Why is that?
Duh. They all became sparkly vampires and the dazzle of the sparkling fools the camera into seeing their skin color as the kind of off-beige that is the natural heritage of us normal descendants of albinos.
Plus that French woman in the picture with the black slave that he claims is black, is an ancestor of Princess Di, which is about as lily-white as could be found.
I doubt he will be back, so I guess we will never know The Truth.
Regards,
Shodan
Don’t know about Victoria or George V, but the camera definitely captured the strong African features of Edward VIII.
In seriousness - Afrocentrism is, in my opinion, one of the most utterly arrogant, obnoxious and racist “historical” schools of thought. It absolutely smacks of envy, resentment and hostility. These people literally try to claim everyone important in history - they say the ancient Romans and the ancient Greeks were black, they say the ancient Egyptians were black, they say the Jews were black and the European Jews today are “impostors,” they say Jesus and Moses were black, and now apparently they’re saying that the greatness of the European Renaissance was all due to blacks - and evil whitey is trying to cover it all up!
Even the most politically-incorrect, nationalistic, old-fashioned historical movements of white academics never tried to claim that the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and the Arab empires and the Aztecs and Mayas and Incas and every other civilization were all actually white Anglo-Saxons! The only thing I can even think of that comes close is the absurd Nazi theories that the ancient Indians were all blue-eyed, blond Aryans…or something.
Seriously. If you want to be proud of your own culture and heritage, be proud of it. But trying to take credit for things that are not part of that culture and heritage is just the lowest of the low. There’s also a strong current of what I call “black inventor-ism”, which takes the form of claiming, as the United Negro College Fund did in a full-page ad in the New York Times last summer, that all kinds of ridiculous things were invented by blacks.
I posted another thread about that, when I saw the ad, and though most people agreed with my distaste for it, some people said that while a black person (or any individual person) didn’t necessarily invent things like horseshoes, biscuit cutters, ironing boards or doorknobs (!!!), certain black inventors improved those things into the forms that we now know them as today, which justifies the language and argument of that ridiculous ad. OK, someone else might have invented it originally, but black inventors improved it and refined it…so it’s OK to say that it “came from their mind.”
Alright. Fine. But by that reasoning, white people invented rock music. Chuck Berry and Little Richard were the ones who first started playing it in its crudest form, but groups like The Beatles were the ones who really innovated it, incorporating white music like string orchestras, brass bands, English dance hall tunes, synthesizers (invented by whites,) studio effects (invented by whites) - and more white groups refined it further. You can talk about the influence of the blues on rock and roll until hell freezes over, but there is absolutely NO “black” sound evident in Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds, You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice by the Lovin’ Spoonful, Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, Miserlou or any of Dick Dale’s dozens of innovative surf tunes (which were inspired by Lebanese music). There is not a single trace of the blues in Roundabout by Yes or The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin or Welcome to the Jungle by Guns 'n Roses or Space Oddity by Bowie or Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen or Tom Sawyer by Rush or any number of other songs that are recognized as being tremendously influential in creating the genre of rock.
Fine - ice cream, the doorknob, the gas mask and the hairbrush all came “from the mind of an African American.” And rock and roll is white.
Good thing you give the permission to be, because there is plenty to be proud of. The black experience is quite unique. The fact that a nation can begin with putting a people down so low that the only way a black woman can make it into the white house is as actual, factual property, to coming to a point where she can sit at the head of the table as first lady of this great nation. That is a long way, baby. The fact that the most put down of a put down people can still offer so much to the world culture (hip-hop, jazz,) from the very bottom of the ghetto is also very telling, for anyone paying attention.
But I think what one would do well to think of, when they are getting worked up into an outrage over the ignorant claims of many Afrocentric people, is the why.
If you come from a place where your culture was stripped from you (or your ancestors, and by proxy, you) then you pretty much have to start from scratch. And if you have to trust white people as the writers of history, which you kinda do if you are educated in American public schools, then you are going to have a bit of a trust issue. See, no matter how much we talk about how Africans sold their own people, there is no comparing African slavery to American slavery. The absolute institutionalized, organized kind of slavery that takes away names, abilities to learn and grow, histories, prides, and legacies forevermore, from generation to generation…that is quite different from the kind of slavery that other people have endured. So I really don’t understand why someone always makes a big production over pointing out that Africans sold slaves; it misses the point.
But, I’m digressing. The point is, when you culture was taken from you, and you have to start from scratch, you tend to be in a very difficult position.
When you grow up in the ghetto as a black person, you may go through some stages. Let me break them down:
-
You are born into a society and the game is already in motion. You are already a product of generations of blacks in this nation that has this huge history of slavery. Your parents come from an age of Jim Crow, you grandparents come from an age of something even harder, and it was their job to educate you. They teach you what they know. So you go to church and bow down to white jesus. Son of God. Basically, your black ass bows down to a white god every single night.
-
You accept images in the media that white is right, blue eyes are better, straight hair is great, booty-flat is where it’s at. You begin to grow resentful. The truth is, you come from a people that believed in your beauty, but you were cut off from that love generations ago, and your people were taught that you were ugly. Resentment begins to build.
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You come of age at about 15. You begin to get into some of the rebellious energy going on around you. Malcolm X, Minister Farrakhan, young black men come up to you and teach you to stop bowing to a white god. Aint no white god in the sky gonna save you, YOU are god, black man!
-
You begin to read everything you can get your hands on that gives that message. You don’t have the kind of family that can send you to Ivy league universities, but you have some books that everyone in the hood passes around, and it tells you everything GOOD about being black, instead of all the bad things.
There you have the birth of a so-called Afrocentric. I went through the process myself, and I remember the pain of learning the truth about some of the lies I was taught (you mean, Jesus wasn’t a black man???) but it doesn’t compare the absolute joy of learning the truth about who my people really are, and all that we have to be proud of.
So, when you hear an Afrocentric person talking, (not the OP, I mean, a real one) try looking at them as someone on a journey. You can educate them and help them along on their journy. Or you can just go bananas and start seriously debating whether or not rock and roll is black or white. Either way.
Man this thread was worth your post alone Nzinga, Seated.
Really a great post. It was 108 years ago the first Black Man was invited to dinner at the White House and that caused such an uproar that a sitting southern Senator openly declared they would have to lynch “1000 Niggers”* because of it.
- Sorry for the language, it is not mine. My cite is from the book *Theodore Rex *and the dinner guest was Booker T. Washington.
That was a brilliant post, Nzinga, thank you for writing and sharing it.
Maybe this is how it was for older generations. But the argument that the media presents white as being right does not fly with me. Right now the most popular kind of music in America is rap and hip-hop; rappers are the coolest of the cool; black basketball stars are treated like warrior-kings and given millions of dollars, their pick of the hottest women in the world, and more media exposure than World War II; black women are icons of sex appeal; the president of our country is black (well, bi-racial, but he’s still seen as mostly black - you can’t get more “right” than the president, and not just any president but one who’s popular, successful and classy.) Seriously, it’s literally at the point where “black” = “cool” - if you don’t believe me, just think about all these memes about white people having no soul, white people can’t dance, white people are nerds, “white” is a self-deprecating put-down or joke (“my white ass could never get into that nightclub” or whatever).
It’s not 1962 anymore. Blacks may face a lot of problems in society, but I do not believe that media bias is one of them - at least not in the pop culture sphere, the importance of which cannot be overstated.
Just like everybody else’s. 
It’s not an either/or. Just think of those of us who debunk the more outrageous claims of the Afrocentric crackpots as helping you along your journey.
Regards,
Shodan
My journey? What does debunking Afrocentric crackpots have to do with *my *journey?
ETA: Argent, good point.
Nobody would ever suggest that if you encountered someone spewing white supremacist nonsense, you should “help them along on their journey.” Never in a million years especially on this board. Never mind that this person might be the product of hundreds of years of poverty, descended from Scots-Irish indentured servants (white slaves) and still stuck in the same pathetic cycle of bad luck. He never had a single clue of what his culture or heritage was; he probably didn’t even know his father; he was raised in a rough neighborhood, turned to dealing meth because there wasn’t a single goddamn job and all the factories are closed; he goes to state prison, he gets beaten and raped by black inmates, he turns to the Aryan Brotherhood for protection, the image of the swastika and “white power” is the only kind of power that he has ever felt in his life - he becomes a white supremacist.
Is this guy worthy of being “helped along on his journey”? Or is he not oppressed enough to qualify for this special status?
You mean this dude? Um, he looks pretty white too me. I mean, he’s pretty fly for a white guy* and all, but yeah, he’s white.
*Although if you take off the wig and the bling and such, he looks like the kind of guy who’d wear wife-beaters and sandals with black socks. And then yell at the kids to get the hell off his lawn. Like Tom Anderson. Boy, I tellya what.
Generic ‘you’ - just like in your post.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh.
He looks like Randy Quaid, to me. Not that Randy Quaid isn’t the kind of guy who’d wear wife-beaters and sandals with black socks. I bet Louis XIV never ran out on a $10,000 hotel bill, though…
The gist of your argument’s OK, but this is wrong. There have, indeed, been claims to various ancient civilizations by AS pseudo-historians, from the “Quetzalcoatl was a white man” theory on to the whole Atlantis crowd.
Cousin Eddie!!!
Or that Great Zinbabwei was built by Phoenicians, or that the Tutsi were superior to the Hutu because of ‘white genes’ transmitted via Ethiopia ( i.e. the “Haimitic Hypothesis” ).
So, no - unfortunately white Europeans were at times in the habit of claiming the achievements of other cultures as there own. Which just once again points out the commonality of people everywhere ;).
As mentioned, this thread discusses something that makes no difference one way or the other. Who cares? Why?
Because, as people have pointed out, it’s amusing.
Oh, and google “codfried louis xiv” as he said. Some of the images he’s got are really a hoot. Madame Recamier???