Malik Ambar (1548-1626) was a slave from Ethiopia who became a military commander and kingmaker in India, fighting against the Mogul Empire. He founded Aurangabad, now a city of over a million people. Many in India who have heard of him do not know he was Black.
The African Diaspora in Asia: Today there are Black people in Iraq, Iran and India whose families have been there for hundreds of years. Some came as merchants or soldiers of fortune, most came as slaves traded by the Arabs.
India has the largest number, over 50,000. They are called Siddis or Habshis. Today most are Muslim and poor and live in ghettoes. They have been there since at least the 600s. Their glory days were from 1300 to 1700 when most were slave soldiers, some becoming generals, government ministers and even princes. Some married into royal families – or founded royal families of their own.
As late as 1833 there were three Black princes who ruled parts of India. And it was not till 1870 that the British defeated Janjira, founded by Blacks just down the coast from Mumbai (Bombay).
Early life: Malik Ambar was born Chapu, in Harar province in eastern Ethiopia. His parents were poor and sold him to Arab traders, who in turn sold him in Mocha, Yemen. From there he went to Baghdad in Iraq, then Iran and, in time, India. He became a Sunni Muslim.
Education: Unlike in the West, education and slavery were not a contradiction. In Iraq he learned finance and administration. In Iran he learned irrigation. In India he learned statecraft and military tactics (and came up with some of his own).
Ahmednagar: He wound up in the land of Ahmednagar on the west coast of India (see map). There he served the high minister, Chengiz Khan, who was also Black. So were many in the army.
Freedom: In about 1595 Khan died and Ambar was freed. He joined the army and soon became a general.
Fighting the Mogul Empire: When the capital of Ahmednagar fell to the Mogul Empire, Ambar escaped at night with his troops and broke through enemy lines. By 1610 he commanded an army of 50,000: 20% were Black and largely Muslim, 80% were Maratha and Hindu. The Mogul Empire was unable to defeat him, even when they outnumbered him. Ambar understood guerrilla tactics better than they did. He also made an alliance with Janjira, whose Black admirals cut off Mogul supplies.
He married his daughter into the royal family of Ahmednagar and put his son-in-law, Sultan Murtaza Nizam Shah II, in power. Ambar then restored the fallen kingdom.
He founded what became the city of Aurangabad, building palaces, an advanced irrigation system and so on. He was a patron of the arts, which is why we have a picture of him. And, although a Muslim, he helped to support both the Hindu and Christian religions in his realm.
After his death, Shivaji, the grandson of his right-hand man, went on to break the back of the Mogul Empire.
Thanks to Gro Jo for suggesting this post.
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- Welcome to Asian American History Month 2017
- Arab slavery
- History of Ethiopia
- India
- Hinduism
- African Diaspora
- guerrilla warfare
- Swahili civilization, 700 to 1500
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“Many in India who have heard of him do not know he was Black.” Really? Most of the sources I’ve read about him were Indian sources.
“The African Diaspora in Asia: Today there are Black people in Iraq, Iran and India whose families have been there for hundreds of years. Some came as merchants or soldiers of fortune, most came as slaves traded by the Arabs.
India has the largest number, over 50,000. They are called Siddis or Habshis. Today most are Muslim and poor and live in ghettoes. They have been there since at least the 600s. Their glory days were from 1300 to 1700 when most were slave soldiers, some becoming generals, government ministers and even princes. Some married into royal families – or founded royal families of their own.”
The way this is written gives the impression that present day Siddis are the descendants of those who came from the 600s to 1700. As Ambar’s daughter’s marriage to Sultan Murtaza Nizam Shah II(Whom he had killed, for speaking ill of him) indicates, a lot of these Africans became “Indian”. Most of the present Siddis descend from slaves and soldiers the British and other European powers brought to the Subcontinent. Janjira State lasted from 1489 to 1948 or 459 years Under Siddi rule. The USA will have to last another 218 years to equal it in longevity!
“He founded what became the city of Aurangabad, building palaces, an advanced irrigation system and so on.”
His canal system still works and is known as Naher-E-Ambari. He traded with and fought Europeans like the English, Dutch, Spaniards, etc.
Contrast the life of this black genius to Jefferson’s malicious comment on Blacks: “A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An ANIMAL whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch (* 2). Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar ;oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for demonstration.”
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Abagond, Malik Ambar may have been the first to use rockets as weaponsin India! http://www.aqueductdsr.com/builder_of_aqueduct.php
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“The African Diaspora in Asia: Today there are Black people in Iraq, Iran and India whose families have been there for hundreds of years. “
The Persians also established trading posts down the East African coast and intermarried with local women. Some of those traders brought their African wives and families back to Persia [modern day Iran], not as slaves, but as kin.
“India has the largest number, over 50,000. They are called Siddis or Habshis. Today most are Muslim and poor and live in ghettoes.”
Most of India’s poor live in homogeneous communities (by caste,class, occupation or religion). Do the Siddis suffer more discrimination than the Dalitsor do they suffer the same as any other group of poor people in India?
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@ gro jo
Re. Thomas Jefferson passage “…disposed to sleep…” That may have been due to the rigors of forced servitude. (Apparently this did not occur to Jefferson). Or if Jefferson’s speaking style was anything like his ornate & confusing 18th c. writing style — perhaps that would be another reason people he came into contact w/ appeared to him to be “… disposed to sleep…”.
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China & Tibet have Muslim populations also who are descendants (partially) of Arab merchants.
In Tibet they are looked down upon because they slaughter animals for food & yet Tibetans purchase leather from them — which I always thought was unfair & nonsensical.
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@gro jo
Would it be odd, unusual or educational that a majority of the white race here in Amerikka hold the same views about black people as Thomas Jefferson did over 200 years ago?
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The man made something of himself despite being thrown away by his own flesh and blood parents. That’s something else…. Very important tidbit.
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Why would it be odd, they’ve been taught this stuff for over 200 years. Some blacks believe it.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hluR7a79W14)
I find this guy’s stupidity sad but unintentionally funny.
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@ TeddyBearDaddy
“The man made something of himself despite being thrown away by his own flesh and blood parents.”
A lot of poor people sold their children into slavery to get through hard times in the past. It was a resource they had plenty of so they sacrificed one or more of their own children to feed other family members.
This horrible practice continues to this day.
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@Abagond
I was just reading about the Omani Arabs the other day and their country has a big population of black and mixed black people. The Omanis came to East Africa and intermarried with the locals too.
I was also reading about the British Raj and it turns out that the Indians are the reason there was an industrial revolution in Europe. Without Indian knowledge in Steel and textiles there would have been no Industrial revolution in Europe.
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@ Villagewriter
ALL ‘Arab’ countries have black people (& not only from slavery):
• Everyone on the planet migrated from Africa. Southwest Asia (that is the name of the continent where Arabs are) is literally a short boat ride away. Hence indigenous black populations. It is right next to Africa.
• The slave trade. (As written of in other of Abagond’s posts). Including via the Greeks & Romans etc. there. Not only via the Arab slave trade.
• The Egyptians were in Lebanon for awhile. (Along w/ — at different times in the lifespan of humanity — almost everyone else on the planet).
• Ethiopian Christian monks were in our Holy Valley/Qadisha Valley in Lebanon.
• I have posted here about my dad being a black Lebanese/black Arab. (In the last few days — where relevent).
•Arabs were/are only classified as ‘caucasian’/’white’ for socio-political historic reasons in more recent history. Please don’t join the insanity.
• The rubrics of US Black/White does not apply to the rest of the world where there are people who look the same as Black/White people in America but are not Black/White people in America. The rest of the world cannot be judged through the lense of the history/culture/politics/social structure of the United States.
• I wish people would stop being surprised by this. This — the constant explaining is exhausting. Arabic/Arab is only a language & a to some degree a culture. It is not a race. Nor is it a colour.
• When someone writes that they “hate Arabs” — as I have seen multiple times by multiple people posted on a recent comment thread (Trump/Muslim ban thread) — they are saying that they hate ‘black’ people as well (as well as all the other colours of Arabs). The designation of ‘caucasion/white’ was given by white colonialists/colonizers in more recent history.
•Whilst I am here: not all Arabs are Muslims. Some are Christians. Some are Jews. Some are even athiest Marxists etc.
•God makes things complicated to crack you open like a seed so you can grow like a flower. Learning that there are black Arabs in every single ‘Arab’ country & our diaspora is part of that process.
We are now returning to your scheduled programming.
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@ Zoe
“I have posted here about my dad being a black Lebanese/black Arab.”
From what you have written in the past few days, describing your father as “a black Lebanese/black Arab” is misleading at best and mendacious at worst. From your description, he was at most, light brown with identifiable European features. According to you:
As an adult, your father was White enough to openly live his life as a White man (at least in New York City and other major metropolitan areas.) You related that:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/#comment-372440
At that time (1940s to 1960s), in New York City, anyone labelled Black in America could only aspire to working as a janitor at NBC, certainly not reaching the level of Vice President. Moreover, Black people could not even walk in the front door of the Plaza, Carlisle, St. Regis and Waldorf-Astoria hotels as guests or to even apply for a job.
He and you may have experienced color bias in America’s boondock towns of the South, but you both had the assurance that as soon as, “we got to Florida or Houston or wherever we were going on holiday or for his work“, you were magically White again with all of the rights and privileges that designation afforded you both.
⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿
Even recently, you described a situation where your Whiteness was taken for granted:
You were apparently White enough for that woman to share her unfounded anti-Black fears with —— a complete stranger who felt more common ground with you than four Black college students chatting with each other and ignoring her.
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@ Afrofem
? You have not disagreed w/ anything I said nor have I disagreed w/ anything you have said. Because I made it clear albeit in different words than yours — only after you asked me how I felt about my “Blackness” (your words) — that I do not use those words or call myself Black.
I made a point explaining to you that we only ever use it as an adjective in front of the word Arab. It is the same as black Australian etc. My father does not have what I’m sure you are thinking of as “European features” btw.
Also the music industry in the 60s & 70s was an unusual place. NBC Radio was not all of NBC. He began as an actor but stopped because he could not get roles. I was surprised that a woman would say that to me in the Starbucks shop — but I did NOT say that I was in any way shape or form equal to the kids or probably univ students I described. (Not sure where you are getting your assumption about that from).
You are the one who asked you about ‘my’ so called “Blackness” (capital B) twisting round what Arabs call in Arabic a black Arab’. I was the one who took the time & trouble to answer you & say that I/we don’t call ourselves as you phrased it. I am the one who said my mother is blonde w/ green eyes & pale skin & I consider myself German & we call ourselves Arabs & in certain circumstances here when talking about civil & human rights ‘brown’. I’m not sure how you are aware of the exact shade of my father’s skin colour either.
This feels so very hostile — receiving this. Since you are the one that misunderstood what I said to begin with & I took the time to answer you point by point — basically saying a lot of what you have said now: not black upper case B/brown not Black/black Arab not Black American without the word Arab/German mother etc. etc. etc.
Lastly because it is exhausting defending myself against something where there is no disagreement: my father had a freelance job. He was coming in and out of establishments. And in the 40s he was in high school! I wrote he worked in the music industry in late 50s/60s/70s.
Anyone can go back & read my post answering YOUR request that I define that and see that I said I was NOT EQUATING HIM w/ Black/African Americans. That said: I find it absolutely astonishing that you are saying that no Black/African American had a job above that of a ‘janitor’. I had a Black/African American pediatrician from 1960s on in the NYC area AND his wife was also a Black/African American pediatrician. Look at all the scholars & scientists & business people by then.
I’m not sure why you would attack me by basically using my own points that are the same as yours & saying that I have some motive that I don’t. Please read my post again w/ another frame of mind. I am frankly tired of all the anti-Arab hatred & vitriol. That (= black Arab) is the word for Arabs that are not European looking amongst Arabs. I was the one that explained that it is NOT to be confused w/ Black/African American. I was the one correcting your misinterpretation of what that means in the first place. Now you are using my words to attack me?
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@ Afrofem
PS: You could stay in NYC hotels in the 60s & 70s as long as you could pay their bill. Likewise w/ major hotels in Houston & Miami in the 60s/70s which were surrounded by a Gay community. (If anyone remembers the Anita Bryant anti-Gay crusade. Those were not the most conservative places).
I find it astonishing that you would ask me to answer a question that you framed — which I answered in detail for you including w/ various experiences of my father & mother then copy & paste & post those very words to attack me in an attempt to reframe them.
I described faithfully & truthfully my father’s experiences. And I attempted to explain the terminology we use for ourselves & the terminology that others used for him. I explained to you that he called himself Lebanese etc. & that those telling my mother not to marry him called him “Black” & a “Black man” etc. I said that we do NOT call ourselves that — except at times topically w/ a small ‘b’ & only ever before the word ‘Arab’. Where you see deception here & some evil agenda is beyond me. I’m not sure why you are offended by my answering your questions honestly & accusing me of lying. I am done here. I am frankly sick & tired of the hostility we face. Yet you wrote you know exactly what my father looks like. That is astonishing. As if you have a photo of him.
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Kinda damning when a person quotes your words.
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@ Zoe
“Arab is only a language & a to some degree a culture. It is not a race. Nor is it a colour.”
If that is true, there is no need to go into detail about skin color or descriptive terms for skin color. It seems that the term ‘Arab’ alone would suffice as an ethnic description.
Yet among Arabs, there are skin color/skin shade distinctions. They may not be as sharply defined as skin color/shade distinctions and hierarchies in the US or India, but they do exist.
There is also a great deal of anti-Black and anti-African animus among Arabs no matter their color or shade. That animosity is something many African-descent people have experienced, no matter what continent they call home.
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@ Afrofem
Yes I wrote of that earlier. It is there for everyone to read. Racism experienced by African Americans from working class Arab immigrants that buy shops in Black neighbourhoods.
I also wrote that we do NOT use a colour descriptive & only say ‘Arab’ most of the time.
I wrote that the descriptive was used when necessary as a descriptive such as when discussing issues of experienced racism whilst being forced to check “white” on legal forms — even for people who are taken for Black African Americans this is true. Such as a case of a lawsuit by an Egyptian man that I referenced.
Why do you keep telling me things that I have already written to you as if I am not in agreement w/ them.
I’m not sure what your point is except to take things that I wrote & reframe them as if they are your arguments & I am in disagreement w/ them.
This is so surreal & shallow that it is pointless to continue. I am almost a monastic person. The last thing I want is to be dragged into the reverse of theosis.
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@ sharinair
How is it “damning” when the words she has quoted of mine are NOT at odds w/ what she has written. My quotes were simply true explanations of experiences given after she ASKED me to explain on — the ‘open thread’– what my “father” & I felt about our “Blackness” (her words). I answered saying we do not use that/those words/concepts in the same way. She is reframing my words. What is your point? What under the sun is “damning”?
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@ Zoe
If you are still here — despite your explanations, I’m very unclear what you mean by (lowercase) black Arab. I understand this is a translation of an Arabic term, but not knowing Arabic, I can only try to understand it in English.
Does it refer to the same people whom Wikipedia calls Afro-Arabs?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Arab
Or does the term signify Arabs of a dark skin tone but without distinctive black African features and heritage?
Or…..?
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@ Afrofem
I explained — per your REQUEST — that my father did not call himself ‘black’: but that the white people warning my recent immigrant mother not to marry him c.1950 called him “black”/”a black man”.
Lovely that others are having such a blast w/ this attack on me. (Last “damning” comment from someone).
I wondered what was going on for you when you wrote me regarding the Arab American fight to have a box on the census & also not to have to be legally forced to check the ‘White’ box even when there are — for only one example — Nubians taken daily for Black/African Americans by police & landlords & employers & shopkeepers. As I said there are blond/blonde Latinos who get to press anti-bias civil rights claims etc. yet black Arabs who cannot. (Because they are ‘White’ on paper). And behold: White people don’t care about them & NEITHER does anyone else in America except Arab Americans. That is really sad.
Yet you said you were afraid having a box might make them an “adversary”. Why would people having equal rights to others after being here since the 16th c. & being INVISIBLE in EVERY way — make them YOUR “adversary” Afrofem?
Especially as I pointed out (as in the case w/ the black Egyptian man’s lawsuit) that in many instances they are PREVENTED from checking the ‘Black/African American’ box & FORCED to check “White” — even when they are clearly not White.
Anyone who does not have empathy for the people in that situation is frankly a sociopath!
And please read my words again. I am the one who wrote I did NOT see nor call myself ‘black’ or ‘Black’ but only Arab & also German as I have a mother who is German. (And blonde AND pale AND wrote that I have her bone structure. Read my posts. Preferably minus the irrational hatred).
So person who wrote “damning” in this thread: what are you on about? Nothing I have ACTUALLY said disagrees w/ most of what Afrofem has attacked me for. Excluding her knowing EXACTLY what my father looks like. Which is frankly miraculous. “Damning?” Really? How so?
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@Zoe
Regardless of what questions she asked you, you did type that response did you not? You are arguing as if you did not say them. When you are quoted you then argue something so ridiculous as “she asked me.”
My point is you got caught with “Your foot in your mouth” so to speak. Own and move on.
” What under the sun is “damning”?” —Google wasn’t made for nothing, but…it means strongly suggesting guilt or error.
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@ Solitaire
Adjectives are written in lower case. They are never written in upper case. Whereas certain words have taken on the German convention of capatalising all nouns — to differentiate them from adjectives. When usually in English only personal names etc. are capatalised.
Hence a colour (etc.) written only in lower case is ALWAYS simply a descriptor (an adjective) when written BEFORE a noun such as ‘Arab’ … & that is ALL.
Let us take the case of the Egyptian man in the States who filed the lawsuit. The need to communicate his legal predicament here requires an adjective describing that yes he is an Arab — but that he is also black. (‘black’ being a descriptive term that aliens — should they arrive from another planet — would probably not comprehend regarding skin colour. As w/ the descriptive term ‘white’… but we seem stuck w/ the terms for now). He would not — in all instances — be allowed to describe himself as ‘Black/African American’. If he were to describe himself as the latter: the assumption would be that he had 400+ years of enslaved ancestors & civil & human rights abuses etc. in his history which he does not. And some people would be confused & angry. It is simply an adjective without possessing the same truths — because if he were just to say ‘Black’ or ‘African American’ he might get a LOT of dross from people — as is happening here. Then again if he did not WANT to check the ‘Black/African American’ box he would also probably get a lot of dross. The point is he is FORCED to check the ‘White’ box.
Why am I on trial here? Every single thing I am saying has & is being discussed in Arab American orgs/websites/blogs/civil rights groups. Which anyone can search for themselves. Nothing I have written is MY opinion. It is standard civil rights dialogue regarding certain Arab Americans.
Are we finished here People? Because I find this so distressing. The CONSTANT explaining & attacks from every faction of United States society — that I am so exhausted I am literally shaking/trembling now. And that is because I have a neuromuscular disability from birth — not because I’m a lunatic. I find these constantly appearing scenarios in life PHYSICALLY EXHAUSTING. Thanks for the hospitality. I will say one thing: Arabs no matter how they ‘look’ (whatever that means to people) would never EVER behave this way to someone who just entered their lives. Unless they were out of their minds like Daesh etc. I for one am frankly sick & tired of being treated like dross. I was already bullied off of the hometown blog of my eldest brother’s high school classmate by a bunch of lunatic White people — after I attempted to defend Syrian immigrants. I had the whole post & thread archived in civil/human rights orgs for Arabs & Muslims… They archived it on a crawl in case anything was deleted.
It’s astonishing to me that a people here since the 16th c. are still so invisible & apparently completely confusing to people — but only when not portrayed as terrorists & rapists & belly dancers in fake costumes in film. I’m sorry that who we ACTUALLY are is so confusing to people. Perhaps I will swan round in a fake belly dance costume (which we never wore) in order to be recognised as a quote unquote ‘Arab’.
ARE WE DONE HERE? Because I am exhausted. Can I go now?
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@ Zoe
Just because Afrofem is questioning and challenging your use of the word black, it doesn’t automatically follow that she is anti-Arab or attacking you.
I warned you on the Open Thread that this was not a safe space environment — more like a full-out, no-holds-barred forum where you can expect to be tested and your opinions and stances thoroughly probed. You said then you were tough enough to handle that.
Can you step back, take a few deep breaths, and address Afrofem’s concerns without assuming she hates you and yours?
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@ Sharinair
“you got caught with your foot in your mouth”
What are you TALKING about?!
Because she pointedly asked me to describe my father’s experiences & I was kind enough to describe them. & she also asked me to describe other things about Arabs in America & I described them also. How was I caught w/ my “foot in” my “mouth”. What are you talking about. These are experiences in my family & also we discussed certain aspects/legalities/history re. Arab Americans which are NOT MY OPINION. It may seem like my opinion re. MENA/NAME etc. if you are unfamiliar w/ Arabs in the States.
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@ Solitaire
Can I step back take a deep breath & address Afrofem’s concerns… ?!
What are you talking about?! I have already done that. Have you not read my responses.
I have ZERO clue what you are talking about w/ “safe spaces”. Are you kidding me?! I am a Palestinian etc. human rights activist. Where is your “safe space”?
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@ Zoe
(Here is a corrected version of the comment above)
“Racism experienced by African Americans from working class Arab immigrants that buy shops in Black neighbourhoods.”
Anti-Black bigotry by Arabs is not confined to people of African descent in the USA. Arabs, like Europeans, ran a centuries long slave trade that devastated both East and West Africa and even reached into the Congo region. A lot of anti-African animus from that history is still found among the Maghreb and Levantine Arabs.
This 2011 Inter Press Service article, “To Be Black in Iraq” by Karlos Zurutuza, describes the treatment of Iraqi’s of African descent:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/10/to-be-black-in-iraq/
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@ Zoe
Abagond also wrote an article that describes anti-Black bigotry by Arabs in 2013 that included this disparaging cartoon of former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice.
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@ Abagond
Please delete these comments:
Thanks
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@ Afrofem
Re. Arab slave trade you just posted about.
This is surreal. I know about that Afrofem. I have explained I am an Arab American human rights advocate. I have already posted about that in response to something on THIS blog. I have already posted about the Arab slave trade on this VERY THREAD. Furthermore why do you assume I have never heard nor discussed any of this w/ Black/African Americans before?
Why do you keep writing to me about things that I have already written on this blog — & in the case of the Arab Slave Trade in this very thread earlier — as if I have never even heard of them before. OR as if you are chastising me or giving me a raking. It is weird. Scroll up & you will see I am aware of the Arab Slave Trade.
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@Zoe
Do yourself a favor and take some deep breaths because you are acting rather ignorant and much of what I will follow up explaining are going to be things you could have caught had you chilled out.
“Because she pointedly asked me to describe my father’s experiences & I was kind enough to describe them.”—No. It is because your comments were deceptive/contradictory. Which she kindly explained when she quoted.
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@ Zoe
No, actually I don’t think you have addressed her concerns fully. And you appear to be getting quite upset and defensive, although I concede this may be my misreading or misinterpretation, as it can be difficult to tell with online communication.
“Hence a colour (etc.) written only in lower case is ALWAYS simply a descriptor (an adjective) when written BEFORE a noun such as ‘Arab’ … & that is ALL.”
I disagree — in the respect that “black” as a descriptor doesn’t always mean the same thing. For example, the terms “black Irish” and “black Dutch” typically refer to white people with dark hair, whereas “black American” or “a black individual” typically signifies a person of African descent.
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@ Afrofem
Deleted.
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@ Afrofem
Re. The disparaging cartoon
Saying ‘Arab’ is like saying ‘Europe’. This is madness. You have zero idea about my various opinions on different Arab speaking countries/govts/people/politics/persons/historical actions/racists/etc. etc. etc.
What is your point to ME as a human being. Now that you have left off describing to us EXACTLY what my father looks like & why a woman talked to me in Starbucks & how I must be a LIAR because if my father did not look “European” he would have only been able to have a job as a “janitor”.
Now a cartoon. This is ridiculous. What do you want from me when nothing I believe in & none of my values are in contrast w/ yours? (Aside from very obviously kindness & empathy & hospitality).
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@ Afrofem
Re. cartoon & Abagond post on racism against blacks
WHY do you think that Arab & Arab American human rights advocates & others are not AWARE of “racism against blacks”. Excuse me but this is surreal when I have in the VERY same week as this getting blog posts FROM Lebanon fighting for justice AGAINST racism for black people in Lebanon (from a Lebanese blogger who consistently focuses on this).
Rather than responding to me as a person you have been hostile to me. It is frankly WEIRD & ABUSIVE. Why would you think I know nothing about Arab racism toward blacks. I probably know more about it than you regarding at least Lebanon. Such as the video of the Ethiopian maid & then her committing suicide.
Likewise I have things to say about racism & colourism in my own experiences w/ Arab Americans. The LAST thing I am going to do here is describe my own experiences w/ you about that now.
You’re not hearing me. I have described that I am a human rights advocate/activist dealing w/ these various issues for YEARS. I have not a clue what you are doing by basically all evening only showing/telling me things that I am aware of & insisting I am unaware of them.
If I were to describe however the colourism & racism I have experienced from Arabs — for example dating/marriage — you would not believe me because an elderly lady weirdly saying something like that to a stranger in Starbucks incident proves I am lily white. Hence if I had racism/colourism stories to tell I would be called a LIAR again. Excuse me I posit that this is abusive.
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@ Solitaire
It’s not about having the ‘strength’ or whatever word you used. (I’ve forgotten). Have a look at the concept of theosis.
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@ Afrofem
I KNOW about these Iraqis… this Iraqi community. Again I am a human rights advocate & Arab American. Again why have you been showing me things in a manner suggesting that I am unaware of them.
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@ Zoe
“Why do you keep writing to me about things that I have already written on this blog — & in the case of the Arab Slave Trade[?]”
I have merely pointed out inconsistencies and glaring omissions in your narrative. You bandy words about in tornado fashion to avoid responding to pointed questions——uncomfortable questions about uncomfortable histories and current conditions.
You state that you have been a, “a human rights advocate/activist dealing w/ these various issues for YEARS.” That is great.
I have been an activist for years/decades, too. So has Solitaire and Sharina. Abagond has written extensively about the intersection of Arab and African issues for years. Most of the commenters on this blog are quite intelligent, articulate and well traveled. So are the lurkers, some of whom are Afro-Arabs.
When we ask you to clarify or back up your assertions, it speaks volumes that your comments become defensive and emotional. Why?
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiA9QiAnA8I)
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD7sp-L9lUk)
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@ Solitaire
Giving me a raking for not answering Afromfem etc. As I said I answered her. (Before you wrote that). But regarding the rest of your comment. You seem to have missed the part where she called me a liar. Told us all exactly what my father looks like/must look like. Due to the fact that he was not a “janitor” etc. (How insulting to people’s accomplishments). & btw people are freelance consultants they are there for a few weeks/months vs. being someone’s supervisor etc. He had the desk job for a very brief time. But this is obviously not a place for nuanced intelligent argument.
Are you White? Because you keep asking me questions that are METRIC about the colour of Arabs & my father & etc. Like the whole of life can exist on a GRID of straight lines w/ flow charts. Here’s the answer for you Solitaire. To all your white lab coat sanitary questions about ARABS & the word BLACK. I have given the damn example ALREADY. But here is all you need to answer your myriad questions: When my blonde mother was marrying my father White Americans told her NOT to marry him because he is “black!”/”a black man!” etc. (I’ve left out the “hotel” comment they made because that made Afrofem write a dissertation on hotels. Apparently not believing that hotels in Miami & Houston in the MIDDLE of then active GAY communities would allow a POC there also. WOW). As I described my father simply described himself as ‘Lebanese’ & sometimes w/ us at home whilst discussing our history ‘Aramaic’.
There are no metrics here Solitaire. Nor is there a contradiction as the person here whose screen name that starts w/ Sh & I’ve mercifully forgotten has said. (And I might add: said extremely rudely).
I have described the actual experiences of my family after Afrofem requested I do that yet before she attempted to weaponise my words & put me on trial w/ them here. (Charming!). I have described various legal scenarios. Lawsuits/the census/MENA vs. NAME etc./how we have been described legally/how others describe us/how we describe ourselves etc. etc. etc. (AFTER being ASKED to describe everything. Having zero ideas my family history etc. was being stockpiled for later use as weapons to supposedly catch me in some lie).
None of this re. Arab Americans is made up. (WHY would anyone BOTHER?). Legal/historical etc. Anyone can go online & look those things up. My parent’s experiences were described as described to me.
I am very aware of racism & colourism within & without the various communities of Arabs throughout the world as I have been dealing w/ them for YEARS both personally & re. human rights. Saying that the word ‘Arab’ describes a language & culture & not colour is NOT the same as saying there is NO colourism & racism among Arabs. I never wrote that. They are two different things.
Putting someone on trial for things they never said. Calling them a liar. Bizarrely telling them exactly what their father looks like. (W/ the reasoning that POC could only be “janitors”. WOW!). W/ what they look like (the only evidence being that an elderly woman spoke to them by the napkins in Starbucks). As much as you want to proceed w/ your hairsplitting accuracy here Solitaire (which seem largely based on who you are friends with): that’s not happening.
This has been charming everyone. Enchante. I have unsubscribed to all posts & comments — so you can rip me to shreds to your hearts content to each other without me reading a word of it. Knock yourselves out w/ that & have a blast. I will be very busy altering all the old photos of my father to look “European” — so Afrofem can be absolutely right about exactly what we look like. Because SHE finds it impossible that I wrote that in the tiny photos I have of my grandparents they look a bit more European than him. WOW — proof of a lie! Please research genetics.
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@ Afrofem
“Why?”
Perhaps because calling someone a liar about their father’s personal “feelings”/experiences which you ASKED them to tell you — only to then WEAPONIZE them in an attempt to prove they are a LIAR. (& then have your abusive mates pile on like sheep). If you have ZERO clue about your own behaviour/words — my continuing to point that out (which I have already done btw — so you can read those comments) is not going to be at all helpful to you. Just the FACT that you have to ASK “why?” proves an astonishing lack of empathy! It’s ridiculous… this is NOT the way human rights advocates/activists behave towards each other when discussing “intersectionality” (sp?). That is absurd! What a Joke! You add to your astoundingly rude & unkind treatment of me by insulting my intelligence.
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@ Afrofem
“become emotional… why?”
Phwaahahahaha. I’m the ANGRY ARAB Afrofem. There’s no REASON behind it. It has ZERO to do w/ ANYTHING you DID or SAID (or Solitaire w/ her ruler & measuring devices). It’s just completely IRRATIONAL “emotion”. W/ ZERO origins in ANY of your statements. Calling me a liar. Calling my father a liar. TELLING US WHAT WE ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE. TELLING us that we look “European”. Hahahahahahahahahahahahah! We are not even ALLOWED to look how we ACTUALLY LOOK. Forget about Arab Americans who look West African etc. being FORCED to be “white” on paper. Afrofem thinks she can actually DESCRIBE us into looking “European”. Phwaaahahahahahahahaha. Alright then. Go tell that to the police here who treated ME like a criminal whenever I had to ring them to help me at my unlocked building here — when I was the victim — & they have refused to help me. Hahahahaha. Why don’t you DRAW a photo of what I ACTUALLY look like Afrofem & I’ll just show it to the local police next time…
“Why?” That is MADNESS. Human rights advocates don’t put their allies on TRIAL over ZERO reasons. Or ASK them to describe their father’s “feelings” over 1950s/60s colour related civil rights abuses & then attempt to weaponize them against the person.
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@ Zoe
It is sad that you have gone into “meltdown mode” over someone pointing out the obvious, but not unexpected.
Too bad.
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@Zoe
“Everyone on the planet migrated from Africa. Southwest Asia (that is the name of the continent where Arabs are) is literally a short boat ride away. Hence indigenous black populations. It is right next to Africa.”
Totally agree.
“Arabs were/are only classified as ‘caucasian’/’white’ for socio-political historic reasons in more recent history. Please don’t join the insanity.”
Agree. All racial classifications are socio-political. But the Arabs or people who would call themselves Arab or Persian accepted the “white” classification and the privileges that come with it in the USA. Its only now when they are being victimized by President Orange that they are now crying about whether they are really white or not.
“The rubrics of US Black/White does not apply to the rest of the world where there are people who look the same as Black/White people in America but are not Black/White people in America. The rest of the world cannot be judged through the lense of the history/culture/politics/social structure of the United States.”
True but the concepts about race from the USA have been spread to the rest of the world through the media since the 1930s. The result is that Somali Muslims and Sudanese Muslims are discriminated on in Saudi Arabia and Dubai because the are “black”. Even in the rural areas of Lebanon being black is considered to be inferior.
Black Iraqis and Yemenis formed civil rights groups to fight discrimination against them based on their skin color. The rest of the world adopted America’s race politics long ago.
“God makes things complicated to crack you open like a seed so you can grow like a flower. Learning that there are black Arabs in every single ‘Arab’ country & our diaspora is part of that process.”
Actually we make things complicated God tries to simplify them. Black Arabs are treated as trash in the Arab world to the extent that some of them try to “whiten” their children by marrying light skinned Arabs. Racism in the middle east is a thing and its a very recent thing. As long as the light skinned Arabs continue treating black and mixed people like slaves, these black and mixed people will continue identifying as black first.
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@Solitaire,
re:
Really, now, if you truly have Southern US family and cultural origins, then you must know that these terms are dog whistles for those white families which have some relatives or ancestors with darker skin and hair, and who have come up with terms to explain this. More often than not it is meant to conceal and explain away their known or at least suspected Native American or tri-racial heritage in those persons.
http://blackdutch1.webs.com/
My southern grandmother told me that she had Black Irish and Black Dutch ancestors, but when I saw the 19th century photo of one of her grandmothers, she looked distinctively tri-racial to me. My grandmother denied any knowledge of any nonwhite ancestry in her family (with a look of dread in her face), yet hammered the point into me why it was imperative that I marry a white person, and why my kids must marry a white person so that my grandchildren could be diluted enough to identify as white.
Given that my grandmother was born in NW Georgia, the very region cleared out by the Trail of Tears to be replaced with white settlers and black slaves, it makes perfect sense that her great-grandmother claimed to be Black Dutch to escape removal or slavery. I want to get to the bottom of this.
It must be a twist of fate that my niece married a man who has a black father, and her kids are triracial / quadriracial. I think her older son could easily pass as Mexican or Native American and her younger one looks half Chinese, even though my niece picked a “black-sounding” name for him.
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Wow! So much heat and yet very little light from the Zoe, Afrofem, sharinalr and Solitaire kerfuffle. I don’t see how that conversation isn’t off topic, but this is Abagond, Mr. inconsistent, we’re talking about here! This stuff belongs on the open thread where it began.
Afrofem states: “At that time (1940s to 1960s), in New York City, anyone labelled Black in America could only aspire to working as a janitor at NBC, certainly not reaching the level of Vice President. Moreover, Black people could not even walk in the front door of the Plaza, Carlisle, St. Regis and Waldorf-Astoria hotels as guests or to even apply for a job.” Maybe not as African-Americans but as “Arabs” or “indians” a few did pull off the trick. It was called the “Turban trick”. Among the well known practitioners of said trick was Korla Pandit a/k/a John Roland Redd, Rev. Jesse Routté, Dicky Wells the “Maharajah of Hattan”, and my favorite, Joseph Downing “Prince Jovedah de Rajah “, that name kills me. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/17/332380449/how-turbans-helped-some-blacks-go-incognito-in-the-jim-crow-era
Some African-Americans did hold jobs above the janitorial level in the 1930s, such as the mechanical genius and self-taught engineer, Frederick Mckinley Jones who founded the U.S. Thermo Control Company (later the Thermo King Corporation) which became a $3 million business by 1949. This post on Ambar shows that talented blacks have carved out niches for themselves regardless of the hostility of the society they lived in.
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@ village writer
• The designation of “white” in America for Arabs is not as you stated. It was a response to The Exclusion Act which was a very narrow quota for Chinese & other Asians. A group of Syrian Lebanese lawyers fought in a lengthy court battle beginning in the 1920s to be considered “white” by saying they were like Italians etc.
I’m sorry — but the fight against this (to have a legal designation like Latinos etc. & a demographic count) was begun years ago for very serious legitimate reasons vs. the reasons you have given. And this is a thirty year battle we have been involved in. (I was a member of the ADC who began it). Excuse me but we are not counted on any cencus or elsewhere. So nobody even knows how many of us there are. (This has serious socio-political consequences for us that I cannot go into here — such as with elections). The more serious issue is for black Arabs who are forced to check “White” for legal reasons & suffer racism & yet are not afforded the necessary social & legal supports to address that.
• I am aware of the racism in Lebanon & African immigrant rights issues in Southwest Asia that you have mentioned. This is not only in “rural areas” in Lebanon. I am Lebanese & a human rights advocate. Lebanon has a website for an org to help immigrants facing racism. I have answered that in this thread previously.
• I know about the black Iraqis & their issues. I have answered that in this thread previously.
• I was JOKING re. w/ the “complicated” comment. I am Orthodox — so of course I know God does not complicate things but rather simplifies them as you have said (theosis).
• To your imported ‘western beauty ideal’ point (that is the actual name for what you described) — as a woman of colour I am aware of this kind of racism:
a.) My father married my mother a pale blonde.
b.) My brothers have only dated/married vary pale light haired European Americans.
c.) I waited tables in Arab restaurants in NYC where I witnessed the same. (ONLY).
• With respect to disagree w/ you: “racism is” NOT “a recent thing” there. There are the beauty issues you mentioned/the immigrant servant maltreatment/the ancient slave trade. (Which has turned into abusive paid servitude in many instances. As there is a rights org in Lebanon it happens a lot). Example: people using the Arabic word for “slave” to describe black people. (I never heard of this until I read about it recently however & I am in my 50s & Lebanese — so I wonder who says this). None of these are “recent”.
• With respect: re. your last sentence. Why should people not want to identify as black once — insha’allah — they would stop being mistreated? There is nothing at all wrong w/ being black Village Writer.
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@ Afrofem
“meltdown mode”
Hahahahahahahahaha. Wow. You are incapable of observing how your behaviour has affected someone when you have been off the chain abusive to them? Astonishing.
I have explained myself to you. Yet as w/ everything else you are twisting everything round saying I had a “meltdown” vs. answering you & explaining myself to you. When I HAVE answered you — over & over.
I have also explained that as I have a serious neuromuscular disability from birth I am exhausted & done w/ your TRIAL of me. Sorry for the laughter but it’s astonishing. It is just really funny now. You asked me to explain how my father feels re. his experiences — then turned on me putting me on TRIAL demanding explanations AFTER you called HIM a LIAR & me a LIAR. Then when finally I just find this so surreal & funny & absurd it makes me laugh — you start patronising me for that. I also answered your question re. my emotional response which bizarrely mystifies you. Answer: I’m the LIVING BREATHING WALKING TALKING IRRATIONAL ANGRY ARAB TROPE. You on the other hand have behaved perfectly. I’m an Arab so I can be “emotional” & have “meltdowns” for ZERO reason. And you’re not so you can be the rational one who makes PERFECT sense. Please read through all the threads from the start w/ someone else who is not your echo — to answer the MYSTERY of why someone might get angry then find this really absurd & hence really funny.
You may want to research:
• gaslighting
• narcissism
• sociopathy
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@ Afrofem
“janitor” which you described as the only job a “Black” man could get in New York at a radio station.
I don’t know how to cut & paste in my phone. The quote is above in the thread.
First of all again: absence of nuance is tyranny. I said my dad is an Arab & that when we need the descriptor a black Arab. I pointed out that it was people who told my mother not to marry my father who called him “Black”/”a Black man”. I said that was in the midwest NOT NYC. I didn’t take a poll about how people saw him in NYC. I was a child (& that was in the 60s/70s not 40s/50s). But I said he was treated well in NYC. He was VP very briefly & otherwise a consultant only at places for several weeks/months at a time. He was not a supervisor & was around DJs all day. Yet this was unbelievable to you. This job in the 1960s/70s in YOUR VIEW could ONLY go to a very European looking man. In the 60s/70s music industry. With soul artists etc. wandering out of recording sessions people were supposed to be completely freaked out (!!!!!!!!) by my father unless he was super European looking. Therefore because your skewed perception of life must make more sense than what ACTUALLY happened I MUST BE A LIAR. Hahahahahahaha.
Hence you wrote that the only job a “Black” man (remember I wrote black Arab but let’s go w/ your word) could get in a radio station was a “janitor”.
This is very disturbing. Aside from my two married pediatricians (male & female couple) I mentioned beginning in 1960 — I just realised my friend at Church who I will see in several hours there is a very elderly gentleman who is some kind of brilliant scientist. NOT a “janitor” in the 60s/70s. WOW.
Yet your friend said I put my foot in my mouth. (quote: “put your foot in your mouth”). Everything I wrote describing my father & myself who you asked me to describe is true. There is nothing “deceptive/contradictory” unless you are confused & do not understand various terms & experiences of Arab Americans.
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@ Solitaire
“I disagree” re. adjectives in front of nouns.
You “disagree”? The examples you gave proving your disagreement of “black Dutch” & “black Irish” ARE examples of adjectives in front of nouns. Wow. The nouns are “Irish” & “Dutch” — the adjective is “black”.
This is astonishing. And re. accusing me of not addressing “Afrofems concerns”. What are you talking about? What about being attacked for things I never even said. My father could not have been VP of a radio station in the 1940s & 50s. Well as he was in high school then & only had that job briefly in the mid 60s — that is only partially right. My other words were cut & pasted & taken out of context in a negative way. Which then others including yourself attacked me for.
You are incredibly abusive. Furthermore it is a joke for you & Afrofem to call yourselves “human rights advocates” as well when all you keep doing is asking the most hairsplitting things about grammar. As with Afrofem you are just focusing on the shallowest things. Really?! Adjectives? (See above example please). Real human rights activists would not even BOTHER w/ this.
Do you even REALISE what the SUBJECT IS? That people who experience civil & human rights abuses for their colour are lacking equal legal redress. That during elections because Arab Americans are invisible they are never visited by politicians who thus never learn their concerns — whilst every other group is. Which impacts them intensely.
Excuse me but this is a joke! Any attempt to bring up & illustrate serious issues cycles round to the most insignificant things! Such as from Afrofem: The lady in Starbucks talked to me because she did not equate me w/ the AA students I described that she was afraid of — because I am (GASP) half white. I am the ONE who said I am half German when Afrofem asked me to describe my family. Wasn’t hiding that! So WHAT?! The POINT of the story was her reaction to the students. (A comment on the Latasha thread to someone else). Yet Afrofem has made it her new job to pull quotes out of everywhere to prove how white I am! I said my mother is German. What is the POINT. Afrofem wrote me asking me about my “Blackness”. I did not say that. Yet I am “deceptive”.
You honestly believe that the two of you are “human rights advocates” as well. That’s madness. Human rights is not about petty obsessions. Then some other crazy person chimes in and says I’m “deceptive”?! It is beyond weird. And Afrofem is confused calling my father “Black” saying I am lying. It’s ridiculous. I told her over and over that I am half German & half Lebanese. And to answer your question: ‘No: Afro-Arab would mean African & Arab’ not Southwest Asian & called black. It’s pretty obvious from reading. Plus the Wikipedia page probably explains it. Furthermore I don’t need your warnings. Are you kidding me? I look at photos all the time of massacres & innocent people starving to death. You are warning me about PETTY SILLY behaviour — thinking I can’t handle it. I don’t WANT to handle it! My inbox is FLOODED w/ tens of human rights actions everyday. Are you kidding? Are you aware of what’s going on in the world? But I didn’t address your abusive friend’s every PETTY concern?
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@ Jefe
I agree with the validity of your statements but disagree that all families use those terms as dog whistles. In my family, black Irish is used for people who have dark hair, very light skin, and piercing blue eyes. I grew up among people who used black Dutch in much the same way, and they didn’t use that term for those Germans who had darker skin but lighter hair.
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@ Zoe
You are doing your fair share of assuming and chiding. For example, you assumed Villagewriter is an American and chided him about a narrow adherence to U.S. concepts of race. Villagewriter is African, as are a couple other frequent commenters here.
My point was not about grammar but about definitions. Have you never had any other African Americans ask you to clarify what you mean by black Arab or black Lebanese? Is it that odd someone might be uncomfortable with your use of the word?
You described your father as looking West African, but that part of the world is home to a diverse panoply of phenotypes. I’m sure he did experience racism; I don’t need to hear the same stories about him yet again. I don’t deny there has been a long history in the U.S. of anti-Arab sentiment and an equally long history of organized Arab activism. None of that makes it any less valid for an African American to have concerns that you are possibly co-opting the term “black.”
This is nowhere near “off the chain abuse.” Afrofem may have had some strong words and pointed questions for you, but she hasn’t gone off on you the way some other commenters here would have.
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black germans. lol. somebody tell me, what does Schwarzenegger mean in german? is arnold a black german?
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@ Zoe
“No: Afro-Arab would mean African & Arab’ not Southwest Asian & called black. It’s pretty obvious from reading. Plus the Wikipedia page probably explains it.”
Actually the Wikipedia page for “black Arab” redirects to the page on Afro-Arabs, meaning that Wikipedia treats the two terms as equivalent. Perhaps that is incorrect on Wikipedia’s part. But it means there was no explanation on Wiki of the term “black Arab” in your sense not any explanation of how that differs from Afro-Arab.
I don’t see why, for clarity’s sake, you can’t use brown? Yes, I know white Americans told your mother that your father was black. My spouse has been mistaken for African American more than once and has been called black as well as the n-word. But he doesn’t go around describing himself as a black Asian.
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Should read above: “nor any explanation” instead of “not”
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When it was in high school one of my friends Namir had an afro. He identified firstly as Lebanese and secondly as Arab. I don’t know if he would be considered a “Black Arab” as he never identified as that and nobody thought of him as Black.
I know some Syrians who identify as both Armenian and Arab. I also know Armenians who identify as Persian or Russian.
A post someday on Armenians might be interesting since as a group they were subject to genocide and their desporia is quite diverse.
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@Zoe
“Nor is there a contradiction as the person here whose screen name that starts w/ Sh & I’ve mercifully forgotten has said. (And I might add: said extremely rudely).”—Here is an example of a your contradiction. If you had forgotten me then you wouldn’t know that my first name starts with sh nor would you keep bringing me up. Don’t cry about rude because you didn’t care about being rude when you addressed villagewriter. I believe in returning what you put out, so suck it up.
Secondly you are mad at Afrofem for presenting statements you made and claim to “not disagree” with. If that is not contradictory I don’t know what is. I can almost promise that had Afrofem not quoted you you would have happily played off the idea of your father to be rude to another commenter.
“Putting someone on trial for things they never said.”—She quoted you saying it so this does make you a liar. I can quote and link you and then do the same in the comment where you tried to tell me you don’t disagree. Perhaps you need to reevaluate what lie works best for you.
P.s. I have yet to be “extremely rude” but I can b3 down right nasty if you want to play games.
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@ Zoe
“Real human rights activists would not even BOTHER w/ this.”
Actually, nomenclature can be quite important for many reasons. Ask your Native American activist friends.
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@ Zoe
*”You may want to research:
• gaslighting
• narcissism
• sociopathy”*
Thanks. I have done the research and understand those terms. I would ask you to research these terms:
◇ strawman
◇ goalpost shifting
◇ obfuscation
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@ Jefe
Been thinking about it and the southern ancestor I most suspect of passing has always been described in my family as Spanish. Not black Spanish, either; just Spanish. Claiming Spanish or Portuguese descent, as you most likely already know, was a common cover story used by mixed-race people crossing the color line. She claimed to be Argentinean of pure Spanish descent and had an elaborate story to explain why when she arrived in New Orleans her immigration paperwork never got done. It may all have been true, or it may have been a passel of lies to cover her tracks. So far I’ve been unable to authenticate it either way. There is no paper trail for her that I’ve been able to find.
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On passing:
I had an aunt who claimed here mother was Basque what had immigrated to Texas in the late 1800’s. Later research showed her mother was actually Mexican.
My great grandmother was “black dutch” who married my great grand father who had immigrated from Ireland. Poor and working class people married each other.
I’m white, look that way and am treated like a white person. There is nothing about me that connects me to being “black dutch”. So while my black Dutch grandma makes interesting family trivia it doesn’t mean anything.
There are plenty of white people who claim native American ancestry so they can feel special. But they don’t look like those who live on actual reservations.
One white American poster here wants to claim he is opposed because he is Irish.
Zoe If you don’t look black and are not discrimated against because people think your Black, then your not Black. It doesn’t matter if some black is in your family history.
If you are discrimated against, it is because you are Arab and that is a valid complaint.
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WTF! two posts commenting on the ridiculous turn this post took are in moderation. The whole Zoe, Afrofem, etc. debate is off topic.
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edit: claim he is oppressed
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@solitaire
“she arrived in New Orleans her ”
a relatively easy passing transition there. the epicenter of the three tier system of black white racial classification. the mulattoes were so white there they wanted to fight on the confederate side in the civil war.
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@gro jo
“The whole Zoe, Afrofem, etc. debate is off topic.”–Hmmm…I wouldn’t say it is off topic though. In a way it ties into your post as you do mention Arabs and they somewhat tie in the idea of Arabs and blacks etc.
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@MJB
“If you are discrimated against, it is because you are Arab and that is a valid complaint.”—Then I wonder what does Arab look like? Because if you have enough European features then most American whites won’t even see you are Arab.
I’m actually really curious so hope this isn’t taken as me being rude.
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What does WTF stand for?
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@ nomad
Funny you should mention the Civil War. That’s what her elaborate excuse boiled down to: when her ship docked, the Yankees had just taken New Orleans, everything was chaos, and gee whiz her paperwork just didn’t get done.
Or maybe there was no ship. Maybe in the chaos of battle and conquest she took her opportunity to reinvent herself.
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“Herneith
What does WTF stand for?”
What the flock or something that sounds like it.
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i always thought wtf was way to fly.
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“sharinalr
@gro jo
“The whole Zoe, Afrofem, etc. debate is off topic.”–Hmmm…I wouldn’t say it is off topic though. In a way it ties into your post as you do mention Arabs and they somewhat tie in the idea of Arabs and blacks etc.”
If you say so. Now tell us about the “Arab” education system for household slaves in the 16th century, that allowed Malik Ambar to become a fine financial administrator, water engineer, architect, diplomat and warrior. While you’re at it, you might say something about the Habshi elite of the Deccan states that pre-dated the arrival of Ambar in India. How about comparing and contrasting the malicious views of slaveowners like Jefferson and Ambar’s owners? Why the denial of human talent on the one hand, and its flowering on the other? By the way, it’s not my post but Abagond’s, based on my suggestion.
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@gro jo
“If you say so”—I happily do. 🙂
” Now tell us about the “Arab” education system for household slaves in the 16th century, that allowed Malik Ambar to become a fine financial administrator, water engineer, architect, diplomat and warrior.”–Why should I? I thought the point of posts like this was to learn something new. Not be asked tto write an extensive essay or pull a copy and paste of wikipedia. That is what purpose you serve is it not?
Why the denial of human talent on the one hand, and its flowering on the other?”—Where was my denial of human talent? I’m sure you will make it up in your follow up post.
” By the way, it’s not my post but Abagond’s, based on my suggestion.”—Good to know, but Arabs are mentioned so it kind of circles back to my original point.
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no, wait. its way TOO fly.
no, no. way too far.
no,no.
when time flies?
wheres the fire?
way too firey?
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Oh no my darling, we’re not going to play that silly game again. “Where was my denial of human talent? I’m sure you will make it up in your follow up post.” Try to read what I write with care. I didn’t accuse you of denying human talent, that accusation I laid at the doorstep of Jefferson and his ilk. You see my darling, it’s not always about you! I did ask you to compare Jefferson’s view that Blacks were animals, with the “Arab” view that they could be educated to the highest level. Do you get it now? SIGH. 🙂
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@ gro jo
I asked far upthread,
“Do the Siddis/Habshis suffer more discrimination than the Dalits or do they suffer the same as any other group of poor people in India?”
Any thoughts?
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“@ gro jo
I asked far upthread,
“Do the Siddis/Habshis suffer more discrimination than the Dalits or do they suffer the same as any other group of poor people in India?”
Any thoughts?”
From what I’ve read, they do not because some of them were princes up to 1948 and but for the appellation of Siddi/Habshi are indistinguishable from other privileged Indians, those at the bottom of society suffer the same fate as other poor people in India. They, however, are exempt from caste classification because they are not Hindu.
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@gro jo
“Oh no my darling, we’re not going to play that silly game again”–Yes we are. A) because you choose to play it and B) because I am in a good mood.
“Try to read what I write with care”—Try typing with care before you submit. You typed “Why the denial of human talent on the one hand, and its flowering on the other?” You never once specified who you were referring too, so I find it convenient that you lay it out as “Jefferson and his ilk.”
” I did ask you to compare Jefferson’s view that Blacks were animals, with the “Arab” view that they could be educated to the highest level.”–You asked me to compare information that you assumed I knew rather than this being a learning thread for me. So the joke is on you.
Do you get it now? I doubt it, but I know you will pretend to. 🙂
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“@gro jo
“Oh no my darling, we’re not going to play that silly game again”–Yes we are. A) because you choose to play it and B) because I am in a good mood.”
I love you too, so let’s play!
” “Try to read what I write with care”—Try typing with care before you submit. You typed “Why the denial of human talent on the one hand, and its flowering on the other?” You never once specified who you were referring too, so I find it convenient that you lay it out as “Jefferson and his ilk.” ”
Now, now, dear, if we’re going to play this game, you must refrain from quoting out of context. I wrote: “How about comparing and contrasting the malicious views of slaveowners like Jefferson and Ambar’s owners? Why the denial of human talent on the one hand, and its flowering on the other?”
I don’t see in what universe, you could have understood this as saying that YOU denied human talent, unless you think you are Jefferson or a southern slaveowner? 🙂
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@Gro Jo
“Now, now, dear, if we’re going to play this game, you must refrain from quoting out of context.”—Oh so you think by adding the question prior it puts it into a context that you were referring to Jefferson? Why not add the statements prior to that such as “While you’re at it, you might say something about the Habshi elite of the Deccan states that pre-dated the arrival of Ambar in India.” One that does not even mention Jefferson. 😉
“I don’t see in what universe, you could have understood this as saying that YOU denied human talent, unless you think you are Jefferson or a southern slaveowner? “—The one where you make claims a person says or means something until you can’t find anything where they did. The reality you live in.
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I can’t follow you down that labyrinth of a mind of yours. I’m getting vertigo from reading your stuff. Bye. 😉
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@Gro Jo
I’m sure the vertigo was a result of you spinning the usually web you couldn’t spin out of. ✌
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“As an adult, your father was White enough to openly live his life as a White man (at least in New York City and other major metropolitan areas.) You related that:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/#comment-372440
At that time (1940s to 1960s), in New York City, anyone labelled Black in America could only aspire to working as a janitor at NBC, certainly not reaching the level of Vice President. Moreover, Black people could not even walk in the front door of the Plaza, Carlisle, St. Regis and Waldorf-Astoria hotels as guests or to even apply for a job.”
Afrofem, I’d be careful making such sweeping claims. Several blacks passed for ‘Arab’ or ‘Indian’ to get admitted where they normally wouldn’t. Korla Pandit, Rev. Jesse Routté, Dicky Wells a/k/a Maharajah of Hattan, Joseph Downing a/k/a Prince Jovedah de Rajah were practitioners of the Turban trick. By wearing a turban and calling themselves Maharajas, Rajas And Pandit they were no longer treated as the despised blacks they would have been without their sartorial accoutrement.
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@ gro jo
First it was Cockburn, now it is Dicky.
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“They, however, are exempt from caste classification because they are not Hindu.”
Not necessarily.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims
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“Solitaire
“They, however, are exempt from caste classification because they are not Hindu.”
Not necessarily.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims”
So where does it say that they are included in your source?
“abagond
@ gro jo
First it was Cockburn, now it is Dicky.”
How stupid!
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Also:
http://religiondispatches.org/caste-first-christ-second-for-some-indian-christians/
The way I understand it, Christians and Muslims are not part of the governmentally recognized castes and therefore not eligible for India’s version of affirmative action, but in practice (1) they are generally considered equivalent to one of the lower castes by Hindus and (2) they frequently practice a caste-like system of discrimination among themselves.
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@ gro jo
“Several blacks passed for ‘Arab’ or ‘Indian’ to get admitted where they normally wouldn’t. Korla Pandit, Rev. Jesse Routté, Dicky Wells a/k/a Maharajah of Hattan, Joseph Downing a/k/a Prince Jovedah de Rajah were practitioners of the Turban trick. By wearing a turban and calling themselves Maharajas, Rajas And Pandit they were no longer treated as the despised blacks they would have been without their sartorial accoutrement.”
My point stands. Korla Pandit, et. al. had to literally disguise themselves to be treated with basic human dignity. If their Blackness had been revealed they would have been barred from majority White spaces.
P.S. Korla Pandit was so talented!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uChjf1Zmqkw)
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@ gro jo
“Some African-Americans did hold jobs above the janitorial level in the 1930s, such as the mechanical genius and self-taught engineer, Frederick Mckinley Jones who founded the U.S. Thermo Control Company (later the Thermo King Corporation) which became a $3 million business by 1949.”
That has been true from colonial times to the present.
However, few if any Black people made that leap in White owned businesses like NBC prior to the Civil Rights movement. They certainly didn’t have a shot at being Vice President of anything.
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Jones’s company was based on his patents so he was way above a mere VP in that corporation. he wasn’t the only one. Percy Lavon Julian was director of research for Glidden company’s Soya Products Division in Chicago in 1936. “Julian supervised the assembly of the plant at Glidden when he arrived in 1936. He then designed and supervised construction of the world’s first plant for the production of industrial-grade, isolated soy protein from oil-free soybean meal. Isolated soy protein could replace the more expensive milk casein in industrial applications such as coating and sizing of paper, glue for making Douglas fir plywood, and in the manufacture of water-based paints.” In 1953, he founded Julian Laboratories, Inc. No he did not “look” white, and he did have the money to stay at the hotels you mentioned. What’s true for the majority of Blacks doesn’t always hold for a minority of them. Blacks were making headway in business and other fields before the Civil Rights era.
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“P.S. Korla Pandit was so talented!”
Yes, they all were. He reminds me of Prince. A movie about him starring Prince would have been interesting.
The point I was trying to make was that the race racket is such a sham that a mere rag and a preposterous name, Prince Jovedah de Rajah, I laugh every time I read this, can let you upturn it!
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@ gro jo
“he did have the money to stay at the hotels you mentioned.”
Having the money to stay in a five star hotel was less important that the color of a person’s skin in the pre-Civil Rights era. That is why the Green Book was so popular.
Thanks for the information.
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@ gro jo
“…the race racket is such a sham…”
So true.
A few years back, I talked to a family member who grew up in the South during the 1940s and 1950s. When we started to discuss segregation, he snorted and laughed bitterly. He said, segregation was a one way street. Black folk were restricted on when and where they could go in town, but White people were constantly tramping through our neighborhoods.
When I expressed surprise, he talked about how White men, in particular, came to Black neighborhoods to visit their Black lovers, go to restaurants and clubs, sell insurance and other goods and “night ride” (armed White men driving through the community to threaten and intimidate the residents).
I chuckle every time, I hear a White person talk about “separation of the races”. That is a real sham, since they are the ones who are constantly intruding in Black spaces, both in the past and present.
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“Having the money to stay in a five star hotel was less important that the color of a person’s skin in the pre-Civil Rights era. That is why the Green Book was so popular.” Including the hotels you mentioned in your original comment? These links back up your claim: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/waldorf.htm
https://bossip.com/748426/harry-belafonte-puts-the-waldorf-astoria-on-blast-for-their-segregationist-past-as-one-of-the-most-racist-pieces-of-real-estate-in-america/
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@Afrofem
“I chuckle every time, I hear a White person talk about “separation of the races”. That is a real sham, since they are the ones who are constantly intruding in Black spaces, both in the past and present.”
It’s quite something isn’t it? They’ve virtually replaced the populations of three continents (the Americas and Australia) in just a few centuries and politically divided Africa among themselves like pizza yet often consider themselves victims of encroachment by black people. That was the ideology that motivated Dylann Roof’s terrorist attack in Charleston.
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I never said all families. I don’t think most of them use the term as dog whistles because they do not know.
And unless they can trace back all of their great great grandparents, they will never know for sure.
Until a “throwback” shows up.
The truth is that a much higher proportion of white people in the South / of southern origin have African or Native American heritage than in the North or West (exceeding 12% of the white population in some counties), and some of it came from their “Black Dutch” or “Black Irish” ancestor.
But of course, it happened in the North and West too, but usually they don’t use those terms.
Even near where I grew up in Southern Maryland, there are families who have been there for 200-300 years. Some identify as white, some as black, some as Native American. But more likely than not, most of them are a mixture of all three.
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@ Jefe
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. But what I was trying to do was explain to Zoe that the use of lowercase black can mean either dark-toned or specifically African in heritage. She seemed to be arguing (at least part of the time) that only capital B Black refers to race and lowercase b black never does.
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^ Yes, OK.
Sorry for digressing.
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@Solitaire
The majority of the time a lowercase b is referring to race. Especially when I have seen it used by nbpoc or whites.
However, I don’t find that as disturbing considering the constant talk on the understanding of lowercase b and uppercase B. What I found disturbing was the need to drag out her “black” father to shoot down another commenter. That is similar to how whites dismiss the struggles of Native Americans by saying “I have Indian in me”. As an activist she should know better or at least listen enough to understand why it was problematic.
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@ Sharina
That was all tied together for me. She’d just gone through a detailed explanation of how her use of “black Arab” for her father did not mean he was Afro-Arab, but then when she was lecturing Villagewriter, she turned around and called her dad “black Arab” in the context of African people’s being present in places like Lebanon and Syria, which could at least be taken to imply her father was Afro-Arab. I was trying to see if she was flipping the script on purpose or just utterly unclear on real world English usage (especially since she kept bringing up German usage, which I’m familiar with and which cannot be transferred to English).
It really is too bad she couldn’t or wouldn’t discuss this. I wonder if her activism is armchair. These are the sorts of issues that come up in any multi-race activist group or coalition.
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@”Malik Ambar (1548-1626) was a slave from Ethiopia who became a military commander and kingmaker in India, fighting against the Mogul Empire”
I couldn’t get past the first sentence because I find it troubling how “slave” was the first descriptor abagond used.
This is a tactic common among Eurocentric historians, when used to describe blacks and blacks alone. That is something they don’t do when it comes to whites who were once slaves.
For example, here’s abagond’s description of John Smith who was a former slave:
“She is known for saving the life of John Smith, a leader of Jamestown, Virginia, the beginning of what would become the US. ”
Notice, he didn’t say “John Smith, a slave who became leader of….”
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“This is a tactic common among Eurocentric historians, when used to describe blacks and blacks alone. That is something they don’t do when it comes to whites who were once slaves.”
It’s too bad, my little resw, that you didn’t read the whole thing and gave us your blunt point of view on the life of this black genius. I find myself in agreement with you on Abagond’s take (shocker ain’t it?) on M. Ambar. Here you have this man who pioneered rocket weaponry, was a first class statesman, city planner/architect/engineer/military tactic innovator, yet, what everybody, including Abagond, will tell you is that he was a slave, something that was done to him rather than something he did! I appreciate your rare moments of lucidity. Were you in electroshock therapy, because you’ve been away for awhile and here you are, back and making perfect sense!?
One of the things that really annoy me is the lazy reference to “Haitian slaves” when writing of the people of St-Domingue prior to 1804. Hello, the only reason they became Haitians was their refusal to be re-enslaved! Slave is not a synonym for Black.
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A link to the New York Public Library’s exhibition on Africans in India: https://www.nypl.org/blog/beta/2013/01/31/africans-india-slaves-generals-and-rulers
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Thanks gro jo
This image spoke volumes:
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@ gro jo
This site was particularly instructive, contrasting bigoted Indian attitudes toward Africans now versus more inclusive attitudes in the past.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/10/17/africans-india-then-and-now
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Well, what about that racist, Mahatma Gandhi?
http://breakingbrown.com/2014/10/martin-luther-king-jr-patterned-civil-rights-movement-after-man-who-called-blacks-savages/
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You’re welcome. I doubt that, in the past, people were all that different from how they are now. The Africans were allied to people with power as trusted advisors and servants. The present situation is different, everybody gets to have an opinion. Africans are seen by the masses as outsiders taking up space where they don’t belong. That’s democracy for you!
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nomad, what’s your view on the following quote of Thomas Jefferson on Blacks?
“A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An ANIMAL whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch (* 2). Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar ;oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for demonstration.”
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“nomad
Well, what about that racist, Mahatma Gandhi?”
Well, what about him?
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rhetorical question. another way of saying consider his racism and isnt it ironic that he was a racist and listen to Arundhati Roy.
i didnt read every comment in the thread but wasnt it you who brought up indian racism? im just highlighting the most glaring example.
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@ gro jo
“Africans are seen by the masses as outsiders taking up space where they don’t belong.”
The same could be said in the USA. We all hear that rhetoric daily.
One of the greatest ironies of the “European Era” is that Africans (and African descent people) are seen as interlopers throughout the world——always migrants, never expats or citizens. Yet, everyone in the world also thinks they have a divine right to tramp all over Africa, plunder resources (like water, land, oil, minerals and timber) and interfere in African political processes for their own benefit.
A sense of color hierarchy seems prevalent throughout the globe. One more nasty reminder of European invasions over the past 500 years.
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nomad, why are you reticent to share your opinion on Thomas Jefferson’s claims about Blacks. You’ve passionately denounced Obama for his ‘treachery’ to Blacks, how about telling us how you feel about somebody who did worse to them?
“A sense of color hierarchy seems prevalent throughout the globe. One more nasty reminder of European invasions over the past 500 years.”
Why “seems”? “Is”, is more likely. I wouldn’t blame Europeans solely, since long before them slavery was practiced, as attested to by the existence of the Habshi/Siddi elite that existed long before Malik Ambar. Seems that the more democratic a society becomes, the more racist it gets.
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lol. f@%K thomas jefferson. not everything is measured by how sweet obama is. i criticize who I choose. not who you choose. you should know that by now. f@#k thomas efferson and f@#k barack obama.
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Why the vulgarity? I didn’t ask you to criticize anybody. You comment on this topic by dragging Gandhi’s racism into it, since I included a rather long quote from Jefferson describing Blacks as animals, I was surprised that a guy like you, who claims to be ‘black’, and who detests Obama for besmirching the good name of Blacks, would have nothing to say about Jefferson’s disgusting racism.
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“I was surprised ”
im full of surprises grojo
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at least i was on topic. you want to talk about tom jeff
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Tom Jeff is on topic since his views are contradicted by the existence of Malik Ambar. Tom Jeff wrote: “…In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An ANIMAL whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.”
Based on M. Ambar’s architectural achievements, he was way superior to Tom Jeff, the later could only brag about Monticello and the University of Virginia, while Ambar could claim a whole city (Aurangabad) and its waterworks along with many forts. He built them under budget and ahead of schedule. He could have given Tom Jeff lessons in money management since the later had the habit of spending more than he earned on a regular basis. “im full of surprises grojo”. Not really, you’re all too predictable.
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youre the one who said he was surprised. quiet as a cap, i didnt really understand why. but you can give it up. too convoluted and ultimately irrelevant and a waste of time.
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“youre the one who said he was surprised…too convoluted and ultimately irrelevant and a waste of time.” You don’t get sarcasm do you?
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“since the later(sic) had the habit of spending more than he earned on a regular basis.”
should have been “since the latter had the habit of spending more than he earned on a regular basis.
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and another thing. most people already know about the racial duplicity of tom jeff. the racism of gandhi otoh is not widely known. thats why i mentioned it. the fact that he was kings role model is particularly ironic.
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And another thing. Most people don’t know that he claimed Blacks were no better than animals. If you knew it before I informed you of it, could you be good enough to tell me from which of his writings I got the quote from? Your sense of irony is rather lame. Use of Gandhi’s tactics does not imply endorsement of his racial views. If a racist invents a weapon, should his opponents abstain from using that weapon against him because doing so would be ‘ironical’? Think about it. Yes, I’m lampooning your writing style, just so you know.
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“If a racist invents a weapon, should his opponents abstain from using that weapon against him because doing so would be ‘ironical’? Think about it. Yes, I’m lampooning your writing style, just so you know.”
People living in glass houses should not throw stones. Im lampooning your foolishness, just so you know.
Never said it does. That’s just your convoluted disjointed argument style. Assume someone said something they didnt, then proceed to argue against the strawman you yourself created. Your facts are uncoordinated. Non sequitor and Way Too Fly.
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“People living in glass houses should not throw stones. Im lampooning your foolishness, just so you know.” Enlighten me by showing what you found ‘foolish’ in what I wrote?
” “Use of Gandhi’s tactics does not imply endorsement of his racial views.” Never said it does. That’s just your convoluted disjointed argument style. Assume someone said something they didnt, then proceed to argue against the strawman you yourself created. Your facts are uncoordinated. Non sequitor(sic) and Way Too Fly.” If you’re not lying, where’s the ‘irony’?
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‘wheres the irony?’ you cant see it without a third eye.
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@gro jo
“I find myself in agreement with you on Abagond’s take (shocker ain’t it?) on M. Ambar.”
No it’s not a “shocker” because you’ve expressed your agreement with my comments numerous times, but you’d be hard pressed to find me doing the same for yours, which, as you know, are bereft of “lucidity.”
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“WTF! two posts commenting on the ridiculous turn this post took are in moderation. The whole Zoe, Afrofem, etc. debate is off topic.”
Lol! Poor gro jo is no longer in abagond’s posse. If you want your membership restored, you’d better pucker up and stop criticising him, no matter how valid and constructive your criticisms are.
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“Lol! Poor gro jo is no longer in abagond’s posse. If you want your membership restored, you’d better pucker up and stop criticising him, no matter how valid and constructive your criticisms are.”
I see that the electroshock therapy has not destroyed your madness completely. So you find my criticisms valid eh? One of those “hard pressed” moments where you agree with me! Let’s not make a habit of it. Stay mad.
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Illustrated versions of Ambar’s life:
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b9UqUvFk6Y),
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY9RIGEWD_o)
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