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I'm reading Not out of Africa by Mary Leftkowitz and Afrocentrism by Stephen Howe right now. Leftkowitz's book is relatively narrow as it mainly focuses on debunking various claims of Afrocentrism, namely, how the greeks stole their knowledge from the mythicl egypt. Howe's book is more encompassing as it describes the origin, pscyhology, profiles on almost every afrocentrist, and why it persists. Both books don't really shine well on afrocentric scholarship. Wareware 07:28, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Of course, though, Wareware, they are both notable critics of Afrocentric scholarship. Do you plan to read any of the works by the more notable Afrocentric scholars, such as Asante though? Don't you have mid-terms to attend to, anyway? ;) El_C 07:45, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

my midterms are done this week thx for asking:) But I still got lots to do but I'll try to contribute. I don't think I'm going to devote my time reading pro-afrocentric works, especially by Asante. I'll read about his positions and reasoning from criticial sources. I can't really trust Asante because he wrote that Aristotle studied at the Library of Alexandria and appropriated egyptian philosophy, while in reality the library was built after both Alexander's and Aristotle's death. Mary Leftkowitz challenged him in this point during a seminar at Wellsely and Asante refused to cite his sources or how he arrived at this conclusion and instead accused her of racist motives. That alone pretty much persuaded me not to read any afrocentric work. But the book by Howe is pretty valuable in that it presents the origin and reasoning, not just point-by-point refutation, so I'll read that and find something. Wareware 09:57, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

-- "Ancient Egypt’s Role in European History"

A link of possible interest: http://www.trinicenter.com/kwame/20010615c.htm

Note that Prof. Nantambu is a history professor at Kent State U. -- not some "radical" crackpot publishing vanity tracts using Publish-It in his basement. deeceevoice 10:36, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's already a given that Afrocentric scholars are scholars. Whether they are radical –in the positive or negative sense of the word– is not relevanet to the fact that they write scholarly works, publish articles in academic journals, hold professorial positions and instruct students; none of these things are being –nor had they come under– dispute here. El_C 10:58, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And to say that is to say what? You asked for evidence of support for Afrocentric views among scholars. Presumably, the list of scholars and academicians provided in the article was insufficient. So, as I come across support for such views in mainstream academia (this is not a concerted/focused endeavor), I'm inserting that info in the discussion. I mention "radical," because this article -- unfortunately -- has lapsed back into the same vague language about "radical" Afrocentrism. (I have deleted references, when I saw them, to "black supremacy" and may do so again w/regard to the "radical" business.) Since this article discounts "radical" Afrocentrism outright without even defining it in any acceptable manner, I have no idea what "qualifies" someone to comment on, presumably, mainstream garden-variety Afrocentrism. I mention Nantambu's credentials because, presumably, the man has some credibility; he's on the faculty of a fairly mainstream U.S. university with a strong reputation -- which, to my way of thinking, means he's not some crackpot "radical" Afrocentrist. If, however, you would like to define the precepts of "radical Afrocentrism" in mainstream academia so as to provide some guidance to us regarding who does or doesn't have sufficient credibility to support or debunk the Afrocentric approach to the study of history, have at it. deeceevoice 05:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, not merely among scholars, but what is generally considered to be the –consensus– among them regarding Afrocentric scholarship (or notable currents therein). That is what I asked for, repeatedly. Regardless how well-respected they might be within academia, their views may still be marganalized within the mainstream scholarship, and in that case, the article needs to reflect that. I will get this point across even if ... I will get this point across. El_C 10:57, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

racist, white supremacist assumptions regarding the contributions of nonwhite peoples to world history. What's this, a strawman attack that makes all Western research "white supremacist"? You gotta be kidding me. Renaissance, the Enlightenment, nationalism and related ideas and philosophies are western ideas, so what's so "white supremacist" about it. I don't think any Chinese person that I've talked to regard history as white supremacist or Eurocentric at best. Saying so is rather vitriolic. Wareware 03:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What's with the teeny, weeny print?

Why is the bibliography in a smaller font than the rest of the piece? (Am I suddenly in need of bifocals?) Is this Wiki style? deeceevoice 06:00, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Many things; appearence; possibly; sure. El_C 07:43, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Come on. Serious question. The bifocals thing was facetious, of course; I can read it fine. But why is the print a different size? IS it Wiki style? I haven't noticed it elsewhere. If not, it should be changed. deeceevoice 08:16, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Wiki is loose, so these sort of modifications are considered to be within the realm of editorial discretion (rather than a binding manual of style formula). I find using footnote-sized font for the references to be of some minor cosmetic benefit when these are lengthy reference lists, which tends to be the case for articles I am involved in. Since I was the one who created the references section and added all the scholarly works into it (i.e. with normal fonts it was disporportionately lengthy versus the body of the article), it reflects my preference on this front. El_C 10:45, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cool. This explanation was at least helpful. I've got no problem with it. In light of the other articles I've seen on Wiki, it just looked weird. deeceevoice 13:52, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deleted

Areas of study by Afrocentrists

Afrocentric history traces and emphasizes important contributions of blacks, beginning with the high civilizations of Africa, particularly Egypt and Kush. It also focuses on black, or Tamil, southern India before the Persian incursions, as well as on the black African participation in the Moorish domination of the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages— and, among others, on the sizable empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai.

The introductory definition mentions "black contributions." Listing these specific areas of interest, I think, gives the wrong impression; it is too limiting. There are Afrocentric scholars (in terms of the lens through which they interpret history) who focus on black contributions throughout history and across the globe -- and in the modern era, as well. I think it's best to simply leave this out. If there is a desire to mention these areas of focus (and I can see that it could be useful to do so), it should be included in the article in another fashion -- one that won't give the false impression that these are the only areas of study, or even the primary, areas of study/expertise of Afrocentric historians. That is simply not the case. deeceevoice 08:24, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have no objections to that change as such, but that section should exist with a more pertinent account regarding areas of studies (at least some of the more notable current therein – déjà vu). El_C 11:06, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Objectivity

There are ways to cover this topic without collapsing into Deeceevoice's compulsive, Tourette's-ish need to pile on descriptions of omnipresent white racism (prejudicial evil racist white supremacist bigotry paradigms, and so forth), and also to avoid the sort of scoffing condescension of some of the rest of the article ("contempt" and "dismissiveness" toward a "therapeutic" ideology). The Encarta Africana article on Afrocentricity is written by Molefi Kete Asante and I think he provides an excellent descriptive account that people from most perspectives could agree upon. I think we should use that as a sort of guide. If you guys don't have access to it, I'll provide an excerpt here that I think is "fair use." This is the "Origins and Orientations" section of the article. Have a read. Babajobu 15:25, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

II ORIGINS AND ORIENTATIONS

"Afrocentricity is an intellectual perspective deriving its name from the centrality of African people and phenomena in the interpretation of data. Maulana Karenga, a major figure in the Afrocentric Movement, says, “It is a quality of thought that is rooted in the cultural image and human interest of African people.” The Afrocentric school was founded by Molefi Kete Asante in the late 20th century with the launching of the book, Afrocentricity, in which theory and practice were merged as necessary elements in a rise to consciousness. Among the early influences were Kariamu Welsh, Abu Abarry, C.T. Keto, Linda James Myers, J. A. Sofola, and others. Afrocentricity examined some of the same issues that confronted a group calling themselves the Black Psychologists, who argued along lines established by Bobby Wright, Amos Wilson, Na’im Akbar, Kobi Kambon, Wade Nobles, Patricia Newton, and several others. African American scholars trained in political science and sociology, such as Leonard Jeffries, Tony Martin, Vivian Gordon, Kwame Nantambu, Barbara Wheeler, James Turner, and Charshee McIntyre, were greatly influenced by the works of Yosef Ben-Jochannon and John Henrik Clarke and had already begun the process of seeking a non-European way to conceptualize the African experience prior to the development of Afrocentric theory.

"On the other hand, Afrocentricity finds its inspirational source in the Kawaida philosophy’s long-standing concern that the cultural crisis is a defining characteristic of 20th century African reality in the diaspora just as the nationality crisis is the principal issue on the African continent. (Developed by Karenga, professor and chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, Kawaida is defined briefly as “an ongoing synthesis of the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world.”) Afrocentricity sought to address these crises by repositioning the African person and African reality from the margins of European thought, attitude, and doctrines to a centered, therefore positively located, place within the realm of science and culture. Afrocentricity finds its grounding in the intellectual and activist precursors who first suggested culture as a critical corrective to a displaced agency among Africans. Recognizing that Africans in the diaspora had been deliberately deculturalized and made to accept the conqueror’s codes of conduct and modes of behavior, the Afrocentrist discovered that the interpretative and theoretical grounds had also been moved. Thus, synthesizing the best of Alexander Crummel, Martin Robison Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Larry Neal, Carter G. Woodson, Willie Abraham, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Cheikh Anta Diop, and W. E. B. Du Bois in his later writings, Afrocentricity projects an innovation in criticism and interpretation. It is therefore in some sense a paradigm, a framework, and a dynamic. However, it is not a worldview and should not be confused with Africanity, which is essentially the way African people, any African people, live according to the customs, traditions, and mores of their society. One can be born in Africa, follow African styles and modes of living, and practice an African religion and not be Afrocentric. To be Afrocentric one has to have a self-conscious awareness of the need for centering. Thus, those individuals who live in Africa and recognize the decentering of their minds because of European colonization may self-consciously choose to be demonstratively in tune with their own agency. If so, this becomes a revolutionary act of will that cannot be achieved merely by wearing African clothes or having an African name."

Babajobu 15:25, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I certainly do not think that Asante's account should form the basis of this article. For a start, its comments at the end about 'the need for centring' seem to correspond to the claims of those whio say that Afrocentrism is theraputic in character. Secondly it is entirely dogmatic in tone.

As a matter of fact it was me who created this page. I was surprised by the fact that it remained unassailed by Afrocentrist contributers for so long. Initially my account of Afrocentrism was more or less the same as the 'Skeptic Dictionary's. A later contributer then redefined this component as Radical Afrocentrism, adding the section on Historical Afrocentrism. I was not entirely happy about this, since it seemed to imply that anyone who studied African history was 'Afrocentrist'. That's as logical as saying that specialist in European history is automatically 'Eurocentrist', or a specialist in Chinese history is 'Sinocentrist'. However, it seemed proper to accept that scholarship looking at African history was an important corrective to over-emphasis of Europe. Then along came Mr deceevoice, and we've had an explosion of intemperate revisions over the last week. The result, I think, is that the page is in a bit of a mess with arguments becoming repetitive and confused. So for example we learn about Afrocentrists stressing the 'contributions' of African cultures, and then there is the claim that Afrocentrists consider all cultures to be 'equal'. Well, if that's the case, why concentrate on Africa, and why claim that special 'contributions' have been made?

I think we should bear in mind a simple fact. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. The purpose of an Encyclopedia is to inform. If someone wants to know what the term 'Afrocentrism' means they should be able to come here, look it up and get a clear idea of its history and meaning. As a result they should be given a sense of what the term means in its various usages. So I will make a number of suggestions here about what I think should be in the article.

1. We need a clear definition of Afrocentrism as an approach to history that emphasises African contributions to culture. I think it would be useful to add a section that connects this to claims about black identity, pointing out that the concept of 'black' identity is sometimes used to include non-Africans, and sometimes excludes some Africans.

2. I think we need a clear discussion of the importance given to Egypt in much Afrocentrist writing. This is central to the debate, since much of it really concerns the question of what it means to say that Egyptians are or are not 'black'. We could discuss the issue of how justifiable it is to claim that Egyptians were 'black African', and what it means to equate Egypt with African rather than Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern cultural identity.

3. We need an account of the role of Afrocentrism in the thinking of people like Asante who associate it with racial politics in the USA and with issues of Black Identity and cultural consciousness.

4. We need an account of work that has stressed the history of African kingdoms and has looked at other indigenous African cultures, peerhaps contasting this with histories that see Africa as simply a 'space' into which Greek, Roman or Arabic history has expanded. Paul B 16:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sir, we really needed you here. Where have you been? I am very pleased to learn of your involvement and expertise with regards to Afrocentrism, and I think your participation will prove pivotal in offsetting bias and imporving the article on this and other (content, context, etc.) important areas. El_C 01:48, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How Afrocentricism portrays itself and other isms

I think there a POV error underlying this article.

shift from a view of world history centered around European accomplishments and deeply racist assumptions about other peoples and cultures to one which emphasizes the black beginnings of humankind and black contributions to world history

I think the article should stress more clearly that this evaluation of Western scholarship is merely the point of view of Afrocentrism advocates - rather than hinting or stating that it is a fact.

Something like this ought to do it:

• Afrocentrists view Western historical scholarship as overemphasizing the contributions of Greco-Roman civilization to the world at the expense of the contributions of black Africa and blacks generally.

Both Afrocentrists and anti-Afrocentrists could agree with the sentence above as being an accurate portrayal of how Afrocentric scholar view Western scholars. "Yep, that's how they see us." & "Yes, that's how they are."

I'd also like to see a bit about Western defenses of this criticism, for example the claim occasionally made that the West is somewhat aware of its own ethnocentrism and has taken pains to compensate for it - indeed, even to seek out and embrace aspects of non-Western cultures. One historion (Toynbee, I think) even claims this quest to find and cherish extra-cultural aspects as the crowning jewel of the Western ethos: the relentless, un-ending quest of Western Civilization to become "better" by seeking "the good".

Also, I'm not sure that the West portrays itself as the origin of all world civilization. The British historian Arnold Toynbee admittedly begins with England, but only as an example of a larger entity he calls "Western Christendom". He finds two dozen other similar units, separated in both space and time, and endeavors to trace how some (not all!) derive from others.

Toynbee traces only a couple of the existent world civilizations to ancient Greece and Rome, by the way. Only Western Christendom and the Eastern Orthodox cultural spheres, if I recalll correctly. The Islamic and Hindu cultural spheres owe nothing to the Hellenistic sphere; nor do the one or two East Asian cultural spheres.

Ironically, Toynbee views ancient Egypt as having no predecessors or successors. I wonder how current Afrocentric thought reacts to that. Do today's afrocentrists believe that ancient Egpyt was the orgion of all civilization, or even had a major impact on any of the four or five civilizations in existence at the close of the 20th century? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:10, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

The problem here, I think, is the difficulty of defining such things as 'the West'. Traditionally, Egypt has been part of the story of the cultures we now define as 'the West'. It's central to the Bible. It's been part of the history of Roman Empire, of famous stories about Pharaohs, about Antony and Cleopatra, Rameses, and later about Hatshepsut and Akhenaton. But it just happens that its not in 'Europe' as such, and, as importantly, it has never been considered to be 'classical' - in culture, politics or religous ideology. Egypt is presented as a fascinating but also problematic place. Its religion is condemned in the Bible for its polytheism, and in Greek texts for its perverse deification of animals. In intellectual culture it's seen as the source of wisdom, but not of properly philosophical debate. In architecture its admired for impressive monuments, but for also for a lack of the refinement and clarity of Greek design. In art it's impressive for its decorative energy and variety, but not for its perfect articulation of the human body as in... those darn Greek geeks again. In other words, it's always been a kind of source, and something of a mystery, but also a problem in the models that have dominated the mythic history of 'the West'. The fact that this paradxical position has now come to be articulated in terms of uncertantis regarding 'racial' and 'continental' identity (Africa/Europe/Asia) simply complicates matters further. -- Paul B 21:29, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

But it won't be a fair article if it dosen't state the Afrocentric position as to the after-the-fact Westernization of Egypt. Also, the West was explcitly racist for many centuries. That is not an opinion, it is a matter of public record. The article needs to distinguish this fact from Afrocentric claims of it taking place after 1968, or whenever it was that the United States officially decided that Africans were equale to non-Africans. And to pretend that once this became formal, opinions changed instantly to reflect that, I maintain, is a disengenious implication which, for the purposes of NPOV and rationality, the article needs to either avoid or (preferably) very carfeuly and thoughtfuly qualify. El_C 08:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that position should be stated. I'm working on a new version now, but it's important to state that Egypt was not in any clear sense 'Westernised' after the fact or 'appropriated' by some entity called the West. The 'West' is a cultural construct not a geographical position. For Ancient peoples Egypt was very clearly part of the civilised world, which circulated the Mediterranean. There was no strong division betwen 'Europe' and 'Africa', but rather a notion that the Med, as its name suggests, was the middle of the world and that cultures got less civilised the further they were from it. Race was not a significant concept. In this model Egyptian culture is considered eccentric, at least during the Roman empire, but important. I think after the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam you do get a Europe/Africa divide articulated in terms of religion not race, but also the beginnings of a racialisation of the enemy as 'dark' Moors.-- Paul B 09:35, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

True, I oversimplified that. You articulated that phenomenon in a very interesting and pointed way. I'm looking forward to reading your revision of the article. El_C 09:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

With the word "racist" so inflammatory, and even the Race article a subject of dispute at Misplaced Pages, I think we should take care to describe in what way Afrocentrists or others regard the history of Europe or "the West" as racist. For example, did Europeans state that being white was what made them better? Or that some aspect of European culture or Western civilization was superior? It might also be good to explore this dimension in relation to the possibility that other cultures may have expressed similar notions. Specifically, to what degree might we say that ALL cultures are racist? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 18:30, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Definition of Beginnings

Intro paragraph includes this:

Afrocentric scholarship attempts to shift the study and evaluation of world history and civilization from a traditionally Western, Eurocentric paradigm — that is, one that treats primarily white or European contributions and positing Greco-Roman beginnings — to one that posits black Egyptian beginnings and treats primarily black Africa and black contributions.

I don't know what (a) "posits Greco-Roman beginnings" or (b) "posits black Egyptian beginnings" means. It looks like a claim that ALL CIVILIZATION began with (a) ancient Greece & Rome or (b) ancient Egypt. Is that what everyone else thinks this means?

If so, I'm not sure this is a fair representation of the conflict between Afrocentrists and others. But I must confess my ignorance: the only world history book I've ever made a serious attempt at reading was Toynbee's A Study of History, in which he traces Western Civilization (currently centering on Europe and the U.S.) to Greco-Roman beginnings. But apart from Eastern Orthodoxy he does not attribute any other extant civilization to Greece or Rome. In particular, he claims that the Islamic Sphere, the Hindu Sphere and the Far Eastern Sphere developed independently of the Graeco-Roman Empire (or Hellenic Sphere, as he terms it). -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:04, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

I think we should definitely change it. Plus remove that quote by Rousseau. Is this guy an art historian? I don't think so. Picking quotes left and right (from credible figures) to make the argument more credible is really off the mark here. And yes, I have a problem with previous POV edits that treats eurocentrism with afrocentrism precisely for the reason that Tonybee claims the other "spheres" developed independently. In the opening paragraph it states it treat "world history" through Eurocentric lens, thus there is a shift toward Afrocentric ones. That just doesn't make much sense at all. Wareware 21:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if Toynbee is representative of "Eurocentric" thought, but in his Study of History he self-identifies as Western; e.g., he calls Western Civilization as "our culture" (referring to him and the reader).

Toynbee provides charts and dates, etc., showing that ancient Egypt is the first civilization in recorded history. I take this to mean that "Western" historians have no argument with the claim that Egypt predates Greece.

I suppose Western historians think the "West" is important, so they emphasize it in history books. But I haven't heard of any Western historian claiming that civilization itself began with ancient Greece or Rome. Toynbee never breathes the slightest hint of this idea.

I'm not sure to what extent Toynbee or others credit ancient Egypt with having influenced ancient Greece. Toynbee doesn't describe Hellenic Civ. as deriving wholly from Egypt, but I don't recall him denying any contacts in space or time.

A lot of the interplay between Afrocentrists and, er, competing schools of thought is the complaint that African or black "firsts" have not gotten enough publicity. Ancient Egyptians built the world's tallest buildings and should get credit for this. Perhaps most significantly, they are the first civilization of which there is any written evidence.

A major point of disagreement is the "cradle of civilization" idea, sometimes put forth as the claim that all civilizations that have every existed derive from (or owe major credit for their existence to) ancient Egypt. Toynbee spends several pages demolishing this idea, so there's no common ground here (!).

I'll take a look in tomorrow, if I have time. Cheers! -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:28, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Beginnings is a tricky concept that needs to be qualified very carefuly. We, basically, know of four regions where civilizations are alleged to have began, following the great rivers: along the Nile delta, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and Huang He rivers. El_C 01:16, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Toynbee would agree with these four. He also throws in Central America, where you have your Azteks and Incas. Of course, the four you mention are more interesting. The 2 ancient American civilizations died out, leaving no "successors". By the way, how are your meds these days? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 16:05, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

They are incredibly potent, Ed, and they take me, so to speak, from the heights of Paradiso to the depths of Inferno, and everything in between (read: much mood swinging). But I should be back to being boring and annoying (as opposed to borring, annoying, and unpredictable) in the very near future. I am developing an empathy to drug addicts, though! Thanks for your concern, I appreciate it. :)

I want to touch on your thoughts regarding American civilizations briefly. While Central and South American civilizations, much like the African ones (excluding Egypt), arose thousands of years after the four (Afro-?) Asiatic regions (including Egypt), what is noteworthy, I think, is that like (and arguably, even more so than) each of the four (Afro-?) Asiatic ones, these arose independently of one another. But what my note above failed to convey (due to a shortcoming by yours truly), was that I mentioned these four (in relation to the word begin) strictly in terms of periodization. Otherwise, it is, indeed, quite valid to add these (American and non-Egyptian, African ones) to 'the list,' since, again, not only did they merely 'begin' (as everything does, without exception) but theirs was an 'independent beginning,' too. So I place a certain weight on these qualifications; i.e. what began more-or-less 'first' viz. what began later, but nonetheless, (also) outside of one another. Hope that makes sense; brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio! ;) El_C 05:56, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nice Work

This article has been made infinitely better since the last time I dropped in. Well done. You better throw up a wall and dig a moat, Deeceevoice must be raising an army. Babajobu 11:32, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hear, hear! Well done! El_C 07:05, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No intellectual rigor whatsoever

I read the lead paragraph and then dropped down to the section purporting to treat the ethnicity of Egyptians. Appaently, there was no intellectual rigor whatsoever devoted to the subject. The section does little more than conveniently perpetuate the usual lies/myths about ancient Egypt with NO effort to seriously examine the issues. Further, IMO, the selection of the first photograph was selected in an attempt to give credence to those lies. I've been (and continue to be) busy with deadlines, but will return to this subject when I have the time and the patience/inclination to do so. deeceevoice 11:58, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I see as usual you think that bluster counts as argument and that saying "it's all lies" somehow proves something. The two photographs were chosen for specific reasons. The photo of the fifth dynasty official was chosen to illustrate typical Egyptian self-depictions (it may have to go anyway because of copyright problems). The photo placed at the top of the page was chosen as a kind of emblem to illustrate the black/white opposition around which Afrocentrism functions, and to illustrate the later point that Egyptians considered themselves to be an ideal between abnormally extreme 'black' and 'white' identities. If you wish to seriously debate alterations to the text and to add material that supports some Afrocentic claims, then debate your points with other contributors. Otherwise I will simply revert your edits. Your deletion of my comments about the relationship of Afrocentrism to civil rights issues is an example of your high-handed manner. There has been much discussion here about the fact that civilisation developed independently at many points, and the 'Africa versus Europe' model is distorted from the start because of this blanking-out of the majority of the world! So it is important to mention other non-European cultures here so as to acknowledge the fact that Eurocentrism is not only about ignoring Africa. The connection of Afrocentrism to Black-American and Caribbean civil rights struggles is simply fact. Asante is explicit about it. So I can see no reason for such deletions. If you have a good one, explain it. Paul B 01:24, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Europe might be a bit misleading even, as up until the 15th Century, the continent remains mostly limited to the Mediterranean in that sense. El_C 13:50, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, 'Europe' is a diffuse concept, like the 'West' (and like racial concepts). Still, I think there's a fairly common European identity from the 10th century on, following Christianisation and the circulation of intellectual culture via monasteries. I think the important thing is to draw attention to both the power and the arbitrariness of some of these categories, rather like 'periodising' categories. Paul B 11:09, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have already mentioned my intention to return to this subject. The treatment of it as is sheds no new light on the debate at all and is simply a regurgitation of the same old lies and half-truths.

Again you don't explain what is a 'lie' or a 'half-truth'. Anyway, I repeat what I wrote above - the point of an encyclopedia is to explain a concept and to fairly summarise the reasonable positions about it.Paul B 01:29, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Further, I find the apparent self-attribution of the birth of Afrocentrism to Asante as surprising and exceedingly self-serving. Among the oldest "Afrocentric" historians are classic scholars and other Europeans themselves. "Afrocentric" scholarship existed decades, centuries before the modern-day Civil Rights Movement. And I myself was familiar with "afrocentrism" long before I ever even heard of Asante.

I ascribe the origin of Afrocentrism to Garvey and James, not to Asante. That follows standard accounts, including Asante himself (though he also refers to DuBois and other earlier writers). I tried to show that James' views emerge from earlier radical traditions and have given way to later, updated, scholarship. So yes, I accept that it emerges from 'centuries before the modern-day Civil Rights Movement'. That's why I quoted from Blake (Preface to Milton) and why I tried to point out what was distinctive about James' contribution. Paul B 01.38, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aeschylus, Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus and others readily acknolwedged the blackness of Egypt and its contributions to Grecian and Roman science, arts, letters. If they had been inclined to deny the debt Greco-Roman civilization owed to black Africa, they could not have done so; it was the common knowledge of the era in learned circles.

No, that's not true. It's true that Greeks thought that Egyptians were 'black' in comparison to themselves. But such terminology is always relative. 'White' people are not actually white; 'red' Indians are not red; orientals are not 'yellow'. These are relative terms. Read the Song of Songs. Even the Greeks recognised this. Herodotus uses the term 'Ethiopian' to mean the (rough) equivalent of Negroid, and he distinguishes that from Egyptian. And as you rightly say, it was commonly believed that Greece owed ideas to Egypt. But the question is, how valid was that belief? The Greeks minimised their reliance on Mesopotamian cultures because they were impressed by the longevity and continuity of Egypt, and because Mesopotamia was supplanted by their enemy Persia. Post-Ptolomaic Egyptians later sought to claim Greek ideas for themselves by ascribing Greek culture to borrowings from their own traditions. But the evidence says it didn't happen that way - the evidence of translations from ancient Egyptian texts. Paul B 01.50, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But there was little or no reason for them to do so. "Afrocentrism" is merely a the dispassionate, scholarly approach; the original approach -- and has become a buzzword, a convenient tool among skeptics schooled in and steeped in the lies of the schlock-history of the modern day for lumping together and often dismissing out of hand historians who have come to certain conclusions at odds with this pop history.

I don't think the work of established scholars counts as 'pop history'. And to say that 'Afrocentrism' is merely the word for a 'dispassionate approach' is self-defeating. How can a word that means, in effect 'Africa is central' be dispassionate? The name itself already implies a bias. Paul B 01.57, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Pop history is the revisionist, disingenuous, lazy, lying, version of world events in the service of racism, white supremacy and imperialism. It has been pretty much the status quo since the European/neo-European (New World) powers, hands bloodied by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattle slavery, felt a need to ennoble their despicable actions.

So Africans themselves had nothing to do with slavery and the slave trade then? Get real. Paul B 01.58, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

They had to paint Africans as subhuman or child-like. Acknowledging the blackness of Egypt would have given the lie to their claims that the West was somehow civilizing a bunch of depraved, base savages by placing them in bondage.

Yes, imperialist and racist ideas did say this about Africans. That is one reason why I spent so much time on James' arguments - to point out how his approach was influenced by white racist assumptions of the day. It's also one reason why it's important to point out that before the Africa/Europe divide (caused by religion, not imperialism) such racial hierarchies did not exist. If I can speak personally for a moment, I have to say that one of my reasons for feeling opposed to some Afrocentrist attitudes is that I think they perpetuate racism, by stopping us fronm seeing how arbitrary and contingent many racial categories are. That's also a very good reason why Africa's history should be studied dispassiontely and honestly. Paul B 02.07, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Historian Cheickh Anta Diop writes of this inherent contradiction between fact and fiction as experienced by French scholar Constantin François de Volney:

An exception is the evidence of an honest savant. Volney, who travelled in Egypt between +1783 and +1785, i.e., at the peak period of negro slavery, and made the following observations on the true Egyptian race, the same which produced the Pharaohs, namely the Copts:

    All of them are puffy-faced, heavy eyed and
    thick-lipped, in a word, real mulatto faces.
    I was tempted to attribute this to the climate
    until, on visiting the Sphinx, the look of it
    gave me the clue to the egnima. Beholding
    that head characteristically Negro in all
    its features, I recalled the well-known passage
    of Herodotus which reads: 'For my part I
    consider the Colchoi are a colony of the Egyptians
    because, like them, they are black skinned
    and kinky-haired.' In other words the
    ancient Egyptians were true negroes of the same
    stock as all the autochthonous peoples of Africa
    and from that datum one sees how their race,
    after some centuries of mixing with the blood
    of Romans and Greeks, must have lost the full
    blackness of its original colour but retained
    the impress of its original mould. It is even
    possible to apply this observation very widely
    and posit in principle that physiognomy is a
    kind of record usable in many cases for disputing
    or elucidating the evidence of history on the
    origins of the peoples . . .

Note that Diop calls this account an 'exception', yet you present it as the norm. Note also that even in this account, Egyptians are described as 'real mulatto faces'. A mulatto is a person of mixed race. The author is clearly speculating when he claims that Egyptians look as they did when he wrote because they mixed with Greeks and Romans. I suspect he wants to say they are black because he is prejudiced against them - a classic example of how some Afrocentrists use racists to justify their arguments and so become implicated in the very racism they appropriate. Paul B 02.07, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

After illustrating this proposition citing the case of the Normans, who 900 years after the conquest of Normandy still look like Danes, Volney adds:

    but reverting to Egypt, its contributions to history
    afford many subjects for philosophic reflection. What a
    subject for meditation is the present-day barbarity and
    ignorance of the Copts who were considered, born of the
    alliance of the deep genius of the Egyptians and the
    brilliance of the Greeks, that THIS RACE OF BLACKS WHO
    NOWADAYS ARE SLAVES AND THE OBJECTS OF OUR SCORN IS THE 
    VERY ONE TO WHICH WE OWE OUR ARTS, OUR SCIENCES, AND 
    EVEN THE USE OF THE SPOKEN WORD ; and
    finally recollect that it is in the midst of the peoples
    claiming to be the greatest friends of liberty and
    humanity that the most barbarous of enslavements has
    been sanctioned and the question raised whether black
    men have brains of the same quality as those of white
    men!42

Yup, another example of extreme racism against black peoples being used to justify Afrocentrism. Don't you realise how self-destructive this is??? There's a weird link on this page to a webpage referring to research showing saying that Afrocentrism is bad for black-American marriages. I thought that was a rather dumb link. When I read this stuff I'm not so sure. Paul B 02.20, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In far more recent times in this nation (yet still decades ago), the most learned black scholars were well-acquainted with black, African Egypt as an incontrovertible fact. Those were the days when it was de rigueur for true sholars, "intellectuals," to read the classical works. Indeed, there is a continuum of writing and scholarship among African-Americans on the subject of, or referring to, black Egypt -- from Martin Delaney to Arna Bontemps to W.E.B. DuBois to J.A. Rogers to Carter G. Woodson to Cheickh Anta Diop to Chancellor Williams to Yusef Ben Jochannan to Ivan van Sertima and then, finally (but not, really; the tradtion will continue) to the likes of Molefi Kete Asanti and Runoko Rashidi. And then there are people like of Thor Heyerdahl (the Rah voyages) and Basil Davidson, contemporary whites whose works contributed mightily to the "afrocentrist" historical paradigm.

Thor Heyerdahl showed that Egyptians could have sailed to the Americas. All other evidence indicates that they did not. Hasn't it occurred to you that such views deny the independent agency of native Americans - that this kind of 'Afrocentrism' actually just recapitulates the worst aspects of the kind of Aryanism that should have died decades ago? Paul B 02.30, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is only now, with the rise this new generation of "afrocentric" scholars and the higher profile of this approach to the study and interpretation of history, that the label has become popularized and the debate has come to the fore. Ivan van Sertima, in fact, rejects the label "afrocentric," claiming he is simply a historian in search of truth. The interesting thing is that when "afrocentrists" throw the writings of white, classical "afrocentrist" writers in their faces, apologists for the schlock/pop historical approach like Lefkowitz have no credible comeback.

Evidence? Surely, all historians should search for the truth, though you often have to care about an aspect of the truth in order to do that. Paul B 02.40, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

While certainly not pervasive, this knowledge has been persistent; it long has been a common intellectual thread in the African-American community. Such information to a scorned and oppressed people who were constantly being taught by whites that they had contributed nothing of value to civilization, had no written language, and no culture of any merit was more precious than gold. We have protected it and passed it on -- even through the Egyptian Revial period following the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb, which further fueled schlock/pop culture notions of white Egyptians with Nubian slaves.

You are denying that the evidence presented here that Egyptians did not consider themselves to be white. Paul B 02.44 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

White Egyptians were all the rage -- in print, film and decorative arts. These are the images that have fed the ignorant biases of generations of people about ancient Egypt. But through the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s, this knowledge filtered down to everyday black people, many of whom were familiar with the works of J.A. Rogers. The people who possessed this knowledge and the dignity and pride it engendered were called "race men" and "race women."

More assertion. Most modern images present Egyptians as 'middle eastern', for want of a better term, not as white. Even the Victorians, at the height of the British Empire, depicted them as racially mixed. See Edwin Long's painting An Egyptian Feast (http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/display_image.php?id=13815). Paul B 02.47 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As a young child in the 1950's, I remember the broader American society of the time. Stepin Fetchit, Amos 'n' Andy, blackface, the cartoon Magpies, and a shytload of darky images were the order of the day. Bojangles took a backseat to Fred Astaire; major league sports were still segregated; Emmit Till was brutally beaten and lynched; and black folks in the South still couldn't vote, drink out of the same water fountains, stop along the highway at a restaurant and expect to be served, or to public bathroom facilities. Growing up in the Midwest, the local amusement park opened to black folks one day out of the year, the movie theater downtown refused admission to blacks, and golf courses and the doors of country clubs were closed to us -- unless we were the hired help. Black people still "wore the mask," as Franz Fanon wrote -- and white people still believed Sambo really existed.

Yes, that's true, and indefensible: just as indefensible as distortng history to feel better about injustice. Paul B 02.50 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We all went to school, read the same schlock historical accounts -- in separate and unequal schools, and our textbooks were often several years older than those in the white schools, but the contents were the same. World history and world literature started with Rome and Greece. No black folks ever served this nation in war -- except in the mess halls. The Paraohs were white; Nubian slaves and Jews built the pyramids. "Darkest Africa" was black and backward, had always been and probably would always be. Blacks never had a written language. And slavery wasn't that bad; lots of masters were good to their slaves.

What has this to do with the claim that Egyptians were black? Be fair. Anger at the evils of Jim Crow does not justify claims about the Ancient world. We have to use an Encyclopedia to inform, and to clearly explain all reasonable points of view. Paul B 02.50 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yep. We all read the same lies. The difference was white folks saw the elevator operators, the housemaids, cooks, street sweepers and bootblacks, and for many that was all they saw or knew. They went home to their segregated neighborhoods secure in the knowledge that the white man was the epitome of God's creation and the lord and master of the universe -- always was and always would be.

Your understandable anger does not justify the distortion of history. If you do that you lose your moral ground. Paul B 02.59 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As a young, black child, on the other hand, I went home to the people behind those masks. In my life, I never met a real Sambo or knew a Stepin Fetchit. My mother was graduated from college at 19; my dad a successful businessman. My redlined, all-black neighborhood (except for "Mrs. Zeke," an elderly Eastern European woman next door), was a rich mix of professionals and blue-collar workers -- the human face of the Great Migration settled "Up South" for greater opportunity for themselves and their children. And down the street, the letter-carrier father of my best friends was a race man. He'd named his daughter Aida and was the first person to tell us the cannibals with the cookpots and with bones in their noses and the Johnny Weismuller "Yes, bwana" Tarzan junk on the television were all lies.

I don't know how or where or when I obtained the knowledge I possessed; but I knew my fourth-grade social studies teacher was a racist. And whether he was lying or just plain ignorant when he told me the ancient Egyptians were white, I couldn't tell, but I did know he was dead wrong.

I find the abysmal and thoroughly obtuse ignorance on the part of so many whites in this regard more than a little curious. Who has not read Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers? The knowledge of black Egypt was such a given among blacks, that Hughes wrote while still a teenager: "I've known rivers ... older than the flow of human blood in human veins....I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

Passionate and understandable as they are, non of these paragraphs tell us anything about ancient history. They tell us about the emotional power of its appeal. Paul B 03.10 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I write these things to say there is a long tradition of "afrocentric" scholarship, and there are many decades of this information being a part of everyday life for a great many African-Americans. It is, in part, how and why we have come to this discussion on Misplaced Pages and how the tremendous rift in this regard between blacks and whites, exemplified in people like Lefkowitz and Bernal, came to be.

Bernal is not black, as it happens. Of course I accept that there is nothing wrong at all in scholarship that centres on Africa. That's not the same, I think, as the kind of thing you are speaking of here, which is really about the history of America. Paul B 03.40 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This chasm created by fundamental differences in experiences and knowledge bases of blacks and whites and vastly differing perspectives in many areas also points to an even broader problem -- the consequent raft of misconceptions, silliness and outright racist crap that makes its way into the articles treating black people on Misplaced Pages. No matter how jaded one is, how accustomed to such appalling ignorance, it's disconcerting and downright disgusting. Not many folks have the patience for it -- and I'm fast losing what little I possess. Most black folk I know -- myself included -- do not have as their raison d'etre correcting the various and sundry racist misconceptions, presumptions and assumptions of white folks. As a matter of fact, we prefer to avoid contact with the most backwardly ignorant of you as much as humanly possible. Just plain fact.

Well you can correct any errors on Misplaced Pages as long as you can convince the contributing community as a whole. I think they are generally willing to accept reasonable argument. I also think this black/white opposition is a little misleading. Try it with pages that relate to Indian identity - you get locked into claims by Hindtvists that Vedic culture was once universal and is eternal. Try it with the Chinese. Paul B 03.50 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is background. I wanted to write it here -- as prologue.

Now I must return to my deadlines. And, again, when I have the patience and more time, I will return to this "debate" and to the article at hand.

To be honest DC, there are parts of the article which I think could do with revision - espoecially the last section, which I think needs an honest account of the relationship beween 'African' and 'black' history, especially on the points about how we define 'races', and about the mapping of historical African cultures and their histories. I hope someone can help with that. Paul B 03.50 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See ya on the black side. deeceevoice 15:35, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's one long polemic without any real arguments. You quoted one big proponent of Afrocentrism, so what? And the thing with classicists having no comeback. When Leftkowitz asked Asante why the hell would he say that Aristotle studied at the Library of Alexnandria when it was built after his death, he called her a racist. Really, tell me, who doesnt have a comeback? Who's the one talking out of the other end? Wareware 19:44, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've read Lefkowitz and the afrocentrist historians. Can you say the same? Nope. And I've reinstated the POV. The article presents arguments against Afrocentrism, but does not present their counter. And as to Bernal and Lefkowitz, Aristotle and Alexandria -- how should I know? Alexandria was built upon a more ancient city after the conquest and renamed. Could Aristotle have studied there before the name change? Perhaps. Perhaps Bernal misspoke and was either too proud, or too angry, or occupied with other things to address the matter. Perhaps you didn't hear him correctly. Beats the hell outta me. Whatever the case, a single, off-the-cuff statement by one writer is hardly a reasonable test of the credibility of the afrocentrist paradigm.deeceevoice 20:09, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps, but unlikely. Anyway, it was Asante not Bernal. I must say, you are not showing great 'intellectual rigor' here. There is no evidence of a library at Alexandria before Aristotle. One good reason for this is that Alexandria did not exist before Aristotle. It was founded, as its name suggests, by Alexander, who was a pupil of Aristotle. Making up another earlier library in an earlier city there on no evidence whatever is resort to fantasy. O tempora... Paul B 02.30, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've done a little to the section on the ethnic identity of ancient Egypt. I'd like to include a pic of the mural itself to replace the image of the artifact that purports to depict "typical" Egyptians. I don't necessarily disagree with the premise; certainly, taken as a whole, ancient dynastic Egypt was peopled by brown-skinned black people and certainly not all black-skinned Nubians. But I think as an explication of how the Egyptians regarded themselves in relation to other groups of the region and time in their own words and art, the mural is far superior and enlightening than that single, unsubstantiated image. I haven't read the entire article, but that's the section that first attracted my attention. Deadlines. But I will return and deal with the rest. I promise. deeceevoice 16:44, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deecee's new stuff

I know of no evidence of any "prominent Wolof and Hamitic influences" on Egyptian. Wolof is part of a very different language group - and has been associated with Egyptian by a Ghanaian writer who has a particular agenda. Can you tell me of a linguist who identifies this Wolof influence? There is no such thing as 'Hamitic' influence on Egyptian. That is meaningless. Egyptian is part of the Afro-Asiatic language group, which used to be called Semito-Hamitic. Hamitic is just an old-fashioned term for the non-Semitic component of the group, now no longer considered to be a linguistically coherent classification. Egyptian is now normally isolated within the Afro-Asiatic group, which covers north Africa and Israel/Arabia. It has also fairly obviously overlaid earlier groups in its southern expansions. In other words, Egyptian can't be influenced by 'Hamitic', Hamitic is just an old fashioned term for the group to which it belongs. Paul B 04.39, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you disagree with my use of "influenced," then you're free to change it. In doing online research, I came across (for the first time) references to Wolof and its similarities with the ancient Egyptian language. The tomb of Tutankhamun contained a box on which the king was depicted riding a chariot over black-skinned people, presumably representing Nubia. There were also walking sticks the handles of which depicted both black skinned and pale skinned prisoners, representing defeated Nubian and Asiatic enemies (see image at top). If the connection is tenuous or debated, then it certainly should be stated.

I do have a photo of the mural I've referred to that I think should be added to the article. I think it is a far better indicator of how the Egyptians thought of ethnicity (clearly, that was its purpose) than the photo of a single artifact, the color of which -- as well as the speculations surrounding it -- is purely circumstantial. deeceevoice 16:33, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your comments seem to include a quotation from my additions. I don't follow that. You know perfectly well that the Egyptians depicted themselves over and over again as red-brown, not normally as black - though of course some Egyptians would have been darker, and some paler than the norm. You are simply choosing an image to push a point of view, not to be fair. BTW, I made a mistake in the above comments. It's Diop who tries to connect Egyptian with Wolof. The Ghanaian writer, whose name I can't recall at the moment, connects it to Akan. Paul B 05.12, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On Diop's methodology, this is from Howe's book: "The basic flaw is that in order to trace the history of languages, to identify shared roots, patterns of evolution, and divergence, it is entirely inadequate to simply list similiar-sounding or possibly related terms in different languages...they can provide little more than a priori case for investigating the possibility of common origins...He makes no aparent attempt to formulate a systematic 'core' vocabulary, or to distinguish bewteen the words with strong cultural, religious or ideological overtones and those without" and "two languages can...also have words in comon because in one of them they are 'loanwords'. There are techniques for trying to decide whether a given word is a loanword, but Diop, once again, does not use them." Wareware 20:19, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What I know is this is a perfectly legitimate Egyptian artifact which itself depicts the ethnographic "universe" as the Egyptians of Rameses' time knew it -- and their place it it, as well. As such, it is a far more pertinent, far more graphic and clearer illustration of who the Egyptians represented themselves to be than the photo of a fairly generic artifact with dubious ethnographic significance that presently accompanies the relevant text and that is accompanied by a caption that is mere conjecture on the part of others as to who and what the Egyptians were. And, please, do not tell me what I "know perfectly well." You do not know at all what I know -- which is the whole point of this debate. You asked me to provide support, and here it is. I didn't manufacture this item. Some advice: do not ask for that which you are unwilling or unprepared to accept. deeceevoice 19:09, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, all I can say is that if you do not know perfectly well that Egyptians normally depicted themselves as red-brown, then you should see more Egyptian art before writing in an encyclopedia about how they depicted themselves. I could easily have chosen a depiction of a lighter skinned Egyptian, such as the famous bust of Nefertiti, if I'd wanted to show that Egyptians were pale-skinned people. I don't, because the evidence is that most of them weren't. I chose an image that seemed to be representative of the norm, not one to push a racial agenda. Now, the picture you refer to is very well known from numerous Afrocentric writings and websites that reproduce an old copy of it. They do not reproduce the many other tomb images illustrating the same sacred text (which lists peoples of the known world) in which Egyptians depict themselves as red-brown in contrast to darker and lighter peoples. This is a unique exception, the reasons for which we don't know. It is very misleading to take a unique, completely exceptional image and present it as how the Egyptians normally saw themselves. I think we should debate this here before changes are made, but I wont have time to do much till the weekend.

p.s. Diop is also responsible for the 'melanin tests', conducted and assessed by him. Having seen an account of his 'scientific' methods, I don't think this can be considered legitimate evidence. Paul B 12.35, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My, my. You've really got a bug up your butt, don't you? LOL Listen, the artifact is what it is. It's the only one I have access to, though I understand there have been similar/fairly identical ones found by others elsewhere. The ancient Egyptians, as indigenous Africans, were black people. "Black" does not mean literally black -- any more than "white" means literally white. Just as there is really no such thing as black hair, virtually all black folks are actually varying shades of brown -- from the "blackest Nubian/Dravidian/Tamil to "yella." (Do we really have to go through this rather fundamental aspect of "racial identification"?) Obviously, the Egyptians saw themselves as fundamentally "black" folks in relation to the other ethnic groups with whom they came into contact.

What's amusing is how white folks will call black folks with varying skin tones (which happens naturally, even without any "mixing") "Negroes" and "black people," but when it comes to Egypt, they take great pains to point to the fact that Egyptians sometimes depicted themselves using rich, dark brown skin tones as evidence that they aren't somehow "Negroid." WTF? The ethnographic mural is very straightforward, very, very clear -- as was their terminology for themselves. They referred to themselves as "blacks" as the most defining, striking characteristic that set them apart from all other ethnic groups with whom they came into contact (except other indigenous Africans) and -- in much the same way other peoples have referred to black people over the ages, regardless whether they were blue-black, mahogany, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, tan or cafe-au-lait.

Further, the use of the term "Semitic" to describe other people of the region itself testifies to the presence of African blood in their veins. After all, Semites are none other than Eurasians, or (Europeans or Asians) with black African blood. (Where the hell do you think Hasidim got their nappy hair from? Why do you think they've been so despised throughout the ages?) The black blood in them is so strong, that even the Ashkenazi, who've been in Europe for centuries, still often turn up with nappy/frizzy hair. They got that hair from black folks. There are no people indigenous to Africa other than black Africans. The Semites are a product of the confluence of peoples in that region -- of Europeans and Asians interacting with the indigenous blacks of Africa (and that includes Egypt). In fact, "Semitic" properly refers to a language group; it is not a racial or ethnic group. From a strictly scientific standpoint, consider the proposition that segments of humankind, as they migrated from warmer climates to cooler ones, gradually lost much of the pigmentation in their skin. Why the hell would white people, or even relatively fair-skinned Semites (and here we're not talking about the obvious black African and Afro-Semitic peoples of Egypt who remain the predominant population in Egypt to this day), develop in Africa/Egypt, where it's hot as blazes -- and right alongside blue-black Nubians? It didn't happen.

All that notwithstanding, and your silly and thoroughly presumptuous comments (lecturing me on "moral ground" and some ascribed "anger" that I do not have) in response to my earlier post assuming some sort of manufactured history in order to compensate for our subjugated state (notice I mentioned the knowledge passed on was based in part on historical accounts provided by classical historians, as well as archaeological evidence) as well, the fact of the ethnographic mural is incontrovertible; it is a matter of archaeological and historic record. And whether you wish to accept it or not, the ancient Egyptians were BLACK. How do we know? Because they themselves SAID so. deeceevoice 13:25, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The fact that in the West we call people with any visible sub-Saharan African ancestry 'black' is evidence of the incoherence of these racial categories when used as a social label, it's not evidence of anything else, certainly not of anything about Egypt. We have to be clear what we mean when we say "the Egyptians were/weren't black". Now, I'm pretty sure there can't be a definitive answer, because race-categories are themselves constructs, and often inconsistent. That's why we have to lay out the arguments clearly and fairly.

There are indeed many other examples of the so-called catalogue of races. So far as I know, all of the other ones portray the Egyptians as red-brown in contrast to black and to yellow ('white') peoples. This is in line with the constantly repeated depiction of Egyptians in statues and wall-paintings. I'd say that 'obviously' Egyptians identified themselves as 'fundamentally' a happy-medium or norm between extremes of colour. However, I am perfectly happy to include a discussion of the range of reasonable interpretations of Egyptian identity. As I'm sure you are aware there are white-supremacist websites out there that 'prove' Egyptians to have been a white race by highly selective use of evidence. Do you want to give that viewpoint equal weight? I don't.

It's true that Egyptians used the term 'Kemet' (KMT) to label their nation, and that it means 'black' or 'dark'. You know what the standard explanation of that is, and that it is not usually thought to refer to skin-pigmentation. So I can't really accept as likely the claim that Egyptians referred "to themselves as 'blacks' as the most defining, striking characteristic that set them apart from all other ethnic groups." In fact the great majority of evidence points the other way. They distinguish thmselves from both black and yellow/white peoples.

Your account of the origin of Semitic peoples reads as though it comes straight out of Gobineau, inventor of the theory of the Aryan master-race. He came up the with idea that 'Semites' are a blurring of racial identies, or, as you put it, "Euro Eurasians, or (Europeans or Asians) with black African blood." This whole idea depends on the notion that there were distinct 'black', 'white' and 'asian' races that just got all mixed up in the middle-east. I accept that we have a long way to go before we sort out the genetic histories of peoples of the world, but that notion of a mingling of three distinct identities surely can't hold water any more, and what's worse, it justifies the notion that there are essential racial identities that are either 'pure' or 'mixed'. The notion that only Africans have curly hair is not exactly borne out by the evidence of curly haired people elsewhere in the world. Yes, Semitic is a language-group, but it languages are spoken by peoples who migrate and take their language with them, so it is one (far from infallible) way to identify population movements and ethnic links between peoples. I don't really know what you mean when you ask 'why the hell would white people, or even relatively fair-skinned Semites...develop in Africa'. Yes, it's hot in Egypt, but it's hot in Israel too, which is a skip and a jump away. Why would they 'develop' there? It's hot in the rest of north Africa too. But the whole population of the area is not black-skinned is it? As for the evidence of classical authors, most of them say that Egyptians were a middle tone, lighter than some peoples, darker than others. If you want me to post the evidence I can, but it will have to wait a few days.

It was you who spent most of your last post complaining about the history of America, not me. You clearly indicated where your passion came from, not ancient history, but modern history. The ancient Egyptians, so far as I know did not 'say' they were black in the sense you mean. That is, I know of no text in which they say 'we are black-skinned peoples.' Akhenaton's "Hymn to the Sun" refers to to the different colours of humanity, but does not specify to which colour Egyptians belong. Obviously the fascination with colour is most obvious at this time - in the New Kingdom, when the empire encompasses Nubia and the Middle-East, and when there are diplomatic relations with Hittites and Mitanni. That's when you get the catalogue of races, in almost all of which - with one exception you mention - Egyptians are portrayed red-brown. That's why, I think, the fairest thing to say is that Egyptians can't really be fitted neatly into modern (socially constructed) race categories. Paul B 17.20, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Before you go on a jag about Jews and other Semites in the Middle East, perhaps you should take a good look at what ethnologists say the original Jews looked like, what Jesus, himself, in fact, looked like. They were clearly Afro-Semitic, with an emphasis on the "Afro."

And what? "As far as know," the other ethnographic murals are different? Well, I don't know what you've seen; I can only refer to and describe the photographs of the mural I've been looking at. When you can produce a similar mural that depicts the different ethnicities in the region substantially differently, I'll be more than willing to take a look. But even if they do use mud-brown pigment, that's STILL black folks. Until then, "as far as I know" just doesn't cut it. Further, there are numerous images of Egyptians as, literally, black. And I'm sure you've seen those, too. If you haven't, I'd be more than happy to direct you to some interesting images. But you're a smart boy. I'm sure you can find them (and already have) on your own.

Furthermore, the trend in history is toward Afrocentrism. What? No comments about forensic reconstruction? About why, inexplicably, this mural shows black Africans and Egyptians as identicial in physical appearance? Gee, how did that happen? Do you somehow think to contradict the clear archaeological evidence? Didja see what forensic scientists did with the royal mummy believed to be that of Nefertari? Or of King Tut (whose cane shows a Nubian "under his thumb")? The brother was blacker than I am! LMAO. And if you tried to tell someone I wasn't black, they'd laugh in your face. deeceevoice 20:36, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And let me make one observation. We are not here to debate the pros and cons of anything. We are here to equitably present the pro and con. That Afrocentrism is incorrect is not a foregone conclusion as contributors to this piece would like to present -- something which I am here to prevent. So, sue me.  :-p deeceevoice 20:44, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Civility

I think we should all avoid making personal remarks about other contributors:

• your silly comments
• got a bug up your butt
• you do not know
• You know perfectly well
• your conduct on that front –that you don't see it defeats your own points– never ceases to baffle me

If you need help, please ask a Mediator (like me for instance). -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:52, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

Dear Uncle Ed, if we do need a mediator, we will need someone who is impartial -- not someone who apparently sees fit to criticize the contributions of a single member. Perhaps your services can be utilized elsewhere on Misplaced Pages. *x* deeceevoice 20:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Civility has nothing to do with contributions, and deeceevoice does seem to be the only one here to consistently be directing such uncivil, emotional exclamations towards other editors. It is my opinion that Ed is correct and has every right to insist on civility, as I and other here also have. El_C 03:54, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not from this world

1) To categorize humans by race/color (You are/I am .. "black".. "white".. "yellow".. "red") is a fairly new concept and was unknown to ancient Egyptians.

2) To the ancient Egyptians, color was an essential part of symbolism. Black symbolized death, resurrection and the underworld. (Osiris, for instance, was referred to as "the black one" because he was the king of the afterlife) The picture deeceevoice refers to is a rendition of a painting of the Book of Gates, a text that appears on several tombs of ancient pharaohs and basically provided a guide for what to expect in the world of the afterlife (netherworld/underworld) and was NOT a description of the world of the living.

The symbolism of colors and their meaning already has been addressed in the article. (See my additions.) No-name contributor, your contentions are not borne out by what I have read. Regardless of the context in which this mural appears, the fact that it is a realistic rendering of the various groups illustrated and their differences has never been questioned by anyone of note -- not even Amelianeau, who identifies this as part of a religious "book." The argument that this is some symbolic rendering with no similarity to the real world is absurd on its face. Even the dress of the individual groups, style of hair and existence (or nonexistence) of facial hair is accurate to the groups portrayed. The fact that Egyptians represented other Africans as looking exactly like themselves and even wearing the same dress says it all. And, yes, Egyptians varied in skin tone and even hair texture -- the way other indigenous black Africans do, the way my people in my own immediate family do. That means absolutely nothing; we are all black. One would think if there were any meaningful difference whatsoever between the two groups phenotypically, the Egyptians would have made note of it, given that they were predisposed to set themselves apart from all other groups. Further, the renderings are highly detailed, right down to the forward-slanting profiles of the Africans -- which is a common (though not universal) "racial" characteristic still readily apparent in even most African-Americans today -- despite our "mongrelization." deeceevoice 23:32, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The last edit looks like it's quoting stuff from whitehistory.com, except that it's black. Like P.Barlow said, I don't see what's the point of only presenting selective evidence. Wareware 23:52, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some additional info re the "mural of nations":

First of all, the renderings of the peoples of the sun the Egyptians believed Osiris would resurrect in death are accurate. The mural represents deals with the sun's journey after it sets in the West and the afterlife (known similarly in the Kongo and as illustrated in African-American quilts as "the moments of the sun") 1. Kemetu, the Egyptians (Ret) humanity perfected 2. the Namu, to their east: sunrise 3. Black Afica/the Nile Valley to their south: noon 4. the Tamu to the west: sunset

deeceevoice 00:09, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Further, with regard to "selective evidence," one cannot get more selective than choosing a figural image of a single, relatively obscure 5th dynasty Egyptian offical and characterizing it as "typical." At least the presentation of the mural is an attempt to provide an example of a comparative rendering that explicitly illustrates broad, but specific, groups and clearly labels them by ethnic/national grouping. There are far more numerous statuary images -- royal and otherwise -- that show clear black African phenotypical characteristics. With the one provided, the facial characteristics are not even evident. deeceevoice 00:16, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I read the part about Egyptian color symbolism in the article, and it's not accurate. White was not associated with death, it was the color of sacred things and purity (e.g. Memphis meant "White Walls", priest were dressed in long white robes, the crown of Upper Egypt was white) Yellow was seen as being the equivalent to gold and was symbolic of all that is eternal, indestructible and imperishable. Black, as I already mentioned, symbolized death, resurrection and the underworld (e.g. Osiris, the king of the afterlife was called "the black one." Ahmose-Nefertari, the patroness of the necropolis was portrayed with black skin. Anubis, the Guardian of the Dead was shown as a black man with the head of a black jackal or dog).

Actually, I also read the information I inserted about color elsewhere, too. If the information is disputed or inaccurate, then it should be contested and/or corrected. I think it's important to mention, though, that color in Egyptian art is sometimes symbolic, rather than literal. deeceevoice 09:49, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Egyptians did NOT protrait themselves "looking exactly like other Africans". They distinguished themselves from non-Egyptians with distinctive clothing and hair-styles and red-brown skin. http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/colors1.jpg

The ethnographic example to which I refer is a very specific mural which very graphically and in great detail depicts the facial characteristics, dress and skin tones of four separate groups of people. The artifact is absolutely authentic, and the characterization of the information it provides is irrefutable. deeceevoice 18:57, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

by unnamed: To understand what's on the tomb wall of Ramses III one needs to examine the full paintings and the complete text of the Book of Gates. http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/16608.jpg

Nubian: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/15652.jpg

Syrian and Nubian: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/15447.jpg

Egyptian: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/15162.jpg

Asiatics: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/16230.jpg

Libyan: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/images/large/18236.jpg

Hello unammed, you might want to create an account and sign your name so it's easier to read. You can also contribute to the article too, the pictures look nice. As for you deeceevoice, what's your preoccupation with portraying mainstream scholarly works as Eurocentric? Mainstream is not Eurocentric; it's a label applied to Afrocentrists to give themselves more legitimacy, to propagate unfounded "research" some sort of "paradigm shift." The readers need to know that Afrocentrism is fringe theory at best, instead of some legitimate counterargument to historic research Wareware 00:49, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

With regard to the use of "eurocentric," I use the word and "mainstream" interchangeably, because that's been my experience with mainstream historical texts (note the examples I've mentioned before). Eurocentrism has been more or less a given in traditional historical text -- as has sexism, the omission of contributions by women. I didn't/don't see anything wrong with it; it's simply a truth for me. If, however, others are uncomfortable with the term and insist on the use of "mainstream," I won't argue the point. It's not that important to me.

It's really not that hard to differentiate between sexism and afrocentrism. While there have been many women scholars, Frocentrists the usually lacks scientific merit and work on an agenda. Grouping afrocentrism with sexism to attack mainstream academia is really not the place here Wareware 19:40, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the fact that Afrocentrism generally is outside mainstream historical thought is made amply clear in the article. What people also must understand, however, is that it is up to us to accurately set down the Afrocentrist viewpoint and then present prevailing counterarguments -- not for us to debate here whether or not we agree with either side. If historical scholars haven't settled the argument, we certainly cannot expect to do so among ourselves.

Not really, it presents afrocentrist fringe theories as equal and valid counterarguments or viewpoints. That'd be like inserting holocaust revisionism in the holocaust article and let the readers debate whether or not they agree with either side. It shouldn't be like that. Wareware 19:40, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

With regard to many of your earlier changes, Wareware, I've reverted a lot of them -- again. I wrote much of the original text you've been tampering with, and I've made certain changes for a reason, as I've already stated in the text accompanying my reversions. Unless you have a good reason for reverting the edits and state them, let them stand. You seem hell-bent on reverting anything and everything I contribute. You even reverted a typo I'd corrected. Exercise some critical thinking and stop acting like an automaton. If you continue in this manner, I will report you for violating the 3-reverts rule. deeceevoice 09:49, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I find it amusing that the unnamed contributor argues in one post that the images are "not of this world" and so therefore are somehow not meant to be literal depictions of the groups represented and clearly labeled. When this assertion is debunked, the unnamed contributor returns with other images, apparently asserting that they do, in fact, represent various ethnic groups. Which is it? Are the images nebulous and symbolic? Or are they accurate, detailed renderings? One can't have it both ways. It is clear that the images -- detailed in dress, hairstyles, skin pigmentation -- are meant to be taken as accurate depictions of variouis peoples; the earlier assertion is but a weak attempt to explain away the black pigmentation used by the Egyptians to depict themselves as identical to other Africans.

Further, with regard to the links contributed, here is another -- of images presented specifically in the context of the mural -- that fully examines the images presented in the mural and varying versions (with links) of it: http://manuampim.com/ramesesIII.htm . Note that while the above links contributed by no-name present images, they do so completely out of context and do not appear to be accompanied by identifying hieroglyphs. Such was not their purpose. On the other hand, the condensed images presented in the "mural of the nations" are idealized, elemental images (with the identifying hieroglyphs that accompany them) in much the way Plato spoke of a generic image of a tree representing all trees. With regard to physical appearance and dress, clearly, the elemental "facts" of Egyptians and other Africans were similar enough that both groups were portrayed identically. The elemental "facts" of Semites and Europeans were substantially different -- enough for them to be portrayed completely differently -- as they were specifically identified by ethnic group.deeceevoice 10:34, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A question Re "Black-centered history and Africa"

I've deleted this text, pending an explanation:

The relationship between racial, cultural and continental identities is one of the more difficult problems in Afrocentic thought. Despite the problems with a Eurocentric approach to history, there has been a common European cultural identity for many centuries. It is more difficult to make the same claim for Africa, in which widely separated cultures were unaware of each-other's existence. For this reason, some Afrocentrists have been accused of manufacturing "African" cultural values by cherry-picking from wholly different peoples.

Aside from concerns about the accuracy of the "common European cultural identity for many centuries," I'm not quite certain of the relevance to the "cherry picking" of "cultural values" to the Afrocentrist historical paradigm. Would someone care to explain/rework the paragraph to make this more clearly relevant? deeceevoice 12:14, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Afrocentrist approach typically attempts to present african peoples as a homogenous stock, myths like the cultural and spiritual unity of Africans derived from Egyptian sources and extends undiluted to disaporic Africans. Wareware 19:14, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wareware, thanks for the clarification of your intent. Presumably, the following passage is meant to explain the later reference to "cherry picking":

One thing to point out is that Afrocentrists usually try to make the connections between Egypt and their own ethnic background. For example, Diop was a native Wolof, while Obenga came from a Mbochi-speaking background.

One problem is it is far too general. "Afrocentrists usually...." I realize you haven't read much Afrocentrist history, but I have. And I only just became aware of the purported linkages between Wolof and Mbochi and ancient Egyptian. Your addition makes it seem as though this is widespread. Is it? If not, then you should make only specific assertions with regard to the two historians you mention and leave it at that. Further, how much of the association of language is simply due to the fact that the historian's familiarity with Wolof or Mbochi language equips him with the knowledge to even explore the possibility of a connection and has nothing to do with the fact that it may be his native tongue? You should be careful not to assume too much or to paint Afrocentrist historians with too broad a brush.

Now, with regard to:

The relationship between racial, cultural and continental identities is one of the more difficult problems in Afrocentic thought. Despite the problems with a Eurocentric approach to history, there has been a common European cultural identity for many centuries. It is more difficult to make the same claim for Africa, in which widely separated cultures were unaware of each-other's existence. For this reason some Afrocentrists have been accused of manufacturing "African" cultural values by cherry-picking from wholly different peoples.

I'll leave aside strictly editorial stuff for the moment. But the idea of a common European cultural identity is simply a myth. Goths, Visigoths, Angles, Saxons, Albanians, Basques, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Slavs, Armenians, Magyars, Serbs, Albanians, Huns, Kossaks (Kazaks), Tartars, the rising of the clans in Scotland, the upheavals in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, etc., etc., all bear witness to the fact that the "homogeneity" of Europe is a myth. The armed conflict that has accompanied such historical, political, religious and other cultural differences would be called "tribal warfare" in Africa. It's all a matter of perspective. If you mean something different and I have misunderstood, then by all means tell me; but as it stands, this statement is simply false. With this in mind, the assertions about disparate cultures in Africa are seemingly rendered irrelevant. If you wish to refer to the language thing here, then it's certainly relevant. But it is merely one example involving only two historians. Are there others? Your assertion of "cherry picking" is a broad with regard to assuming shared values and other cultural affectations, so I would expect there to be other examples offered to back up such claims. deeceevoice 20:50, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think selective is a more appropriate word. Notwithstanding, the particularities of and conflict among ethnic groups in Europe, if the evidence suggess that European historians approached European accomplishments with affinity as such (which it largely does), if only due to prximity, commonalities of phsyical, language, etc., features, then the basis for that needs to be established. It is contradictory to say that Eurocentrism exists but the European affinity for it didn't. We accept ethnicism in Europe as a given, as we do elsewhere, but that still dosen't take away from the greater mobility Europeans enjoyed (continentally and beyond) viz. Africans which the aforementioned comment attempts to highlight. At this point, however, I am refraining from making any edits since DC's changes were split through such a great number of successive edits (tens), it makes following the changes a rather prohibitive task. El_C 02:30, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Selective" is more appropriate than what? Notice I haven't dismissed Wareware's train of thought out of hand -- just the overly general manner in which he is attempting to express it. But "greater mobility"? In what sense? And how are you suggesting "mobility" relates to the matter at hand? I'm afraid you haven't at all helped to clarify the point Wareware seems to be trying to make. deeceevoice 03:34, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Selective is more appropriate than 'cherry-pick' which is somewhat idiomatic, but that is a minor point. Greater physical mobility for Europe in the sense of facilitating cultural, scientific, etc. transmissions within and beyond the European continent; more fragmanted a phenomenon in the African continent (as the aforementioned passage suggests). El_C 03:48, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Look, I didn't write the paragraph, Paul Barlow did. It is pretty clear that the message is that Frocentrists like to create unity among AFrican peoples when there isn't one. What's so hard to understand? Asante said "to see different parts of Africa as having different cultural traits is to commit a major intellectual crime." Of course Asante didnt originate these ideas himself, but he is the most vocal about it. I think El C is saying that because there is a greater degree of mobility and exchange of ideas in Europe make them more homogenous, compared to African peoples who are relatively isolated from each other. El C, you can pick whichever version histories to view, they don't have to be right next to each other, and then click compare selected versions. This would get by deeceevoice's successive edit problem. Wareware 06:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I know I can, I'm not that new. :) But even that involves quite a bit of effort as there are a lot of variables (tens of edit changes) to compare. It also gives me an excuse to be lazy and to complain, which I am rather fond of. El_C 07:21, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My apologies for the multiple, successive edits; but after Wareware's mindless and repeated reverts -- done completely without any justification being offered for most of them -- I felt compelled to make fewer changes at a time and (again) specifically state my reasons (perhaps more clearly) for making each one in the hope of stopping this stupid back and forth. For a time, he was reverting my edits of my own material -- edits I made to either correct or refine information that I had presented, in one instance, even reverting a typo. He couldn't possibly have known what he was doing or why -- just simply slavishly reacting to anything he saw that I had done. Let's keep in mind, people, the objective is the accuracy and journalistic integrity of this piece. deeceevoice 09:18, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

About "cherry picking" or "selecting" values and culture -- it's not that I don't understand the sentence. In an editorial sense, what I am trying to get someone to do here is to be more clear in the article just precisely how widespread the manifestation of such a perspective is in Afrocentrist historical analysis. A fairly sweeping generalization has been made. There should be concrete examples provided to back it up that don't read like "they all do it" (because they don't), but that a significant portion of, or principal contentions within, the body of work of Afrocentrists, evidence such a perpsective. Again, how does this perspective broadly manifest itself within the Afrocentrist paradigm? deeceevoice 09:18, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)