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Why do American Blacks think they're Egyptians?
Ummm...I don't have a problem with nerds. I was agreeing with his comment about disenfranchised Blacks (AA's specifically) thinking they were from anywhere except west(ern) Africa, meaning not from Egypt. You could say that Diop was a significant figure, in that he showcased Egypt as a genuinely African civilization, as opposed to a Eurasian one, but he was also diffusionist, and asserted these ridiculous ideas about Egypt being the 'root' of African civilization, and indeed, world civilization, as well as Egyptians starting out as "Negro" and viewing themselves as "Negro". First, Egypt is not the root of world civilization. Second, Egypt is not the root of African civilization. Third, Egyptians never saw themselves as "Negro" or Black, nor did anyone else, as Egyptians were always distinguished from Black Africans, from ancient times to now. Fourth, Diop conceded that Ancient Egypt started mixed during later periods of its existence, but started out as Black, which is false. Ancient Egypt was always racially mixed and heterogeneous from the start of the first dynasty and even prior. Fifth, as I said, I don't have a problem with nerds, I'm a nerd. I don't have a problem with Diop proving that Egypt was an African civilization or even that "Black" Africans played a role in it. I have a problem with his diffusionist theories about Egyptians being the root of African civilization, essentially confirming what eurocentrists had been saying, in that African civilizations of the interior needed some cultural diffusion from 'superior' societies in order to fashion out their own civilized polities. This is wrong. West Africa was largely an independent creation and they people there were developing sophisticated political structures, arts, iron technologies, and agricultural techniques, (e.g. civilization) without any help from Egypt or even North Africa. (10 hrs ago | post #2394)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
Everyone notice how whenever I request that this coward, Almoravid, tell me where I am or was inaccurate, after him accusing me of being 'ignorant' of something, he never responds to that request. Signs of a troll. How droll. (11 hrs ago | post #8414)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
You're trying to be logical with someone who is incapable of expressing or comprehending logical thought. How amusing. Afrocentrists don't need a reason to bash anyone they don't like or expresses views they do not wish to agree with, as they are not bound by reason, such as the coward you are attempting to expose such reason to. They will just go ahead and accuse or otherwise intimate that these more knowledgeable scholars are lying without any evidence of these supposed lies, or are concealing 'the truth' when they themselves have none to offer as an alternative argument. (12 hrs ago | post #8413)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
It doesn't make it not 'great' either. It's all a matter of opinion really. But this point is rather moot even still, since we haven't even gotten to the point where anyone is bragging about West African societies outside of the Islamic Empires. They are too busy attempting to ascribe Blackness to everything and receiving recognition for acts which they (their ancestors) are not responsible for committing or even being involved inI don't think it's about Africans being special. Again, you are concerning peoples' opinions and what they or you think comprises as having 'much going on'. I wouldn't say a Europeans or Africans "didn't have much going on in most areas" where social organization and interaction is concerned just because most of either Africa or Europe did not reach the level of political, economic or technological sophistication as did peoples in other places within those regions. I would simply say that the number of truly advanced polities and civilizations were always few everywhere in contrast to the vast number of less sophisticate polities in most other areas. But the aspect of having 'much going on' cannot easily be quantified as this is a matter that is more subjective than anything. (12 hrs ago | post #8412)
A challenge for you melanin enriched scholars.
Point taken. I'll let it go. (14 hrs ago | post #119)
A challenge for you melanin enriched scholars.
I don't need to build up my credibility because no one and nothing has diminished my credibility. And I don't understand why you people keep telling me to 'let it go' when I am not the one who keeps bringing this stuff up. I have already laid out my arguments, and the pseudo-pedants tried to fashion an argument out of nothing, as a result of not having one against any point I made in the first place. (15 hrs ago | post #113)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
You have no actual argument or counter-argument, so you post inane drivel to compensate for such a lack. (15 hrs ago | post #8392)
A challenge for you melanin enriched scholars.
I understand it just fine, which is why I have been able to, without effort, defeat all you alls' inane and desperate 'arguments', if you can call them that. (15 hrs ago | post #111)
A challenge for you melanin enriched scholars.
Still no argument as a result of never having any real one to begin with, I see. Like I said, Topix has no editing feature, yet you seek to conflate misspellings, something ubiquitous on Topix, with a lack of understanding. That kind of fallacious logic, brought on by the desperate desire to have something to pick at - since you all lost every other argument you could come up with - makes it easier for the average reader to believe why even in the 8th grade I still possessed a superior comprehension of the English vernacular that any of you here have been able to demonstrate. By the way, you know you've lost your argument when all you can do is engage in inane pedantry. ...as opposed to actually laying out an effective counter-argument, that is. In the words of the illiterate OP: So noted. (16 hrs ago | post #110)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
"I, like you, take interest in African history for its own sake, as that, as I see it, is where it becomes the most 'African'." I meant to say, especially polities of the interior, as that is where African history becomes most 'African'. (19 hrs ago | post #8388)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
Well it's like I say, the afrocentrists are mainly only interested in "African history", or the case of most, African psuedo-history, only insofar as they can assert some meaningful influence on some non-African or non-Black culture or society, so as to feel that they have some sort of valid place in world history. I, like you, take interest in African history for its own sake, as that, as I see it, is where it becomes the most 'African'. But I guess I am an anomaly. As an aside, what works have you gathered in regards to your information about African oral storytelling? I'd be interested in taking a look at that. (20 hrs ago | post #8387)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
Trollslayer wrote: 1) I'm NOT saying other civilizations didn't develop, I'm saying the root of civilization was African. Which is completely false. There is no one root of "civilization ", nor can you illustrate how Egypt, which I am sure that is what you are referring to here, is responsible for the spawning of civilizations that took place outside of Africa. Hell, Egypt isn't even responsible for spawning many of the civilizations WITHIN Africa, as Ethiopia was essentially and independent creation, and of course, so was West Africa, although, they might have received some impetus from northern nomads who were placing pressure on southern agriculturalists. Egyptians definitely had some influence on peoples like the Phoenicians and Minoans, but throughout most of the Near East, the predominant influence was that of Mesopotamia, which had urbanized at a much earlier date than Egypt. The Near East played a greater part in influencing Central Asia, as well as Ancient Greece, and East Asia was essentially isolated for the most part, so it was also independent. (20 hrs ago | post #8386)
Why do Afrocentrists obsess over Egypt and NON-African Ci...
This might help lend some clarity: A good deal of the Homeric poems is concerned with the gods, and the action hinges on their intervention. It was through the epic that Greek poetry acquired as part of its stock this pantheon of gods loosely united under the rule of Zeus. We have to ask ourselves on what this pantheon is modelled. Nilsson again invokes the Mycenaean age: the Mycenaean overlord is for him the original of Zeus; and certainly we cannot deny a resemblance between Homer's scenes in Olympus and the scenes involving Agamemnon and the other princes. In both the attitude toward the overlord varies from respect to noisy opposition. We must admit that the Mycenaean kingdom, as regards its origin and exten, is rather an unknown quantity. We ought not to underestimate its importance in this connection, but at the same time we must reckon with near eastern influence in the Greek representation of the divine hierarchy. Such a view is well supported by the Hittite texts of which we shall have something to say in connection with Hesiod: the Hittites in their turn were influenced from Babylon. http://tinyurl.com /pdyva97 And in addition: When viewed "in historical perspective", as Szemerenyi observed (1971: 648) in a review of P. Chantraine's Dictionnaire etymologique, "these elements show that the epic vocabulary - and as we know from Lesky's pioneer studies, not only the vocabulary - was influenced by Anatolian, and that must mean Anatolian poetry. Homerica epic, so far exclusively viewed from a Western, mainland angle, must receive a second Eastern component." Walter Burkert's recent research (1983) has not only amplified these views, but extended their application east of Anatolia. http://books.googl e.com/books?id=DIj -nZWsX_0C&pg=P A484&dq=anatol ia+epic+influence+ greece&hl=en &sa=X&ei=F M-dUZvuN8eeiALC0YG 4BQ&ved=0CDoQ6 AEwAg#v=onepage &q=anatolia%20 epic%20influence%2 0greece&f=fals eActual scholars say otherwise: Bronze Age rulers and merchants of the Near East, their clients, and their armies circulated not only material wealth but also cultural capital--poetry and ritual. Their adventures survive in narratives of the first millennium BC., particularly in the epic poetry of Homer. The earliest peoms of Greece, Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, embrace much older traditions from the Near east, beginning with Anatolia, its nearest neighbor. A Luwian poem found at the Hittite capital at Hattusa (Bogazkoy) refers to "steep Wilusa" (Homer's Ilion?), and a bilingual Hurrian-Hittite poem offers poetic patterns and themes close to those found in Homer. And on another interesting note: More articulate connections between east and west repose in the hoard of lapis lazuli cylinder seals from the palace at Thebes in Boiotia, the largest concentration of inscribed Near Eastern objects found in the Bronze Age Greece. Perhaps a royal gift, they recall to some the myth of Kadmos, the Phoenician who founded Thebes and brought "letters " to Greece, just as the Phoenicians introduced the alphabet to the western Mediterranean. Finds such as these give Mount Helikon on Boiotia, home of the Greek Muses, an "east face" that attracted Greek poets to Near Eastern ideas. http://tinyurl.com /oqjrzwe (20 hrs ago | post #8385)
Q & A with Bakari Neferu
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Africa
Hometown:
Oakland
I Belong To:
My people
When I'm Not on Topix:
Reading, Thinking, Learning
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The continent
On My Mind:
You already know
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