I’m certainly not an expert on the racial makeups of various populations and societies of history. But the political faction pushing for Egyptian = Black don’t appear to be looking at percentages or “just a drops”, they seem to be promoting the idea that ancient Egyptians were more like this and this than
this.
Unfortunately, “Negro” also means “black”, so that doesn’t really help. And while I was rubbish at geography at school, I’m pretty sure that Egypt is part of Africa.
Those photos make things worse. I don’t know what difference I’m supposed to be looking for. If it wasn’t for the outfits (and filenames), I’d have said the Maasai and the Egyptian looked more alike than the Zulu guys.
Clearly “black” (or “negro”) has some other meaning I’m not grasping here. Is there some simple definition that means that Egyptians aren’t black, but Sudanese, say, are?
I thought that Egyptians didn’t wan’t sub-Saharan cultures trying to claim ownership (or part ownership) over the Ancient Egyptian civilization, which is one of the earliest (and grandest) in humankind. Think of it as trying to prevent outsiders from continuing to loot Egypt, culturally instead of literally.
As far as ethnicity appearance goes, the wiki photos here Egyptians - Wikipedia make them appear, to my inexpert eyes, to be more of a Mediterranean/Near Eastern stock than sub-saharan negroid stock. Of course, Ancient Egypt had trade and war contact with all three continents in the region, so I presume that they had a mixture of ethnicities even three thousand years ago.
Egyptians black or not? If not, then… white?
…or to flip it…
Egyptians white or not? If not, then… black?
How bout, neither? both? Modern day ‘raceologists’ are hard at work on this difficult question. 
True/false:
Egyptians look black
Egyptians look white
Egyptians look both black and white
Egyptians look both black or white
Egypt is in Africa
Egypt is in Saharan Africa
Egypt is not in sub-Saharan Africa
Egypt is on the Mediterranean
Egypt is not in Europe
Egyptians have local ancestry
Egyptians have foreign ancestry
Egyptians have both foreign and local ancestry
Egyptians are Arabs
Arabs come from Arabia
Arabs are white
Arabs are black
Some Arabs are white
Arabs are both black and white
Arabs are both black or white
Now what was the first, incorrect, statement? Ah…Egyptians are not black. …or was it… Egyptians are not white? hmmmm… What was the definition of Black and White, again?
I love this question because the answer is entirely based on your own personal, subjective definitions and opinions. There isn’t really an incorrect/correct answer to subjective, socially determined, racial categorizations. The only major fail comes when people (adamantly) refuse to accept that, that is what they are doing.
Tit: You’re wrong
Tat: No, you’re wrong
Let’s just skip to the end and start googling pics of Egyptians and placing them in one of 3 piles: white/black/kinda both… 
Here you go Orcenio. 
On this page is an image of four people. One is obviously black/negro/sub-saharan/what-have-you. The one on the right is the Egyptian.
They didn’t consider themselves the same color or ethnicity.
Good Christ, why don’t you guys just start breaking out the IQ data and totally flush the thread down the toilet?
“This is not a productive area of discussion.” -Henry Kissinger’s head
I believe I was carefull not to apply any subjective values to ethnic appearance.
I apologise if my post (#23) was unclear. The Egyptians themselves don’t want any one else trying to claim any (undeserved) credit for the (history and legacy of the) Ancient Egyptian civilization. That applies to Europeans, Africans (sub-saharan), or anyone else, past or present.
I assume that some Egyptians feel, with some justification, in my opinion, that in the past, the ancient heritage sites in Egypt have been, more or less, looted by foreigners. (Especially when there wasn’t a unified organised self-government in Egypt to stop it.) They’ve had to put up with new age quackery about aliens building the pyramids and planting the seeds [or knowledge] of civilization, instead of giving credit to the Egyptians themselves. I think it’s understandable that they wish to preserve what they have left, even if it seems a little over-zealous to other people.
Gah, my google-foo is weak. I spent a long time trying to find good images on google to demonstrate what I meant (and wasn’t thrilled with the Maasai one), when what I should have done was checked wiki. :smack:
phaemon said:
Trying to find terms that are not pejorative is difficult. “Negroid” would be indicative but not a current acceptable term.
mlees was far more helpful, “Black” in this context means “sub-Saharan African”, i.e. the traditional U.S. slave kind of Black, not a dark-skinned person from India or the Middle East or even North Africa.
Googling Sudanese gives me pictures that do fit with the expectation of “Black”.
orcenio said:
You appear stuck in a false dichotomy. Egyptians are not Caucasians (i.e. White), but they are not “Black”. They have a range of skin tones that are darker than Caucasians but ligher than Negros.
Yes, the terms and the hairsplitting and the categorization is tied up in a history of making racial determinations and making value judgments because of those determinations. It makes this topic difficult to talk about factually.
A similar confusion driven by a lack of terms is how Indians and Pakistanis are not “Asians” in the way Chinese and Japanese and Koreas et al are. But nobody would argue they come from the continent of Asia.
You’re correct; that picture clearly outlines that the Egyptians belonged to the burnt sienna race! Not the black one. 
Aha, but any application of racial taxonomy is purely subjective. You look, then eyeball “them” into whatever racial categories you happen to adhere to. The interesting/annoying part is people’s outright refusal to recognize that this is a culturally-defined and subjective process, by claiming scientific impartiality.
Race isn’t a ‘measurement’ of something, neither is it scientifically defined. It changes from epoch to epoch and from place to place. All based on social factors. IOW your definition of negro/Black/White isn’t mine.
If you want to be accurate then you should probably simply stick to describing Egypt as Egyptian. Your claim that Egyptians are “more of a Mediterranean/Near Eastern stock than sub-saharan negroid stock” is just a nod to your own, privately subjective, racial categorization. Someone else (possibly phaemon) will just claim that those categories are false/not mutually exclusive/etc.
That is entirely reasonable.
Burnt sienna it is!
I really just want to focus on the subjectivity of it all.
- One invents a private number of “race categories”
- then one creates a private number of “racial guidelines”
- one shoehorns people into those categories by “race eyeballing”
- and finally one hold true to the belief that this is not a subjective, socially-determined process.
This misses a big part of the point. It’s not a terminology problem. Race is not a culturally objective thing. Once one accepts this fact, you will realize that EVERYONE can be both wrong and right about their racial groupings.
The logic of grouping “East Asia” as ‘a race’ can be questioned on many grounds too.
Orcenio…
And the fact that the Egyptians separated themselves in this ethnic grouping from “black” and “white” is not important to you? As well as the coloring? There are two “white” groups there in the same picture.
It is clear in that picture that they did not consider themselves “the same” as Nubians. Or “White”.
THEY WERE EGYPTIAN.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long considered race as a pretty daft notion, but I thought it was maybe at least a consistent, daft notion.
So Egyptians aren’t black because they don’t consider themselves “black” and most people agree with them. Except some people think that they were once really “black” black, while others disagree and maintain they’ve always been “unblack” black. Fair enough.
But who would have thought being “black” had nothing to do with the colour of your skin?! :dubious:
Yeah, let’s get back to talking about what an ass Hawass is.
Yeah, we’re really hijacking the topic to discuss race. Look, I agree that there aren’t clear lines for making race determinations and that the categories are subjectively and historically defined.
But the categories being discussed are somewhat collectively defined by societies, not merely individually defined. And that is why I say the significant issue to phaemon’s question is a terminology issue. Being “Black” goes beyond mere skin tone to other physical characteristics. It’s not just about how much melanin a person has. These people aren’t Black, and they wouldn’t fit the category “African Americans” if they lived in the United States. It’s not my fault that the people who named these categories picked those names. Would you prefer the terms picked from the Bible, using the sons of Noah? We can call them “Semites” (from Shem) and lump them with Jews, if you like. Vs. the “Hamites” that live in sub-Saharan Africa, or the “Japhethites” for “Whites”.
Like I said, it’s the same way with “Asians” and the older term “Orientals”, which seems to be largely (at least in the U.S.) applied to East Asians like Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc, and not applied to folks from the Indian “subcontinent”, as it’s called. I didn’t make any of this up, I learned it from society. It may not be completely objective, but it certainly isn’t purely subjective, either.
As happens with every other Goddamn thread relating to Africa.
Why have crazy-ass theories about Africa gripped a tenacious subset of the dopers? It’s getting damn tiring.
I agree, can we get back to bashing Zahi Hawass? lol …
I really do have great sympathy for Egypt in general, being stuck under the suzeraine of europeans who were just out to pillage the people and culture for everything they could sucks. What I deplore is the policy of screwing over any nonegyptian scholar now. The scholars of today understand they are not allowed to pillage the dig sites, but some of the constraints are absolutely absurd.
I actually like Hawass. I haven’t seen him desecrating tombs though, and I’ve watched him a lot over the last ten years. I remember when he didn’t have grey hair. From what I have seen, he usually shows up at the last second, after all the delicate work is done, and shows off for the TV crews. I could be wrong. And he has let whitey into his digs for his newest show (although I don’t know how much of it is factual).
I just don’t see how one cannot see the difference in Nubians and Egyptians in the picture I posted. Negroid features are different from other features and they are clearly painted in the image.
An Egyptian who is dark skinned and who has spent his life in the sun looks very dark. That’s called tanning. To claim he’s “black” is absurd.
Oh my sweet jumping Jebus … that blasted documentary is on right now - Into the Great Pyramid … on the National Geographic channel, and that idiot Hawass is ripping into the sarcophagus. :smack::smack::smack:
Was that the one you mentioned in post #2?