Dammit, I went to perfectly normal public schools in perfectly normal towns in Maine and New Jersey in the 50’s and 60’s, and such things were not glossed over. I was also never taught that Egypt had no influence on Greece.
This whole “were the Egyptians black?” thing, on the other hand, is based on the very real, but very false and outdated notion of three or four “pure races”. Were they “black” when, say, compared to Princess Diana? Yes. Were they “black” when, say, compared to Denzel Washington? No. Long before the age of discovery, there was pretty much a continuous gradation of “racial” characteristics from south to north.
You know, it’s not as though the Egyptians disappeared. The Copts are, culturally, and to some degree by blood, their descendants.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Relax Jack - I was never taught in the 80’s that the Egyptian’s were a great influence on Greece, I had to teach that to myself. But maybe that’s my sucky school district. Everybody thought it was a GREAT education and it really did suck. I might go as far as the position that Egypt gave Greece a whole hellava lot (more than Greece gave us…) based on books like “Black Athena” which is the most laboriously researched tome I’ve ever read.
The Egyptians were both/neither black/white in the way we arbitrarily divide it up here.
Consider that Egypt is part of Africa. Digging a canal and saying Egypt is now the “middle east” doesn’t make it so.
Also consider, if white people spent the amount of time in the sun that those people do we’d also be looking very tan.
Black & white is a non issue. We are all people and have the same dna/blood. Does a black mans O+ blood look different then my white mans O+? duh.
If it’s true that the world we now know came from Noah’s sons (shem= semetic people, ham= generally african people & japeth=father of those that moved north, the europeans) then there is truly no difference in us except for the regions of the globe where we ended up. Spend enuogh time in Iceland and I would bet even the blackest africans would eventually become lighter skinned and thinner nosed. It all relates to environment.
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Quick clarification, before my foot gets too far into my mouth: Them = blacks, Us = whites’ by us, I mean “people like myself”, not “the people on this board”, who come from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds.