationships with black men.
The numbers disparity doesn't explain everything. Even when black
women find men, they face challenges that their white counterparts do
not.
About two of every three black marriages ends in divorce, Davis says
his research shows, compared with one of every two white marriages.
And many who stay married aren't necessarily happy.
Forty-four percent of married black men admit to having been
unfaithful to their wives, almost double the percentage for white men,
Franklin reports from a 1991 study in a social research journal. A
black woman may be reluctant to leave her broken marriage, she says,
if she thinks her only option is to be alone.
Despite the implications for women, the male infidelity rate is
reflected and even celebrated in black entertainment media, as a twist
of the radio dial will attest. "There's a lot of misogyny in black
popular culture, particularly rap," says Guy-Sheftall.
Poll respondent Hope Creamer, 28, of Adairsville, says she tried to
stay in her marriage. But she felt her husband treated her
disrespectfully, and she wanted a healthier environment for their two
children. She's now divorced.
"My husband degraded me and made me feel like nobody else would want
me," says Creamer, an auditor at an outboard motor company.
"I want my kids to be exposed to something good," she says. But a new
man doesn't figure into the picture yet. "I have dated two people, but
I haven't brought them home to my kids. I'm really skeptical."
Orlando Patterson, a Harvard University professor of sociology, says
much of the disconnect between men and women goes back to slavery,
when plantation life fostered mistrust.
"The man had really no claims to his wife, no legally recognized
claims in the woman who was the father of his children," says
Patterson, author of "Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two
American Centuries."
"She could be violated -- and she often was by people in the
slaveholders' group -- and she couldn't turn to him for any kind of
protection. Don't misunderstand me, they had loving relationships. But
the relationships were based on solely their emotional bond to each
other; they didn't have any other thing sustaining it."
Vanessa Jackson, a therapist and director of services at the National
Mental Health Association of Georgia, says the enduring fallout makes
it hard for couples to communicate.
"We've had to blunt our feelings throughout much of our history and to
the present day to survive," she says. "If you're sad and you're
distressed and you're angry, either you're going to blow up on the
people that you love, or you're going to shut down."
Louie Favorite / AJC photo
Hope Creamer says she's skeptical about dating.
Some black men, in trying to avoid the stereotype of the angry black
male, won't express strong feelings, Jackson says. They are, she says,
"tiptoeing through life."
Contemporary forces are at work against black couples as well.
Many black women are raised to distrust black men, Franklin says. "My
parents have been happily married for about 58 years, but my mother
still gave me the message that you've got to be cautious, you've got
to be careful. I'm sure white women give their daughters that message,
too, but I think it's sort of different than the messages that black
women are given."
Says Bernard M. Porche, president of 100 Black Men of Atlanta,
"African-American men have been denigrated for a number of years, have
been castigated and put in a very negative light."
As with whites, recent generations of black women have had more career
opportunities than their mothers, and as with whites, this has
required a change in mindset at home. Sure, a man who can bring home
the bacon's a good thing. But women also want "companionship and
friendship in marriage," Guy-Sheftall says.
Yet some scholars say that black men have been slower to adjust. "They
still believe that in this hierarchy of males and females, that guys
should be in charge of the families," Davis says.
Black men's earnings are still higher, on average, than black women's.
But the gap between the two is smaller than for white men and women.
"With the whole discussion of affirmative action, a lot of males feel
that the females have a double advantage: They're black and they're
female," says Bruce Wade, an associate professor of sociology and
anthropology at Spelman College. "So there's some tension around that.
... It makes cooperation a little bit more problematic."
By another socioeconomic measure, black men are clearly losing ground
to black women: They are vastly outnumbered in college. As a result,
women with college degrees may feel the gender disconnects more
strongly than anyone else.
"What happens to these women when they graduate?" Davis asks. "They
can't find partners who have as much going as they do."
If a black man has a lower-status job than his wife does, the
imbalance can be "a major source of tension," says Joe R. Feagin,
president of the American Sociological Association and co-author of
"Double Burden: Black Women and Everyday Racism."
"In the majority of cases, black people just work this out and live
with it. But in a significant minority of cases, it creates enough
tension to break relationships."
Adds Jackson, "If my partner is working a marginal job and that's the
best he can do, that stuff comes home."
The higher that black women climb the career ladder, the fewer black
men available, Wade says. And their relationships with black men will
grow more strained, he predicts, not only because the numbers, but
also because of old, persisting attitudes among black men.
"If you have males expecting them to be submissive and subordinate to
them," Wade says, "that's going to create a lot of issues."
American culture is unequal, as well, in its opportunities for finding
a mate outside one's race.
Among black men 25-34, about 8 percent marry outside their race,
compared with fewer than 4 percent of black women. The limited
research on black interracial dating suggests that black men are about
three times as likely to date white women as are black females to date
white men.
One reason: Many black men have bought into the notion that female
beauty is based on white features, Franklin says.
But there are other, deeper-rooted factors.
"It's not just about the fact that the media bombards them with images
of blue eyes and blond hair," she says. "It's much deeper than that. I
tie it to Jim Crow and how black men were lynched for acting like they
were going to look at a white woman.
"If you hold up a white woman as the vanguard of beauty and as the
thing you really must have if you're going to be a 'real' man ... it's
predictable that the minute the Jim Crow laws ... were taken off the
books that black men in droves married white women."
Some black men give a different reason for seeking women of other
races -- and by extension imply that black women are partly
responsible for their own predicament. Many black women, they say,
exhibit a defensive, off-putting attitude.
When Gabriel Bailey was stationed in Germany with the Army, he visited
a bar where he wound up dancing with a white woman. Another American
soldier, a black woman, called him on it. Why, she wanted to know,
didn't he dance with her? Because, he told her, she turned away when
he had tried to talk with her earlier.
"My own sisters are strangers to me," says Bailey, who's now 30 and
living in Atlanta. A woman's race doesn't matter to him, he says, just
that she cares more about what's in his heart than in his wallet. "I'm
worthy," he says.
Because of the numbers imbalance, black women would seem to have a
stronger reason than men for seeking mates outside their race. But few
do, in part because men still tend to be the pursuers and the
culture's overriding beauty standard is stacked against black women,
Davis says.
Additionally, white men represent the historic oppressor, Guy-Sheftall
says. "It's much more complicated than, 'Well, black women just need
to broaden their pool.'"
Bridget Gray, 28, a legal secretary from Atlanta, isn't planning to
look beyond her race.
"I don't mind if my friends do it, as long as they're happy," she
says. "I don't think it's wrong, I just think it's wrong for me. I
just like my black brothers, I guess I am stuck with them."
If only there were enough to go around.
Staff writer Lyle V. Harris contributed to this article.
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 20:07:47 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <8plu9s$5tc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > In article <8pldni$g6r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > > In article <8pl0sr$1fh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > > Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > >
>> > > > From as early as the 8th C., Arabs have been arriving in Egypt
>and
>> > the
>> > > > Sudan and mixing with the locals. W.B. Bishai, in his book "The
>> > > > Transition from Coptic to Arabic", speaks of both the voluntary
>> and
>> > > > state-sponsored "mass settlement" of Arabs of *all* social
>strata
>> in
>> > > > Egypt.[1] M. Brett confirms this in his article "The Arab
>> Conquest
>> > > and
>> > > > the Rise of Islam in North Africa" and adds that the Bedouins
>also
>> > > > acted as muslim colonizers mixing heavily with the local
>> people.[2]
>> > >
>> > > Bullshit. The Arabs were forbiden from the begining to own land
>> > anywhere
>> > > outside of Arabia. After the conquests of Egypt the Arabs were
>split
>> > > into factions and were busy fighting each other. An Arabized Turk
>> > named
>> > > Ahmed Ibn Tulun split from the Arabs in Baghdad and established
>> > autonomy
>> > > in Egypt and Syria around the 8th centruy. When the Abbasis
>finally
>> > > regained control of Egypt, the Fatimids, whom I mentioned in the
>> > Nbuian
>> > > black pharoahs thread, sized control of Egypt and Syria and then
>> drove
>> > > the Abbasis out. Even the Abbasees ceased to be Arabs anymore and
>> > their
>> > > Army was composed mainly of Turks, and their style of rule were
>very
>> > > much Persian.
>> > >
>> > > After the Fatimids , An Arabized Kurds and Turks (Salaheldin)
>sized
>> > > control of Egypt in order to surround the Crusades.
>> >
>> > All of this is very interesting but nothing more than your personal
>> > opinion. I've supplied you with two books by historians that say
>> > that Egypt was settled by Greeks, Armenians, Arabs and Bedouins,
>> > among others. I can supply you with a dozen more if need be.
>> >
>> > Are you claiming that successive Arab governments did not
>> > have policies of Arabization which were designed to expediate
>> > the process of Islamization? Both in Egypt and the Sudan?
>> > The same process is still going on in the Sudan today.
>> >
>> > Either provide references to research on the subject by
>> > experts or explain why I should accept your opinion as being
>> > authoritative. Unfortunately, living in Egypt and/or being an
>> > Egyptian doesn't make you an expert on Egyptian history.
>>
>> Visit the following link and scroll down to read the Epilouge (to
>avoid
>> reading all 15 pages of it). It will give you an idea of what I am
>> talking about.
>>
>> http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html
>
>Again, interesting article red_sea but it didn't really
>contain any information relevant to our discussion. It
>spoke nothing of Egyptian ethnicity, demographics or
>even the early process of conversion to Islam in North
>Africa. The word Egypt only appeared 3 times in the
>whole article!
>
>You're welcome to try again but, IMO, you're on a futile
>mission.
>
>> > > It is a bad habit to rely on poor scholarship. The majority of the
>> > > Egyptians converted to Islam arround during the Ommayad rule, as
>> > > evidence from the shortage of the tax collection imposed on
>> > > non-Muslims.
>> >
>> > Poor scholarship? Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with the
>> > way you see it? Considering your past unsupported claims, I am
>> > unwilling to simply take your word as fact on anything.
>> >
>> > > Beduin Arabs may have migrated to Egypt because Egypt was
>certainly
>> > > richer, and the borders were very much open, but this is even
>truer
>> > > when it came to migration from Nubia and Sudan, especially in the
>> last
>> > > two centuries.
>> >
>> > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full
>40%
>> > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>Sudan)
>> > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> >
>>
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > htm
>> >
>> > Are you saying that more Arabs and Bedouins migrated to Sudan
>> > than did to Egypt? Did they all bypass Egypt and head straight
>> > for Sudan? If you are, then show me the proof that led you
>> > to this conclusion.
>> >
>> > The Sudanese situation, IMO, brings the whole issue into better
>> > perspective concerning migration to Egypt as well.
>>
>> Sudan and Moroco may have witnessed more Arab settlers than Egypt of
>> course, because they were kinda the end of the line of Arab conquests.
>> However, the Arabs in Sudan look Sudanese and the Arabs in Moroco look
>> Morocaons, the same way the Mongols in India look like indians.
>
>That's your opinion and my opinion, FWIW, is that the Arabs in
>Sudan do not look like "black" Sudanese. There is a large
>group of clearly identifiable Arabs in northern Sudan. I've
>met some of them personally. The fact is that Arabs have
>changed the demographics of Sudan considerably since
>the Arab conquest and likewise in Egypt. Possibly even
>more so in Egypt.
>
>Egypt clearly has a very strong Arab identity. Arabic is
>the official language, their religion is of Arab origin
>and their culture is Arab. The country itself is called
>the Arab Republic of Egypt!! My guess (and I'm certainly
>backed up by the evidence) is that their Arab identity is
>derived from the fact that they have much Arab blood!
>
>The Turks are Muslims but they do not speak Arabic or have
>an Arab identity. Why? Because Arabs did not settle en
>masse in Turkey. Ditto for Persia, Pakistan and many
>countries in Africa where Islam is practiced.
>
>Keep in mind that we haven't even begun to discuss the
>Persian, Greek, Roman, Turkish, Circassian (Mamluke),
>Armenian, British and French influence upon Egyptian
>ethnicity. You might want to start talking about
>the cultural aspects I mentioned earlier. ;)
Wayne Johnson
>"Tamer Abdelgawad" <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:39C06351...@yahoo.com...
>> red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> [snip ...]
>>
>> > Hey Tamer, you may as well join alt.history.ancient-egypt to see the
>> > whole discussions.
>>
>> Sorry, but my news server doesn't carry it. I suppose I can request it,
>> but maybe this thread will be over by the time they actually add it (I'm
>> being naive, right?) :-)
>>
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
A shoot-out between a patron and an armed security guard at Prichard
On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:49:28 -0400, smiley <thest...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>In article <39c0d6be$0$1096@reader4>, Alex <vand...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > However, one thing you *cannot* argue about is the simple statement made
>> > repeatedly by Smiley (and others) that Egyptians are, and always have been Egyptian.
>>
>> To say that Egyptians have been Egyptians as long as there has been
>> a country called Egypt is pretty obvious.
>> However, if this statement meanst that the ethnic make-up of Egypt
>> has remained the same throughout the millennia, then that's pretty
>> much inaccurate.
>
>
>This is just another unsupported assertion!
>
>
>> Ancient Egypt was built upon the foundation of the pre-dynastic and
>> early Nile Valley cultures that are associated with ancient Nubia.
>>
>> As a result, their ethnicity then (and to a considerable extent still
>> today) is closely aligned with that of the people further south
>> in the Nile Valley.
>> Ancient Egyptian was an Afroasiatic language, the origin of which
>> is in the area of Somalia/Ethiopia/The Sudan.
>>
>> This origin is also extremely clear when looking at the AE's depictions
>> of themselves, and especially clear in their facial features.
>
>
>That is YOUR opinion!
>
>
>>
>> However, especially from the New Kingdom onward, there was a
>> small but steady influx of Levantines and Aegeans into Egypt,
>> in the words of Cheikh Anta Diop:
>
>
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:45:17 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <39C0735A...@yahoo.com>,
> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Osiris wrote:
>> >
>> > In article <8plvhj$7fr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > > In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > > Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A
>full
>> > 40%
>> > > > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>> > Sudan)
>> > > > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> > > >
>> > >
>> >
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > > > htm
>> > > >
>> > >
>> --
>> Tamer Abdelgawad
>>
>> "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless
>interaction
>> to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
>> -- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
>
>Regards,
>
>Osiris
Wayne Johnson
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 20:07:47 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <8plu9s$5tc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > In article <8pldni$g6r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full
>40%
>> > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>Sudan)
>> > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> >
>>
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > htm
>> >
Wayne Johnson
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
A shoot-out between a patron and an armed security guard at Prichard
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:45:17 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <39C0735A...@yahoo.com>,
> Tamer Abdelgawad <tabde...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Osiris wrote:
>> >
>> > In article <8plvhj$7fr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > > In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > > Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A
>full
>> > 40%
>> > > > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>> > Sudan)
>> > > > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> > > >
>> > >
>> >
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > > > htm
>> > > >
>> > >
>> --
>> Tamer Abdelgawad
>>
>> "A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless
>interaction
>> to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day."
>> -- Bill Watterson (as Calvin)
>
>Regards,
>
>Osiris
Wayne Johnson
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 20:07:47 GMT, Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>In article <8plu9s$5tc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> red...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> In article <8pli77$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> Osiris <osiris...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > In article <8pldni$g6r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>> > Bedouins and many other Arabs migrated to Egypt AND Sudan. A full
>40%
>> > of the Sudanese population (55% of the inhabitants of northern
>Sudan)
>> > is Arab. You can verify this here:
>> >
>>
>http://anthropology.about.com/science/anthropology/library/LoC/blSudan2.
>> > htm
>> >
Wayne Johnson
Wayne Johnson
Three women shot, one fatally, at nightclub
09/18/00
By RICHARD LAKE
Register Staff Reporter
A shoot-out between a patron and an armed security guard at Prichard