What to unlearn to learn African history

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What to unlearn to learn African history

Thu Feb 12th 2015 by abagond

Queen Tiye of Egypt, -1300s.

In the West, Africa is seen through a thick White lens that makes it hard to properly understand its past and present. It goes beyond mere Eurocentrism into outright racism. It affects how Blacks in the West see Africa.

An incomplete list of what to unlearn:

1. The term “sub-Saharan Africa” – like the older terms “Hamitic” and “Negro”, this term maintains the idea that the civilizations of northern Africa are not truly African. The One Drop Rule is applied to people in the US, but not to African history. This avoids the awkward fact that much of Western civilization, especially that of the Greeks, comes from Africa. This helps to maintain:

2. Anti-Black racism – Africans as not fully human, or at least not as good as Whites, certainly not capable of civilization on their own. This leads to Westerners knowing little about African history except for that bit near Europe that “doesn’t count” as African. Their ignorance becomes a vicious circle. Without anti-Black racism, everything else on this list becomes suspect.

3. Teflon Theory of History – the idea that anything bad that Whites did more than 30 years ago is Ancient History, that it has no effect on the present. That means the long-term effects of Western imperialism are always good! This helps to maintain:

4. White paternalism – the idea that Whites know best, that Africans need to be “saved” by White people, like Bono, the IMF or France’s “civilizing mission”. Even White slave traders saw themselves as “saving” people from Africa! From this flows:

5. The Broken Africa stereotype – sees Africa as a vast, Malthusian hellhole. That is not to say Africa is heaven, but neither is it hell. It is not even a country:

6. Africa is a country – the idea that all of “sub-Saharan Africa” is the same, despite having dozens of countries, hundreds of languages, close to a billion people and more genetic diversity than the rest of the world put together. An extreme case of out-group homogenization.

7. The term “native” – a put-down that leads to White paternalism. You can see how belittling and unhelpful the word is by applying it to Europeans:

classical music = native music,
French cuisine = native food,
Western medicine = native healing practices,
Greek myths = native lore,
Western science = native lore,
Impressionist paintings = native art form.

8. The term “tribe” – Had Africans drawn the borders of European countries, the French, English, Poles, and so on, would not have countries of their own. They would be seen as “tribes”. So, for example, their wars, like in Bosnia, would become “tribal wars”, proof of the “inability of Europeans to govern themselves.” They would be seen as little better than savages or barbarians. Like the word “native”, “tribal” would be applied to all things European: tribal music, tribal dances, tribal customs, etc.

9. Blindly trusting Western sources – these are often second-hand and one-sided at best, Eurocentric and racist at worst. You would think that Africans do not write books, make films or report news in English!

– Abagond, 2015.

Sources: “Africans and Their History” (1998) by Joseph E. Harris, PhD.

See also:

Welcome to Black History Month 2015!
prejudice
Some African viewpoints featured on this blog:
the history of black history
Queen Tiye

Posted in stuff | 93 Comments

93 Responses

on Fri Feb 13th 2015 at 22:23:01 Andrew Joseph Pegoda

The only one of these I don’t really understand is about “sub-Saharan Africa.” Recognizing that Egypt and the other northern countries in the continent of Africa are frequently racialized and geographicalized more “European” than “African” is important to recognize.

On a parallel note, I wish people would stop using “Europe” or “European” etc etc while also stopping the use of “African” and “Africa.”

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on Fri Feb 13th 2015 at 22:37:57 Linda

“Andrew,
Recognizing that Egypt and the other northern countries in the continent of Africa are frequently racialized and geographicalized more “European” than “African” is important to recognize.”

Linda says,

Andrew, can you please clarify your statement a little bit more if you don’t mind.

are you saying North Africans are more European racially?

or that they have more elements of European culture because they are closer to Europe and had more interactions with Europe?

not sure what you meant

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 00:38:55 gro jo

Anybody know of Egyptian monuments outside of Egypt and Nubia. I ask because the claim is made that Abu Simbel was built in Nubia only to show the Nubians who’s boss. I could only find the Egyptian hieroglyphic stelae at Nahr el-Kalb in Lebanon, I’m sure they built other monuments, but nothing on the scale of Abu Simbel. I find it strange that the Egyptians would have gone to the trouble of building Abu Simbel in Nubia but failed to do the same in other places they ruled.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 02:52:36 thwack

Andrew Joseph Pegoda
The only one of these I don’t really understand is about “sub-Saharan Africa.”
————————————————————————————————

when white people use that, I parry and counter by asking them about sub-Canadian Africa.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 03:16:37 King

@ Thwack

But,,, ALL of Africa is sub-Canadian.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 03:34:28 King

gro jo, I think you might find a few Egyptian structures in Naqa, built in among the pre-existing Kushite architecture, but aside from that, I know of nothing similar to Abu Simbel. I agree with you that the claim about it being built there simply to show the Nubians who’s boss, seems highly speculative and suspect.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 03:51:39 jefe

he might have meant sub-Canadian America.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 04:28:13 King

That would make more sense.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 04:39:58 thwack

King
@ Thwack

But,,, ALL of Africa is sub-Canadian.
———————————————————————————-

Exactly; and everybody is sub-animate when hung from a tree, even white people.

Don’t worry, passive aggression is the language of white people, and they get it; they get it so good they change the topic.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 04:51:41 anon

The West is based on the premise that some people (themselves) are more entitled than others—in order to make this myth “real” they have to construct a “reality”. The whole of Western education caters to the construction of this myth.
In Mathematics, theorems have Greek or European names—Even though Chinese, Indian and Muslim Scholars used these before Europeans….Science and Medicine are the same….Philosophy goes from Greeks to Europeans…
The core idea of this propaganda is to give reality to the concept that there was an evolution from Greek (very smart…but yet ancient) to Europeans (very smart and modern)…which then justifies the idea that they are entitled/superior. To this end, some Europeans sometimes suppress or disown their own “tribal” histories/pasts because it does not conform to their myth. (and if they do own it—it becomes heroic)

An Asian professor once noted that the rich heritage of Eastern philosophy was never explored in the West because of an artificial separation between theism and philosophy, and Eastern philosophy has to be understood in the context of its metaphysics….

This is also the case in many other fields where the “rules” are arbitrarily decided by “Western” Universities, based on their (mythic) presumptions, and this skews the acquisition of knowledge….

There are good qualities to Western education, but other voices and systems need to be advanced to compete with the Western system….

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 04:57:48 thwack

http://www.flourish.org/upsidedownmap/

Also, compare the Peters Projection map to the Mercator (the one that makes white nations bigger and they use in your childrens geography books)

The Mercator projection increasingly inflates the sizes of regions according to their distance from the equator. This inflation results, for example, in a representation of Greenland that is larger than Africa, which has a geographic area 14 times greater than Greenland’s. Since much of the technologically underdeveloped world lies near the equator, these countries appear smaller on a Mercator and therefore, according to Peters, seem less significant. On Peters’s projection, by contrast, areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map. By using his “new” projection, poorer, less powerful nations could be restored to their rightful proportions.

(BTW– “peter” just happens to also be a euphemism for penis)

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 05:03:01 Mbeti

I was wondering what happened to abagonds investigations of african history ,looks like evolution of his /our knowledge.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 05:45:37 thwack

What to unlearn to learn African history?

Unlearn the concept of African PEOPLE being unable to cross the Atlantic ocean to get to South America.

Why?

Because white people say African monkeys did it on mats of grass and weeds.

I shit you not; its an acceptable theory to explain the origin of New World Monkeys that white people use in PHD papers; and get an A+

Australia is the only continent to have rain forests(white man term for jungle) and no monkeys.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 06:07:18 Allen Shaw

The failure of historians to include African myth as a part of history, like they do in China and Europe is one of the main problems.
Black historians continuing to indicate or imply that African Americans come from North Africa does not help.
The word tribe has been used to refer to all people in my reading. The problem is young readers do not see back far enough in history to understand that the word tribe is a base word for all people and has no real bearing on the status of Africans . The attempts to change the name from tribe to some other name have not been totally successful in Africa.
Note: Please refer to the definition of the word tribe in any dictionary.
I have not read any of your articles or any Black historians articles which describe the main families of Africa other than those of northern Africa. Kings and Princes and powerful Blacks seem to be our heritage. Nothing about the traditions of the Banta, Khoi-San, Akan, Nilotic, or Pygmy has been researched to give our Black American any pride in self.
You have not bothered to help identify some of the at least 87 various groups of families which have been identified and which our historians should have attempted to study and understand the heritage and traditions which those families had and have.
What should be done is to bolster the pride of the African American or Black if you prefer by studying those traditions and helping them to determine their blood lines back to the people that are in their family background.
The people of Sub Sahara Africa are people of the land who have been successful in hunting, farming, herding and even manufacturing. They have survived in a climate which is hostile and unforgiving and still have continued to advance. A constant number of highly educated Sub Saharan African have come to this nation and advanced while many of our blacks continue to wait for education to be inserted into their brains with a needle. Blacks should be proud to come from such a background and would be if our historians would only help to bring our history.
Of all groups of individuals who live on the earth, the living conditions of Sub Saharan people and people of South America who live along the equator also the people that live above the Arctic Circle are the worse, yet they have survived.
Please spend at least ten percent of your time talking about African pride while you spend the balance of time talking about the failures of the White race.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 07:54:23 Mbeti

In reading abagond’s blog among many other sources of information ,I’ve come to the conclusion that white european’s have the least moral authority whereas their victims esp black’s and native Americans have far more.

However much of this critique strikes at the core of “western” academia.
When been forced through violence to accept terms and ideas that are unfounded.
The one of white media’s constant news area is the “middle east” ;where is the middle west?

I recently heard a talk that indicated all of the american universities and colleges where founded on slave labor to say nothing of being sexism and racist in their founding and still to this day.

So how much real value and prestige does a degree from yale, harvard ,MIT etc really have. certainly its moral value is severely open to question.

what about that fact that all human groups have and continue to contribute to all aspects of knowledge and learning to the point currently OUR combined and accumulated technology is making all the exclusive white male dominated organizations irrelevant and obsolete!?

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 08:09:24 gro jo

Thank you King for your reply. Naqa is in Sudan or Nubia as I believe it was called back then. I was looking for information on monuments outside of NUBIA AND EGYPT because, like you, I find it weird that such monuments would be erected in a conquered land rather than in a city of importance. It would be like the Arc de Triomphe or Nelson’s Column being placed in some territory conquered by the French or the British instead of Paris or London. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, who knows, the ancient Egyptians might have been eccentric in such matters, hence my question.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 14:58:38 Erik Sieven

arabs are genetical closer to norwegians than to nigerians. the sahara has been a huge barrier in the last thousands of years. they also look more like them. thus the term subsaharaan african people makes sense.
it of course has some weaknesses, as it does not help to distinguish racial differences within subsaharan africa. similar to the term black, most people who say subsaharan african mean rather west african, bantu people. at least with the term black it works that way. for example when a typical german women say: i prefer black males (the majority of german women do so) she means a west african bantu man. She means it in a racial way (which of course she would never admit, as the typical western person today is fanatical antiracist), referring to skull shape, body shape, facial features, behavioral traits and so on. she does not include other dark skinned african people into her concept of “black men”, like for example khoisan, ethiopians, somalian.
in two ways the term subsaharan african is very helpful:

1) it is the only major geographical region with very, very little civilization upon the contact to europe. subsaharan africa is huge (most world maps give a false impression of the size of africa), diverse and very rich in natural recourses. yet there has been much less civilization than in middle-, south america, europe west asia, central asia, south asia, east asia.
2) subsaharan africa is home of the fittest people of today, in term of evolutionary fitness. this is because subsaharan africa is the only place where the demographic transition does not take place. while countries like pakistan, india, mexiko already have a low TFR the TFR of countries like DR Congo, Nigeria or Gambia is still extremely high. Subsaharan Africa gets help, development, money, vaccination, health care, food care from europe, america and asia and thus is able to starkly decrease the mortality but still has this extremely high fertility.
this leads to an interesting situation: while in 1500 and still in 1900 subsaharan africa had around 10 percent of the world population this share will almost certainly rise over 50% in 2100 and could easily of over 90% in 2200. At the same time the share of subsaharan african people in other regions will also rise very much. There are so many babies born in susbaharan africa that by 2100 there could be more afro indians than indian-indians in india and more afro chinese than han-chinese in china, and still subaharan africa would have doubled his population.

the fact that subsaharan africa is such a demographic exception, and the fact that every country on earth could be a copy of ghana or nigeria in 2200 or 2300 (making the world a much less diverse place, winner takes it all) makes it very important to study subsaharan african history!

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 16:39:32 King

@ Erik Sieven

arabs are genetical closer to norwegians than to nigerians.”

North Africa was/is not exactly Arab.

For example when a typical German women say: i prefer black males (the majority of german women do so) she means a west african bantu man.”

Where is the evidence of this supposed preference? I can’t find anything to indicate that this is true. (and I looked) To my knowledge, most White German women both date and marry White German men.

it is the only major geographical region with very, very little civilization upon the contact to europe… yet there has been much less civilization [there] than in middle-, south america, europe west asia, central asia, south asia, east asia.”

Well, how do you define civilization? My dictionary defines civilization as the process by which a society reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization. So civilization is about social structure hierarchy and organization. To Europeans however, civilization seems to be about building materials and architecture. If you build permanent buildings out of stone than you are civilized. If you build using anything else then you are not.

So the Polynesian peoples were not civilized, nor was North America and if you exclude the Incas, then neither was South America. The Japanese had stone castles, but the majority of their homes were built of wood and paper. I’m not sure if this was civilized or not!

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 16:42:43 King

Oh! I forgot to include this map of pre-colonial African civilizations for your perusal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kingdoms_in_pre-colonial_Africa#mediaviewer/File:African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial.svg

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 17:21:45 Erik Sieven

@ King
no north africa is not only arab, it has become more become arab since the arabs conquered most of northern africa in the course of the muslim expansion. the natives of northern africa, the berber people are genetical even more far away from subsaharan africans than the arabs.

of course the majority of german women marry german man, by which in this context I men non afro-german men. The reason for that is quite simply that there are much more white men in germany than black men. But still they would prefer to marry black men, and many do so. among the babies born in 2014 in germany a substantial part has black fathers and non afro-german german mothers.

By civilization I mean the kind of economy and societal organization which allows to: build up higher population densities, discover the world for example by sea, build huge building, do science like accurate planetary observations

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 17:47:23 King

@ Eric

I’d like some proof please that MOST German women prefer Black men. Do you have a study , a poll, or an article that you could link to? Perhaps you could point me to something that confirms the birth rate of Black non-White babies in Germany? I realize that the Germans have a reputation for efficiency. but I had no idea that the 2014 figures would be available in February of 2015! They are to be congratulated on their alacrity!

By civilization I mean the kind of economy and societal organization which allows to: build up higher population densities, discover the world for example by sea, build huge building, do science like accurate planetary observations.”

But you realize that your definition does not square with ANY dictionary definition of the term “civilization” that I can find. Is this definition unique to you?

1) Higher population density
2) Building huge buildings
3) Accurate Planetary observation
4) Seagoing global discovery

Hmm… it seems the only ones who had ALL of these were the Europeans. Where they the only “civilization” on earth?

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 18:24:37 thwack

I suspect Erick is a white prole.

White people have produced many blogs critical and full of contempt for “white civilization”

Here is one:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

In other words, the Amish are far from the only white people to reject so called “civilization.”

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 19:16:40 Erik Sieven

@ thwack
civilization is a very problematic thing, it has pros and contras. Humans have lived 195 000 years without civilization and maybe they will do so again soon. The total demographic domination of subsaharaan Africans might help to stop civilization. Some say this is a bad thing, others say that is a good thing, I can understand both.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 19:30:04 Kartoffel

1. If it’s just about changing the term “sub-saharan africa” because of the negative connotation of “sub”, I have no problem. In German generally “Schwarzafrika” (“black africa”) is used. I have always got the impression that that is less acceptable in English.

3. Of course it’s ridiculous to say that history has no effect on the present, but I reject the idea that history has a determing effect. The longer an event lies back, the more alternative developments are possible.

6. As long as one realizes that generalizations are just that, they are a necessary tool to order information. Of course it has to be discussed if the generalization is more true than untrue.

9. Of course you should never blindly turst any source. Does anybody know how much source material on pre-colonial africa there is?

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 19:44:31 thwack

Erik Sieven
The total demographic domination of subsaharaan Africans might help to stop civilization.
——————————————————————————————

Lol

Actually, a better bet on what stops sub-Alaskan civilization is white peoples dependence on fossil fuels; particularly, petroleum based sources.

Thanks to crude oil, each white person on the planet has the equivalent of 300 invisible slaves working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for them. when that oil runs out (and it will), white nations will disintergrate into white tribes after a series of bloody “civil” wars which will cut their populations by 70%

Many white people will then immigrate to sub-Saharan Africa.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 20:18:58 Erik Sieven

@ thwack
when region A doubles it population every 10-20 years and region B has a TFR of 1.2-2.0 it is quite to guess in which way the migration will go.
When there is no oil left the first people who will face serious consequences is subsaharan african people. the depend on help from outside, shipped in there, that will stop.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 20:23:40 Erik Sieven

@ King
I cannot offer such a proof, only strong anecdotical evidence my friends and me collected. Although there is plenty of the latter, it is no proof.
The problem is of course that it is forbidden for any respectable institution to do a study a such questions (because it is racist).

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 20:36:28 King

Eric, without such proof, you cannot make a case for “The Majority” of German women. It may be that in your group, or in your particular surroundings, it may be more common. It may also be that ‘confirmation bias’ at work. There are over 80 million people living in Germany today. It would be impossible for you and a few friends to make an accurate assessment without using strictly scientific means.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 20:44:23 gro jo

Erik Sieven, based on your comments, I’m going to conclude that your clique is composed of a bunch of losers who can’t feign to be interested in what a girl says and has poor grooming habits. Consequently, you guys can’t even get laid in a whorehouse. Sorry if I’m wrong on any or all of my conclusions, but that’s the nature of anecdotal evidence. If I’m right, hope you’ll contact a respectable institution to study why you and your friends are so maladjusted.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 21:14:08 gro jo

Allen Shaw, your comment is a combination of sense and nonsense. I’ll deal with the nonsense since that’s what made the biggest impression on me. “A constant number of highly educated Sub Saharan African have come to this nation and advanced while many of our blacks continue to wait for education to be inserted into their brains with a needle.” This statement is nonsense. Black Americans have contributed to the material advance of the USA from the moment they landed from Africa. Here are a few sources to make you less prone to write this sort of utter nonsense:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008342
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/11/5-inventions-by-enslaved-black-men-blocked-by-us-patent-office/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-08/how-the-patent-office-helped-to-end-slavery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_McKinley_Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Russell
The links above testify to an unbroken chain of innovations by Black Americans with or without formal education. What do you mean by “our blacks”, do you own blacks? If you do, how many?

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 21:16:59 thwack

Erik Sieven

When there is no oil left the first people who will face serious consequences is subsaharan african people.
———————————————————————————————

But each Sub-Saharan African doesn’t have the equivalent of 300 invisible slaves working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for them; white people freak out if Facebook goes down for 24 hours.

The myth Erick is trying to maintain is that nonwhite people need petroleum slaves more than white people;

he is reading the book upside down.

Modern white supremacy culture is so complex and energy intensive that when it collapses, the best thing to do is get out of the way.

“once upon a time, dressed so fine, threw the sub-Saharan Africans a dime, in your prime…

didn’t you?”

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 22:44:02 gro jo

“By civilization I mean the kind of economy and societal organization which allows to: build up higher population densities, discover the world for example by sea, build huge building, do science like accurate planetary observations” . Erik Sieven. in order to alleviate your Afro pessimism and to complement King’s link to African civilizations,you can discover what some talented Africans are presently doing at the cutting edge of technology:
http://leversinheels.tumblr.com/post/84519683607/emerging-ghanaian-women-in-tissue-engineering
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tributes-paid-world-renowned-manchester-scientist-8571197
http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=38420.php
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/international/2014/12/29/spc-african-voices-segenet-kelemu-a.cnn
http://www.k-rith.org/scientists-research/investigators/frederick-balagadd%C3%A9
http://ysa2013.mg.co.za/ashley-uys/
http://ysa2013.mg.co.za/mokhotjwa-dhlamini/
http://ysa2013.mg.co.za/nonjabulo-gule/
http://ysa2013.mg.co.za/shadreck-chirikure/
http://www.diretube.com/articles/read-ethiopian-student-awarded-for-his-invention-in-ai_5464.html#.VNUV2S6S-BX
http://www.ece.utexas.edu/people/faculty/deji-akinwande
http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=us-sassefa
http://www.ece.nus.edu.sg/stfpage/eleaao/Adekunle_Adeyeye/Home.html
http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?trid=1085
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertin_Nahum

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 22:50:12 Brothawolf

The white lens is the only lens the West wants to use to view Africa no matter how many times it’s use. It never stops. It’s all a part of the white supremacist mindset that views white people as superior to all things African. Frankly, it’s sickening, but to most whites, it’s flattering and uplifting to whites who feel a sense of guilt and shame.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 23:15:08 Herneith

. Consequently, you guys can’t even get laid in a whorehouse.

I haven’t heard that saying in ages! Consider the sources you are dealing with when responding to these HBDers. Phillipe Rushton comes to mind.

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on Sat Feb 14th 2015 at 23:54:49 King

Hey, What’s up Bro. Wolf?

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 00:04:52 King

GREAT links, gro jo Thanks!

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 00:11:29 Allen Shaw

Response to gro jo from Allen Shaw Your response is noted.

My conversation was not about Blacks that have succeeded in the United States.

My response was about the failure of Black Historians to include the history of the sub Saharan African. You choose to find a small portion of my response to nit pic about. You ignored the substance of my remarks.

When did the word “our” become limited to ownership? Our history means all of us.

I do not intend to engage in folly, I just want to bring to those who are interested that instead of complaining about White history Blacks should research their own history.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 00:52:04 thwack

I just want to bring to those who are interested that instead of complaining about White history Blacks should research their own history.
—————————————————————————————

I get what you are saying Mr. Shaw and I too find it annoying. Based on my observations of this site alone it only takes about 3 or 4 white people to distract an entire website of black people from doing their own research and presentations…

Do you have a website?

If so is it available for the type of content you think black people should be producing?

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 01:43:16 gro jo

“I do not intend to engage in folly, I just want to bring to those who are interested that instead of complaining about White history Blacks should research their own history.” Allen Shaw, If you read my comment you’d know that I had no objection to your call for more serious engagement with the real history of blacks worldwide. That’s the sense I detected in your post. The nonsense comes in when you seem to imply that the history of Blacks begins and ends at looking at some tribal rites. Black Africans have lived in cities for centuries and they have been influenced by all the currents of human history. The peculiar thing about White history is the lie that they found Africa in a state of savagery, when in fact, a number of monuments give the lie to that claim starting with the dawn of civilization in Egypt and Nubia. I agree that Abagond tends to keep telling the same story of white wickedness and black virtue. I haven’t found one post on the achievements of blacks in India where some of them rose to high office and ran things or became Sufi saints, or Christianity in Sudan and Ethiopia. You wrote: “Kings and Princes and powerful Blacks seem to be our heritage. Nothing about the traditions of the Banta, Khoi-San, Akan, Nilotic, or Pygmy has been researched to give our Black American any pride in self.” I disagree with that comment because you seem to think that you can find some pristine traditions that predated the era of Kings and Princes and powerful Blacks who conspired or combated the evil slave system. Sorry no can do, history binds us all. You want anthropology instead of history, and I think that’s a mistake that fails to bring out the richness of the black experience. I want to read about those blacks who conspired in the slave trade and those who resisted such as Kimpa Vita and Nasir al-Din. Who here, has already heard of the17th century Marabout war and the Toubenan movement? Given your interest in real history instead of a historical morality play, you might benefit from reading this article. http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 04:04:56 Allen Shaw

Allen Shaw to gro jo – “civilization – Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/civilization
Civilization is the opposite of barbarism and chaos. Civilization is an advanced stage of human society, where people live with a reasonable degree of organization …”

Do you believe that tribes of Africa were not organized?

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 04:07:50 Brothawolf

Nothing, just busy King.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 04:43:39 gro jo

Allen Shaw, not sure I get where you’re going with your question. I know of no human group that’s not organized, do you, if you do let me know who they are? I hope you’re not seriously thinking of arguing that Africans are not organized.My point is that you will find Africans organized at different levels from clams to cities for over 4 thousand years.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 05:05:56 King

Good to see you, Bro W., hang in there.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 05:18:09 anon

Academia serves to build up the “myth” of entitlement—but (Western) Capitalism turns it into reality. The Western Capitalist system is based on the model of what in Business jargon is called “win-lose” model….or exploitation. One party gains profits at the expense(loss) of another. (But…in order for this model to work—there needs to be a group of people that are exploited/ oppressed). As such—(Western)Capitalism—as an economic model—is fundamentally opposed to egalitarian democracy.
—Consider—the Western doctrines are based on the idea of the individual (rights of the individual). Sometime around the 1886, the railway Barons corrupted the U.S. justice system and got for their corporations some of the protections and rights of the “individual” by declaring the personhood of corporations. (This was when those same U.S. courts denied rights and protections to African-Americans and Women….) This system of using the law for their own benefit at the expense of others continues today.

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/664#.VOArAfmUfh4
“Jefferson, Madison, and others knew that corporations are inherently anti-democratic constructs of the wealthy elite, allowing the controlling investors to do two dangerous things: 1. amass more money than the public can muster—money to elevate their private interest above the common good; and 2. absolve them from responsibility for the damage done by their corporation.”

A new type of exploitation is occurring in Africa called the philanthrocapitalism—where Capitalists go to “save” communities but actually intend to exploit them for their own profits—http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/02/13/yes-we-have-no-bananas/

Capitalism need not be based on a win-lose model—it can also be based on a win-win model…but for that to happen….some fundamental presumptions that “Western Values” are based upon will need reconsideration….

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 05:23:49 Allen Shaw

Allen Shaw to gro jo “I do not intend to engage in folly, I just want to bring to those who are interested that instead of complaining about white history blacks should research their own history I disagree with that comment because you seem to think that you can find some pristine traditions that predated the era of Kings and Princes and powerful Blacks who conspired or combated the evil slave system. Sorry no can do, history binds us all. You want anthropology instead of history, and I think that’s a mistake that fails to bring out the richness of the black experience.”
Anthropology / æ n θ r ɵ ˈ p ɒ l ə dʒ i / is the scientific study of humans, past and present, that draws and builds upon knowledge from the social sciences
http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm
Yes White history is based on Anthropology! Forgive me for my poor reference to Kings and Princes I was referring to the often comments that we came from Egypt and Ethiopia!
Why do Blacks concentrate on White people and their “History”?
Stop talking about White history and start researching Black Sub Saharan history the same way other ethnic groups have done. The Chinese have reached back to their myths and included them in their history. The Europeans has included their myths in their history. The Mid East including the northern portion of Africa, whether American Blacks like it or not, have their history.
It is time to stop talking about White and start studying Sub Saharan African history!
It is highly likely that very few American Blacks have any North African Blood of any significant amount in them!
So you want me to study modern history and you want to concentrate on slavery as the only substance for conversation. Then you ask me to read a book which has been written currently as if I was just born yesterday. Slavery, my friend has been a part of mankind since the beginning. I believe it has been described in the bible; however I am not a student of the bible to that extent. You infer that slavery is a Black issue which means your believe any slavery other than African slavery is of no consequence.
As I stated above it is not impossible to study African myths to seek pride the same as other ethnic groups have done, and it is not necessary to spend ones time complaining about White people writing about Black people, especially when you realize that all history is distorted by the person preparing the history.
Please read all of my comments, I have never implied that there are not millions of successful Blacks in the United States, What I am referring to are those who blame their failure on White history tellers and not on their own lack of drive or willingness to seek employment where there is employment even if they must move once again!
The concentration of Blacks in major metropolitan areas in the United States is an impediment to their upward mobility. What was a good thing in 1960 when the automobile industry and other industries were concentrated in those metropolitan areas has now become a disaster and there is no sign that any industry is going to replace that which has been lost.
A major redistribution of those unemployed is going to be required whenever those individuals who can properly identify such appropriate movements can figure out what to do! In China they are moving people off of the land into large cities. Such a move is probably not going to work in the United States.
Try to not find something wrong with what I am writing, try to see the real problem in the United States and the current unemployment situation. It has nothing to do with slavery which ended in 1865 or the Jim Crow period that ended in 1960 it is the mass change in work requirements brought on by modern manufacturing practices leaving millions of individuals unprepared for any currently needed work.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 06:39:51 gro jo

Allen Shaw, you are mixing a lot of things in your latest comment.
1) Blacks in the USA need to move out of the cities, where do you propose they move to?
2) I don’t buy that upward mobility snake oil that sees Blacks as mainly responsible for their situation. You may not want to hear it, but the truth is that despite hard work and dedication on the part of millions of blacks they still end up getting the shaft. Blacks moved to industrial centers such as Detroit because American industry needed their labor. I’ll take seriously your argument about blacks blaming “…their failure on White history tellers and not on their own lack of drive or willingness to seek employment where there is employment even if they must move once again!” when you’ve indicated where the jobs are that await them.
3) “It is time to stop talking about White and start studying Sub Saharan African history! It is highly likely that very few American Blacks have any North African Blood of any significant amount in them!” For your information, blacks have been in Egypt from the start. Ancient Egypt was an African civilization, the same goes for Ethiopia and Nubia. I’ve read that the ancient Egyptians were supposed to be white but I’m not buying it. Take King Tutankhamen for example take a look at how the Ancient Egyptians depicted him siting on his throne with his queen standing before him. http://www.delange.org/King_Tut/EP18.htm I defy you to tell me what made him white. Now we are told that the image from ancient Egypt was all wrong, he really looked like this fellow: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/photogalleries/tut_mummy/photo5.html. Somebody is lying and I don’t think it was the ancients. I will concede that none of these facts makes a dint in the chance of any black finding employment or getting the finance to start a business or a home, but the truth must be told.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 06:47:35 Allen Shaw

To Thwack from Allen Shaw: Thank you for your comment. I do not have a site I have wondered from Your Black World to this site from time to time.

I believe these sites are important when they concentrate on advancing the cause of Blacks in the United States. We must be honest with each other, we must be relevant and we must be civil.

A portion of the Blacks in the United States have serious mental problems learning the new work requirements. Extra effort and new methods are going to be required to assist them in learning new skills. As the work requirements are changing retraining is going to be required and expected. This will add an extra burden on the slow learners and may require much more refined instructions to allow the successful training of those individuals. They should not be thought of as a burden, because they may make up a much larger portion of our population then we think. This is a problem for all of the races!

The constant attention given to slavery is a deterrence to the advancement of our race and needs to be kept in prospective. Today very little of what happens to Blacks has anything to do with either slavery or Jim Crow.

For those individual who wish to pursue Reparation efforts should be concentrated in developing means of defining who would receive such a payment, who possible would be required to make such a payment and establish specific differences between those that worked for a living during slavery and those that were slaves. Also adjust any such payments with any assistance such as education, free lunch and other benefits that have been given since the end of slavery and Jim Crow.

Since my youth I have seen vast improvement in the opportunities that Blacks have! It is not possible for a person who has not lived through this period of time to realize the improvements that have been made. We should continue to advance with sure positive steps and give assistance to those who are having difficulty in coping with the “new work environment”.

I strongly believe that our Black heritage should be developed to enhance pride in ourselves instead of the feeling of victimhood that is currently being expressed. The people of the Black race have overcome all of the burdens associated with slavery and today our children are entering the work force in large numbers and are being successful in advancing up the ladder to the top. They should be provided a rich heritage to help them remember that they are not victims.

To gro jo from Allen Shaw: My question about civilization was to previous remarks about the subject. Please read all of the remarks in this string!

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 07:31:19 Allen Shaw

anon from Allen Shaw:
There is one very sad fact of history and of man and maybe even animals, birds and fish. (Except, only people write!)

“To the victor go the spoils!”

A short history of Europe including Spain and Turkey may help! First there was the Roman Empire until they made the mistake of advancing into Europe and getting their “fannies’” whipped by the “Barbarians”. Then there were the Christians until the Nation of Islam (Ottoman Empire) ran them out of the Middle East. Then there was the Ottoman Empire until the Europeans defeated them! At one time there was the Spanish with their greatness until the English destroyed their fleet or at least the forces of nature destroyed their fleet. Then there was Germany who had to be destroyed twice. And now there is the United States. With the exception of the Ottoman Empire which may or may not be considered “White’ and Rome which may or may not be considered White all of this history has been written about White’s.

Then there was China with the greatest naval fleet which was destroyed by the superstitions of their Emperor. And then there was the English who forced the Chinese to yield!

My point is none of this had anything to do with race it was all about one individual wanting to dominate another!

All of this history has been included in the history books that I have read and almost all of the history books that I have read have been written by “Whites”.

The only history that I have read that was written by Blacks was about slavery and the problems of the Black!

If anyone would study the history of Europe and Russia and the people they would find more death, torture and destruction then almost anywhere else on earth.

No wonder all history is slanted toward the White! If any one does not agree with the history they should do the research and write a book!

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 08:08:45 Michael Cooper

@ Abagond

Another great post.

“The One Drop Rule is applied to people in the US, but not to African history.”

My grade school teachers, which were mostly White, taught me and my classmates that a continent is a huge landmass that has a body of water on all four sides. But what’s so odd is that my teachers NEVER excluded Europe from this definition of a continent.

From a geographical perspective, Europe is a country NOT Africa. In fact, Europe is the western part of Asia (Eurasia).

Western education can be very racist and tricky at times.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 08:25:21 Allen Shaw

Look in between the **************** for my answers
Allen Shaw, you are mixing a lot of things in your latest comment
1) Blacks in the USA need to move out of the cities, where do you propose they move to?
*****************Did I say they had to move out of the city please review my remark?
A major redistribution of those unemployed is going to be required whenever those individuals who can properly identify such appropriate movements can figure out what to do.************
2) I don’t buy that upward mobility snake oil that sees Blacks as mainly responsible for their situation. You may not want to hear it, but the truth is that despite hard work and dedication on the part of millions of blacks they still end up getting the shaft. Blacks moved to industrial centers such as Detroit because American industry needed their labor. I’ll take seriously your argument about blacks blaming “…their failure on White history tellers and not on their own lack of drive or willingness to seek employment where there is employment even if they must move once again!” when you’ve indicated where the jobs are that await them.
*****************It is truly unfortunate that within 60 years of the migration of Blacks to the north the changes in the work requirements occurred. Once again try to understand I am not giving answers I am stating the problem. This paragraph is the same as the first. Someone has to find the work! This is a statement of fact not me giving an answer. I am sure that the government has highly skilled individuals working on this problem as you and I correspond. No one said Blacks were responsible for this problem; they are a part of the victims of this problem along with many Whites.
If you choose to believe that there are no Blacks who are a part of the drug industry or are willing to live on welfare without putting out any effort to find work I will accept your statement that Blacks are not at fault. If you believe that all school dropouts are the fault of the White man I will accept your argument. If you agree that test should not be required and people should be required to successfully fill out job applications I will accept your argument. If you believe that there should be 100% employment I accept your argument.
This is the last attempt to show that yes there are people standing in people way to keep them from advancing; however it is each individual’s responsibility to get around such blocks. If you go to the center of Africa where there are no White people you will find competition and losers!
To me life is a competitive adventure and many individuals have to loose! However you are correct not everyone in going to climb to the top!************************
3) “It is time to stop talking about White and start studying Sub Saharan African history! It is highly likely that very few American Blacks have any North African Blood of any significant amount in them!” For your information, blacks have been in Egypt from the start. Ancient Egypt was an African civilization, the same goes for Ethiopia and Nubia. I’ve read that the ancient Egyptians were supposed to be white but I’m not buying it. Take King Tutankhamen for example take a look at how the Ancient Egyptians depicted him siting on his throne with his queen standing before him. http://www.delange.org/King_Tut/EP18.htm I defy you to tell me what made him white. Now we are told that the image from ancient Egypt was all wrong, he really looked like this fellow: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/photogalleries/tut_mummy/photo5.html. Somebody is lying and I don’t think it was the ancients. I will concede that none of these facts makes a dint in the chance of any black finding employment or getting the finance to start a business or a home, but the truth must be told.
***************I am sorry to tell you this, however you need to understand I have met a number of Ethiopian and none of them consider themselves to be Black. No matter how many individuals you see in Egypt you are highly unlikely to have an Egyptian say that they are Black. This is a wasted conversation; because we know that for thousands of years the people of north Africa crossed the desert and brought back slaves from sub-Saharan Africa. I am not foolish enough to argue with anyone about the race of anyone in any north African nation. The problems is who is defining who is Black! ****************

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 08:34:02 Allen Shaw

Michael Cooper from Allen Shaw
Your teacher gave you the incorrect information

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/continents
[kon-tn-uh nt]

Examples
Word Origin

noun
1.
one of the main landmasses of the globe, usually reckoned as seven in number (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica).
2.
a comparable landmass on another planet.
3.
the mainland, as distinguished from islands or peninsulas.
4.
the Continent, the mainland of Europe, as distinguished from the British Isles.
5.
a continuous tract or extent, as of land.
6.
Archaic. something that serves as a container or boundary.
adjective
7.
exercising or characterized by restraint in relation to the desires or passions and especially to sexual desires; temperate.
8.
able to control urinary and fecal discharge.
9.
Obsolete, containing; being a container; capacious.
10.
Obsolete. restraining or restrictive.
11.
Obsolete. continuous; forming an uninterrupted tract, as land.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 08:48:57 Michael Cooper

@ Allen Shaw

Thank you, sir.

Yes, I know that my former grade school teachers gave me and my classmates incorrect answers, I just didn’t know it as a 10-year-old kid.

Everything was unlearned to learn about the Motherland to me by my cultural historian teachers, Runoko Rashidi and Merira Byrd, who, like myself, are natives of Los Angeles. For eight years, Baba Rashidi and Byrd taught me (in person) a lot about what’s presented on this wonderful blog of Abagond. But again, thank you.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 12:48:52 mike4ty4

@Erik Sieven:

the fact that subsaharan africa is such a demographic exception, and the fact that every country on earth could be a copy of ghana or nigeria in 2200 or 2300 (making the world a much less diverse place, winner takes it all) makes it very important to study subsaharan african history!

If you like diversity, then you should not hate or think any other race is “lesser”. That leads to devaluing of it, contradicting diversity. You’re a walking contradiction.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 13:21:25 thwack

“civilization – Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/civilization
Civilization is the opposite of barbarism and chaos. Civilization is an advanced stage of human society, where people live with a reasonable degree of organization …”
—————————————————————————————-

Based on this definition, Nazi Germany was the most civilized nation to ever exist.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 17:19:58 gro jo

Allen Shaw, I have cousins who’ll tell you that they aren’t black overlooking the fact that their mother, my aunt, is as black as black gets. Taking your claim seriously, we would need to exclude W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Colin Powell and a whole bunch of other folks from the black race. Even if blacks did so, no guarantee that whites would include them in the white race except when it comes to Ancient Egypt, where a people that usually depicted themselves as shown on Tutankhamen’s throne are claimed for the white race in order to tell a tale of unbroken prominence throughout history. Here are pictures of modern day Nubians, tell me that you consider them white and I’ll shut up:
http://www.fathihassan.com/works5.html
http://i-cias.com/e.o/hamzad.htm
http://freebeacon.com/culture/nyt-columnist-blames-writers-union-for-refusing-to-publish-book-in-israel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Sadat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Hussein_Tantawi

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 18:21:33 Kushite Prince

Wow! Very truthful post! We have to rearrange our way of thinking. We have been taught wrong!

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 19:11:59 phillygirl

@allen shaw
Lol at the lies whites need to tell themselves. My hair salon is Ethiopian and they do consider themselves black. Also go on YouTube and many of them identify as black. Also explain how ramses iii was found to have subsaharan dna when we have been told for years that blacks had nothing to do with Egypt. Why did the Egyptian Antiquities Chair halt all dna testing after those results were found? Your white ancestors pulled a fast one on you guys Lol.

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on Sun Feb 15th 2015 at 19:54:14 gro jo

What happened to my latest reply to A. Shaw? Abagond, how have I violated your comment rules? I only pointed out to the gentleman that Ethiopians and Nubians are no different than blacks like Colin Powell or W.E.B. Dubois. To illustrate my point I linked to pictures of a number of prominent Nubians found on the internet.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 01:17:01 jefe

^ I think there is a limit on the number of links to pass through unmoderated.

If you haven’t violated the comment rules, it will eventually come out of moderation.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 03:05:32 Allen Shaw

phillygirl and gro jo from Allen Shaw
Either I am not writing clear or you are not reading my comments correctly. At no time have I attempted to say who is Black and who is not Black. It does not matter if Whites except people as White or Black. For thousands of years Blacks have been removed from Africa to other nations and other parts of the world. It does not make any difference how Blacks got to where they are in the world. I agree you will find Black blood everywhere!

I am attempting to get anyone who is interested in what I am actually saying and not what you believe I am saying. The average Black in the United States traces his roots back to sub Saharan Africa to one of the family groups that I mentioned and we should be building our pride base on that heritage. We should be proud of the strength that kept our ancestor alive throughout the years of transportation from Africa and the years of slavery, we should be proud that throughout this period the American Black is the only group that has increased it population during a period of major strive.

We should be writing our own history instead of crying about the history that the White man wrote for himself! When the White man or the Chinese write their history they do not think about other individuals; therefor they ignore any one else as being insignificant.

This entire conversation is based on the problem that Black people have of thinking that the White or Chinese is going to care about what Black people think when they are writing their history. Does it matter if he does not know or does not care or does not understand he is not going to include the Black in a fair evaluation because he sees what he see out of his eyes and he does what he does for his own purposes.

We must take charge of our own history!

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 04:25:58 sharinalr

@Allen Shaw

I believe you are either playing bait and switch or you are simply not clear on what you are writing.

You stated:I am sorry to tell you this, however you need to understand I have met a number of Ethiopian and none of them consider themselves to be Black.

Of course it goes on from here but the point is you are going on about what these people consider themselves and later returning to say it is irrelevant or not your point. So why bring it up?

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 07:28:44 Erik Sieven

@ gro jo
I do personally know black guys who are far more intelligent than myself, working in the STEM field and highly capable. So no need to persuade me that those people exist. The only question which remains and which is discussed by people interested in human biological diversity: how big is their share of the overall black population compared to the share of such people of the overall non-subsaharan african population. I do not know the answer and was not talking about that in my comment.
The only thing I said: in the last 10000 years much less civilization was developed in subsaharan africa than in west asia, central asia, south asia, east asia, europe, middle america, south america. This is a matter of fact and does not imply that subsaharan African people lack the potential to create big civilizations.
Also I said in my comment that subsaharan African people are the evolutionary fittest. I see no Afro pessimism in that.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 07:32:04 Erik Sieven

@thwack
Madagaskar was first inhabited by people from asia or middle east, not by the people living at the east african shore.
do you really think a mat of grass could carry a human over the atlantic? A small monkey weighs maybe 10 kg, a small – male – human over 60 kg

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 08:08:34 Linda

“Erik Sieven,
The only thing I said: in the last 10000 years much less civilization was developed in subsaharan africa than in west asia, central asia, south asia, east asia, europe, middle america, south america. This is a matter of fact and does not imply that subsaharan African people lack the potential to create big civilizations.”

Linda says,

This sir, is a LIE — white national front literature do not know the meaning of the word “fact”

and this is the reason that Abagond wrote this post because for YEARS, white western European educators and scholars have been omitting and lying about the Continent of Africa.

If it was not for Africa, then Europe would not have had it’s “Enlightenment” … you all would still be eating with knives, bathing once a month,and dropping dead from the bubonic plague.

I guess the main thing that needs to be understood is the term “Sub-Saharan Africa” is a recent, white western European created word,

designed to mean “black” Africa. This is a political term and has nothing to do with the Sahara desert, it’s all about race.

It is a false term because black African countries are also located above the Sahel, in northern Africa

http://uclageography5.blogspot.com/

there was no desert “divide” — black Africans have lived in every country on the ENTIRE continent of Africa.

They have ALWAYS lived in North Africa and they were not brought there by slavery —that is the first Myth and Lie that needs to end.

Sudan lobbied to be included in Northern Africa, even though most Sudanese people would be classified as “black” in the USA or Europe. The people of Upper Egypt have always black Africans ie Nubians.

North Africa has always been a highway between for Asiatic and Semitic groups, that is why North Africans are mixed racially/ethnically, and one thing many are definitely mixed with, is black African.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 08:50:32 Linda

The countries that lie in northern so called “Sub-Saharan Africa” are:

Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Sudan

and unless, you have been living under a rock, then you should be aware of their past Civilizations and what they contributed.

have you ever heard of Timbuktu located in Mali, the city renowned for being the center for learning back in the 1300s and it’s architecture.

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/timbuktu/

(don’t let the Arab names fool you. Many Africans adopted the Muslim religion and aspects of the Arab culture, such as the names.)

the richest man in in history, Mansa Musa, black African emperor of the Mali Empire in 1300s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/mansa-musa-worlds-richest-man-all-time_n_1973840.html

Mansa Musa Of Mali Named World’s Richest Man Of All Time; Gates And Buffet Also Make List

“Musa’s wealth was a result of his country’s vast natural resources. The West African nation (Mali) was responsible for more than half of the world’s salt and gold supply, according to Net Worth.”

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 10:14:50 Allen Shaw

sharinalr from Allen Shaw

I guess I am not clear, forgive me for causing you so much pain since I have responded to several thought in my various responses.
My point is African Americans or Blacks which ever you wish to call them need to help develop their own history since they believe the White history is full of lies about Blacks.

Whatever else you might read from my comments should stand on its own. No bait and switch.

Blacks live all over the world! However the majority of Blacks that were brought to the United States during the period of slavery were brought from sub Saharan Africa and there is where they should look for their heritage and history.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 10:43:18 Linda

“Abagond: Blindly trusting Western sources – these are often second-hand and one-sided at best, Eurocentric and racist at worst. You would think that Africans do not write books, make films or report news in English!”

Linda says,

and this eurocentric view on “race” of Africans began with the European explorers, who plodded along and renamed ancient African rivers, mountains and the people themselves as they saw fit, (as if they had the right!)

such as the Germans stating that the Tutsi’s were of a different race than the Hutu’s based on their nose and lighter skin tones.

European concepts of race were based on the bible and they didn’t even use any accurate statements from the bible to make their conclusions:

“Based on the book of Genesis, the world was divided by medieval scholars into three, major (geographical-cum-racial) groups, each populated by one of the sons of Noah: Shem, Japheth, and Ham. This is depicted in the following 15th Century map:

Although the color of Ham is not mentioned in the biblical passage, later interpretations – both Jewish and Christian – ascribed darkness or blackness to either his continence or his conscience, because of the evil act that he had perpetrated.

The idea that the populations of Africa, as the ‘sons of Ham’, were of an inferior and subservient race – as developed out of medieval Europe and based on biblical sources – continued to heavily influence European conceptions of the continent during 19th and 20th century explorations and subsequent colonizations. This ideology was used to justify not only to explain and justify colonial political actions, but was also used by missionaries in their endeavors to erase ‘savagery’ and introduce ‘sound Christian principles’.

and contrast this concept of race, as seen by the Arabs

“Interestingly, while the Old Testament is recognized by Islam, the interpretation of the inferiority of Ham’s descendants is rejected in Islamic sources. The 14th Century social historian ibn Khaldun ascribed skin color to environmental determinants – not to the family of Ham.

The Zanj [blacks, or Africans] say that God did not make them black in order to disfigure them; rather it is their environment that made them so. The best evidence of this is that there are black tribes among the Arabs, such as the Banu Sulaim bin Mansur, and that all the peoples settled in the Harra, besides the Banu Sulaim are black. ..

White and black are the results of environment, the natural properties of water and soil, distance from the sun, and intensity of heat. There is no question of metamorphosis, or of punishment, disfigurement or favor meted out by Allah

https://dianabuja.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/inventing-ethnicity-imagining-agriculture-the-tribes-of-ham-and-the-primitive-crops-of-africa/

So in a nutshell, early European scholars believed Africans were dark because Ham sinned;

whereas, the Arabs believed dark-skin was based on the environment ie living in a land with a lot of sun.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 10:47:05 Allen Shaw

Linda
Try to be civil we are have a learning experience not a put down conversation.

No one is living or has lived under a rock.

What has happened is history has been “basically” recorded by White historians and from everything that has been stated in this string, the thoughts indicates that Blacks think that the Whites lie. The sites that I have included with this response should be verified by Black historians to assist Blacks in having faith in the truth.

Your description of sub Saharan Africa is not total in it description because my understanding is all of Africa which lies south of the Sahara Desert all the way to the southern tip of South Africa and it may even include Madagascar.

Following are descriptions of Sub Sahara Africa (See newworldencyclopedia for description)

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sub-Saharan_Africa
http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/guide/afr-countrylist.html
http://worldmap.org/region.php?region=Sub-Saharan%20Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 11:40:06 Allen Shaw

abagond from Allen Shaw

The one drop rule was declared unconstitutional in 1967. It was only in the State of Virginia and a few other states and was never a federal law.

It is in reality a myth the same as the 40 acres and a mule story!

Please help stop this conversation as it did not exist in very many states.

Perhaps you could research it.

This rule–which has also been called the “one black ancestor rule;” the “traceable amount rule” by the courts; and the “hypo-descent rule” by anthropologists—was even cemented into law when Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924, which was replicated by several other states. The law designated only two racial categories: white and colored

Virginia’s RIA remained in force until the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia (1967). Virginia’s Monacan Indians have continued to battle their 1924 legislative reclassification as non-Indian, seeking tribal recognition from the federal government.

388 U.S. 1
Loving v. Virginia (No. 395)
Argued: April 10, 1967
Decided: June 12, 1967
206 Va. 924, 147 S.E.2d 78, reversed.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 14:24:32 thwack

Erik Sieven
@thwack
Madagaskar was first inhabited by people from asia or middle east, not by the people living at the east african shore.
————————————————————————————-

what color were they?

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 15:04:41 sharinalr

@Allen Shaw

I was in no pain reading your responses, because I just stumbled on them and the responses of others.

I personally don’t fully disagree with you, but don’t pretend like that statement had no bearing On your point. Also because many non-American people don’t consider themselves black or white or a racial category it brings in an air of half truth.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 16:10:44 gro jo

Allen Shaw, maybe you should have consulted these maps before making your comments regarding Ethiopia! Tell me why Western Sahara is excluded from sub-saharan Africa when it looks like a western extension of Mauritania? You are interested in Sub-Saharan Africa, very well, now tell us something about the histories of the peoples living there. I mentioned the Marabout war, the Toubenan movement and Kimpa Vita, can you add to our store of knowledge by saying something about say, the Nok culture, the Benin bronzes, Ashanti goldsmithing or metallurgical techniques in that area before European contact? How about the discovery of tetracycline 2000 years ago, meaning that they were ahead of Europeans in that field since it wasn’t until the 20th century that antibiotics was discovered by Europeans. I have no sympathy for your search for some kind of myth that would put a mystical gloss on the survival of blacks under New World slavery. the trick was done by the ingenuity of Africans who, as I said before, made themselves useful because they were and are talented.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 16:15:02 gro jo

Erik Sieven, Need I remind you that the vast majority of your fellow Germans are not fit to advance science anymore than the majority of Africans are. These things are usually done by a talented minority of any population.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 16:57:51 Blase'Suave Roses

Lol, we must have ALL had the pleasure of working with white people.

things white people do, Whitewash to an extreme! It’s like their perception of the world is TWISTED! One dude tried to justify that new American Sniper movie!!! In the Military(usmc) they teach you so much racism against islam and middle easterners. So much. When they seen me, they thought oh another ignorant black guy from the hood. Then when Id open my mouth on politics, history philosophy etc, they would say you aren’t black or something like that. Or use me to try to validate their racism. What they know about black people they get from youtube and movies. A lot of white people pretend to know things because they believe you dont know, they try to sound smart because they believe you arent educated! When you succeed in getting away with something, or anything athletic, it’s because you are black. They know they are racist but they just dont care that they are.That was the biggest shocker for me! They will never admit to it, I got in so many fights for calling white people what they are, only after I win, they would admit to it. Then! move their racism away from blacks onto mexicans, or muslims! I couldn’t believe the shit. So now day in day out, im arguing day in day out.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 17:11:10 Blase'Suave Roses

Whites are simply not willing to give up on their racism because they need it to feel good about themselves, to feel better. They fear black power because it comes down to sex. They fear blacks rising up like they did in Haiti. Anything that’s a threat to white supremacy whites call it evil, when in fact they rise up because white supremacy is evil and is causing the death of millions across the globe, they then say, it’s their problem, they are savages or less intelligent, when the conditions are caused from white governments. Like with Isis, they are scared so much of muslims its funny almost. Isis is a direct threat to white supremacy. You should hear the stuff I hear on a day to day basis! As if they are better, when I point out to them that white people did the same exact thing, they try to justify it, when I point out whites are the reason their is an ISIS today they ask for facts, when I show they facts they get into their feelings. When i ask why they are emotional they try to scarecrow the argument, when I bring them back they pretend they have to do something.
What gets me is how they feel they are better than the people they have directly caused, whatever the condition, on.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 17:36:08 Erik Sieven

@ gro jo
of course thats true. the question is: how big is this minority?

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 17:53:10 gro jo

Erik Sieven, good question, time will tell.

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 20:28:08 Linda

correction:

“Allen Shaw,
Linda, Try to be civil we are have a learning experience not a put down conversation.”

Linda says,

Allan Shaw, take several seats and don’t tell me how to me how to respond — I don’t have to be nice to racist like Erik Sieven

I don’t have any use for your coon a’s either because you came on this blog stating you are a black man from England, supporting and defending white people as if your life depended on it

and now you latest babble has you acting like you are black American talking about “we” and “us” — you can miss me with half your crap and keep it to yourself.

because the BS you are babbling about has already been discussed in other threads on this blog… I’m not interested in dealing with self-hating black people, like yourself

good day to you, Sir

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 20:31:49 thwack

did somebody just say coon?

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on Mon Feb 16th 2015 at 21:40:09 Just Me

“did somebody just say coon?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Relax Thwack,

I bet you thought someone was referring to you..

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 00:17:40 Allen Shaw

Abagond What to unlearn to learn African history. From Allen Shaw

I have given this subject my best shot; however it seems as though some commenters prefer to find fault with my comments rather than discuss the subject.

So this is for those individuals who have forgotten what the subject is.

If Blacks do not trust what the White historian has written, they have two choices. They can sit around and blog about the horrible nasty white people lying about them and do nothing else or they can write their own history!

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 00:25:46 sharinalr

@Allen Shaw

You took the subject matter off topic with your talk of what some groups of people view themselves as. You now want to complain because some people picked it apart?

Even with your latest statement, that is not you pulling it back on topic. That is you reiterating your opinion. Opinions are nice, but be careful not to confuse it with facts.

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 00:27:11 gro jo

Allen Shaw, based on Linda’s comments, I don’t know if you really are who you claim to be. As for your claim that the Sahara was some kind of unbridgeable barrier, this article indicates that trade across it took place from prehistoric times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_trade

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 01:20:23 Mary Burrell

@Kiwi: I have heard Louisiana Cajuns use the word “coon a**”

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 01:25:24 Mary Burrell

@Allen Shaw: I have a question Sir, Are you the poster “Alley” from Great B.ritain? Your posts have the same tone as his.

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on Tue Feb 17th 2015 at 03:37:43 gro jo

“… it seems as though some commenters prefer to find fault with my comments rather than discuss the subject…If Blacks do not trust what the White historian has written, they have two choices. They can sit around and blog about the horrible nasty white people lying about them and do nothing else or they can write their own history!” This is funny coming from you. I asked you to tell us what you know about Sub-Saharan history and all you’ve done is write nonsense about how blacks should write their own history. It’s obvious that you’ve never read any of the histories written by blacks. Stop playing the misunderstood sage, it doesn’t become you. Go learn some real African history, then comeback here and write something sensible.

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on Wed Feb 18th 2015 at 21:33:07 Veronica

“I do not intend to engage in folly, I just want to bring to those who are interested that instead of complaining about White history Blacks should research their own history.”

How about you never, ever in your fxcking ignorant, pretentious white life tell people of African descent how to handle racism and white supremacy? On what planet do you think you have the RIGHT to dictate to black people what we should handle the white supremacy and racism YOU benefit from? Fxck. Outta. Here. Stay in your lane, ignorance.

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on Sun Mar 8th 2015 at 15:07:13 munubantu

@ Erik Sieven

“I do personally know black guys who are far more intelligent than myself, working in the STEM field and highly capable. So no need to persuade me that those people exist. The only question which remains and which is discussed by people interested in human biological diversity: how big is their share of the overall black population compared to the share of such people of the overall non-subsaharan african population.”

I’m not sure if “people interested in human biological diversity” think of Blacks the way you formulated above.
It seems to me more that they think that the answer to that question is already known: Black are less intelligent than most of the rest of mankind.
They see that answer surfacing in many ways as:

* the position of Blacks in many societies in Europa and the Americas;
* the today’s level of development of African societies South of the Sahara;
* supposed absence of historic Black contribution to human progress;
* etc.

Most of the HBDers resist the call to different interpretations and a re-reading of the data to better understanding of facts, calling it “leftist”, “equalist”, “communist”, etc., and they prefer clearly to stay to their favorite interpretation: Blacks are clearly inferior intellectually, this is a fact!

This is why you anticipate a collapse of modern civilization with an unchecked grow of the African population. No wonder: these Africans have an IQ close to 70 or even less, they are, by large, incapable of take care of themselves and, being “borderline retarded” should be put in psychiatric institutions. And they will be a sure burden for the rest of humankind in the decades to come.
Not that I want a strong demographic grow of African populations: lesser demographic grow would help stabilize those societies sooner than later. But I would never argue this by questioning the intelligence of Africans.

But many genuine questions remain that HBDers should think about and try to answer. The one you post above rhetorically is one of them.

You said you know personally Blacks who are more intelligent than yourself. Good to know… but how many are them? The statistical model used by your HBD friends would trivialize this and claim to know the answer: write down the Gaussian curve with the middle in 70 (for Black Africans) and cut the curve at some point where your own IQ falls, and you are almost done. Next step you estimate the area above the cutoff point and below the curve and you divide this by one (total area) – this should represent the estimate of how many Blacks, in percent, are likely more intelligent than you! Simple…

Not so quick… wait a moment!

Maybe, the Creator really loves to “play dice” contrary to what Einstein believed… And this time He plays with you HBDers folk…
Look at the following link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2965362/Is-Britain-s-cleverest-girl-Ten-year-old-accepted-university-course-study-maths-degree-despite-not-going-school.html

A few questions for you Herr Sieven:

1. How high do you estimate the IQ of that girl (Esther Okade) to be?
2. Do you think that such IQ (assuming a very high one) is consistent with the Gaussian curve usually used to pack Africans, this is, with an average of 70? What are the odds of she even come into existence?
3 If not, what to do about this case?
3.1. A surely inexplicable outlier?
3.2 Or maybe we should remember that this in not a genuine African girl – she is British, isn’t it? (British environment made the difference? Humm, is UK better that America?)
3.3 Ah… she is the daughter of African immigrants and we all know that this is a self-selected group, more intelligent than the African average? But are not the HBDers the folk who always objects to Black African university graduates (or graduating!) entering and staying in countries like the USA (or UK, for that matter) fearing, or anticipating a “statistical return to the middle” (in IQ) for the sons, daughters, grandsons, etc of those Africans? So Esther Okade should tend to be less bright than her parents, isn’t it?
3.4 Or maybe one can think about a slight modification of the simple Gaussian for African populations: instead of seeing those populations has fitting a single curve one can think of them as fitting a bi-modal curve (juxtaposition of two Gaussian curves with different averages; this suggestion I read years ago in a site from somebody who called himself “La Griffe du Lion”). In fact, this explanation is quite the same some HBDers repeat when they try to explain the success of East Indian immigrants to the USA – they come from a “higher caste” which is of higher intelligence than the average Indian! So let’s search after the “African higher caste” to explain Esther Okade!

Or maybe… one should review the HBD beliefs!

This is hardly the first time the Creator played dice with you HBDers folk. Look also at following link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2201007/Maths-prodigy-Britains-youngest-university-student-just-12-years-old.html

The boy seems clearly what people in USA would call Hispanic and therefore belonging to another “inferior group”. But he is clearly bright!

Last year I spotted even another case (not a child prodigy, in that case):

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/31/ivy-league-admissions-college-university/7119531/

I think that HBDers should see all this as FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

Bye.

P.S.:

HBD people seem not do not believe “environment conditions” as crucially important for intellectual development but even in this case, without a mother who was already a mathematician herself, how could the “innate prodigy” of Esther Okade, be spotted in time and be properly tutored to achieve that height and become known to the public?

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on Sun Mar 8th 2015 at 17:09:36 King

Great post, munubantu.

Thanks

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on Sun Mar 8th 2015 at 17:57:36 thwack

HBD people seem not do not believe “environment conditions” as crucially important for intellectual development
—————————————————————————————-

Maybe they are just racist?

You ever tried to fcuk a lesbian?

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on Sun Mar 8th 2015 at 21:44:56 munubantu

@ King
“Great post, munubantu.

Thanks”

Thank you King!
Really I’m always amazed with the naivety some people look at the complexity of the human mind!
For them things are always simple: invent a test, use it to test people, and… Eureka, you are already into something deep about understanding human behavior and even foresee the destiny of nations and continents. Bingo! It’s like magic: simple and deep into the core of everything!

HBD people,… ARE YOU THERE?

Before you claim not be able to make statistical calculations without enough data I bring to you another case (feel free to walk the Web to search other examples):

http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/britains-brainiest-family-is-black-and-have-9-year-old-high-school-bound-twins

My question remains: which are the odds of from a population of average 70 points in IQ (this is what many HBDers believe, regarding Africans), fitting a Gaussian distribution and probably having a standard deviation around 15 (or less, maybe closer to 10), to extract a sample of only one element? How large should be the base population to produce such sample?

I’ll suggest some few inroads into a complete calculation:
* children who are 16 years old and pass the entry test to an University with a straight A are probably 130 or more in IQ (I’m trying to follow the HBD credo as close as possible) (assumption “1”).
* Esther Okade is only 10 years old and therefore 1.6 times higher in IQ than the aforementioned cases, so her IQ is on the range of 1.6 x 130, that is, 200 plus! (assumption “2”)

What are the chances of a person like Esther Okade to even exist?

HBD followers are known to insist in things that make little sense like to proclaim that Black Africans have an average IQ of 70 (or less) and therefore can aptly be seen as “mentally retarded”.
Apparently they are not aware that many people visit Africa every single day coming from all other parts of the world. Is this a common perception of these visitors, namely, that most Africans should be put on a “psychiatric institution” or are unable to take care of themselves?

Child prodigies appear in all human populations. But if we are to take seriously HBD theories they should be very rare or non-existent in Black populations.

And do not forget one thing: in Black populations is probably rarer that the parents would spot and access the brightness of their children in an appropriate way, and act accordingly. I think that there are much more cases like that but which do not appear under the radar of the larger public.

Again, HBD people,… ARE YOU THERE?
Here we request answers!
The Creator has already made His “dice” move, it’s your turn!

P.S.:

When I knew about the case of Esther Okade and later about the Imafidons I get the impression of having seen something similar already: the case of the William sisters in tennis. in all cases you have parents who strongly believed that their offspring could excel at that particular activity and set the course for the children to really excel. This does not exclude, naturally, some inborn above average qualities in all those children, particularly in the case of Esther Okade.

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on Sun Mar 8th 2015 at 23:56:51 King

@ munubantu

You bring up some great examples. But of course, the HBD crowd will label all of those as “statistical outliers” or “gifted freaks” who defy the genetic norm. How do yo respond to such evasions?

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on Sun Dec 8th 2019 at 01:50:42 gro jo

A place to learn about real African history. Watch the Christopher Ehret lectures.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNMSyCeB02g&list=UUqXBtGH2VmUxtlOQ47RRoxw)

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