so i see you've deleted all the posts where ppl came at you for not knowing that ancient egyptians are black and that modern egyptians aren't real egyptians? it's us sweetie, we are of the egyptian african descent and you are the result of colonization (:
I’m honestly so tired of entertaining these ‘arguments’. You are disgusting.
I don’t understand how anyone can come up to me and tell me my Egyptian blood is ‘diluted’ and barely there. I don’t understand how someone who has no relation to Masr, someone who has never stepped foot into Egypt can sit down and tell me that they are more Egyptian than I am. Please explain to me why someone in America has a claim to Egypt, to my heritage, to my blood and people while I don’t. I’m not denying that Ancient Egypt is an African civilisation because we are literally in North Africa I’m disagreeing with the claim that Af-Americans have a right to AE and theincredibly ignorant idea that contemporary Egyptians are not the actual descendents of ancient Egyptians. The theory of the ‘indo-Ayrab Arabs making us white’ is also bullshit. Our ethnicity has not changed. At all.
You can be proud that Egypt is an African civilisation; you can be proud about Ancient Egypt, you can go learn about and explore Egypt, but do not claim Egypt and do not speak over a native Egyptian when we are speaking about our identity, country, etc. There is a huge difference between sheer ignorance, as you’re displaying, and wanting to know what Egyptians ‘are’. I understand the whole ~race conservatory~ thing, but to attack native Egyptians out of your own insecurities and ego is disgusting.
You are literally erasing my connection to my own land and replacing yourself in place of modern day Egyptians, which honestly, if you could even use Wikpedia would fucking tell you that “the vast majority of the population of Egypt consists of ethnic Egyptians“ ethnic Egyptians—did you catch that? Did you read that bit that I copied and pasted right off of fucking Wikipedia that destroys your entire goddamn argument of modern-day Egyptians having ‘diluted’ blood and not having a fucking right to our heritage? I sure did.
basara7a, when people try out the argument that modern-day Egyptians are the result of colonisation and that our blood is ‘diluted’, as another anon kindly mentioned yesterday, by foreign rulers they are literally showcasing their ignorance to me and letting me know that they know nothing about AE and Egypt. Bas I’m so sick of people coming into my ask, barraging and bombarding me, trying to tell me they know more about my genetic make-up, my heritage, my fucking country when this information is literally so basic you can Wikipedia it.
Let’s go. You want to do this? Yalla, let’s do this.
Basic geographical shit: Egypt is in North Africa borders SW Asia (the Levant/Middle East). Specifically, Egypt borders Palestine, Libya, and Sudan. Our coastlines are both the Red and Mediterranean Sea and of course we have the Nile that flows throughout Egypt and 10 other African countries (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan). Basic geographical shit about AE: “Most participants concluded that the Ancient Egyptian population was indigenous to the Nile Valley, and was made up of people from north and south of the Sahara who were differentiated by their color. The current position of modern scholarship is that the Egyptian civilization was an indigenous Nile Valley development.“
Basic information about AE culture and whatever / Stuff about Egypt and more info
Do you know how big Egypt is? “With over 88 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab World, the third-largest in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world.”
Over 88 million inhabitants. Repeat that with me: over 88 million inhabitants. How quickly do think it takes to change 88,000,000+ peoples’ genetic makeup? I’d say it takes a long time and that you wouldn’t be able to possibly reach every single one of us. However we were ruled by Greeks, Romans, etc so I can see why you’d be confused: “Due to its geographical location at the crossroads of several major cultural areas, Egypt has experienced a number of foreign invasions during historical times, including by the Canaanites (Hyksos), the Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonian Greeks, the Romans (Byzantium in late antiquity/early Middle Ages), the Arabs, the Ottoman Turks, the French and the British” and yet: “A 2005/6 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans and to a lesser extent Southwest Asian and southern European populations:
Thus, despite increasing foreign influence after the Second Intermediate Period, not only did Egyptian culture remain intact (Lloyd, 2000a), but the people themselves, as represented by the dental samples, appear biologically constant as well…
Wow. Take that in. Take that in, I’ll give you a few seconds. Crazy, isn’t it? Studies that actually prove that modern day Egyptians are the descendants of our own ancestors. I know, you can take a breath before we keep going.
Here are some demographics and research about Egyptians, i.e. here is proof that Egyptians are in fact, ethnically Egyptians and that our DNA did not change due to foreign rulers x and x
There was a point where researchers and scientists actually went ahead and did genetic make-up testing on modern day Egyptians and mummies: “Blood typing and DNA sampling on ancient Egyptian mummies is scant; however, blood typing of dynastic mummies found ABO frequencies to be most similar to modern Egyptians and some also to Northern Haratin populations. ABO blood group distribution shows that the Egyptians form a sister group to North African populations, including Berbers Imazighen, Nubians and Canary Islanders”
Scientists from U of Cairo also tested DNA from the remains of pyramid workers (from 2600 BC) and ~found~ that the DNA of ancient Egyptians matches that of modern Egyptians. PBS made a documentary featuring the information. So there goes that argument that Egyptians, through foreign rulers and intermarriage became ‘less Egyptian’ and that our genetic make-up changed and our blood become ‘diluted’.
So what are Egyptians’ make-up? What are our genetics? Well, here’s Wikipedia coming to the rescue again!! “The genetic history of the demographics of Egypt reflects Egypt’s geographical location at the crossroads of several major cultural areas: Northeast Africa, the Sahara, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.” Who would have thought? Our location actually influences our DNA. Insane, I know.
*references for above: x, x, x, x, and x
So ‘what’ are contemporary Egyptians? Well, as Wikipedia also informs us: “In general, various DNA studies have found that the gene frequencies of present Egyptian populations are intermediate between those of the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, southern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, though NRY frequency distributions of the modern Egyptian population appear to be much more similar to those of the Middle East than to any Sub-Saharan African or European population, suggesting a much larger Middle Eastern genetic component.” Do I need to summarise this? I feel like I don’t.
So, wait, then why do Egyptians look African? Well, it’s because we are African! We are literally in Africa! We are indigenous to NA and as mentioned above, the Nile Valley. We have always been Egyptians. Nothing has changed much expect for some things, like our culture. Egypt identifies as an Arab nation and Deena has summed up how Egyptians came to embrace and identify as Arabs and Egypt in regards to Arabisation and the spread of Islam but here’s a post explaining why some Egyptians, notably Coptics, reject the Arab identity and maintain that they are simply Egyptians, which is perfectly fine! Who am I to create someone else’s identity?
But let’s also take a moment to learn what is an Arab. Arab is a political, cultural, and linguistic term, not an ethnic one. When did Egypt begin identifying as Arab? During the 1950s as a resistance to Brit’s colonalism when Gamal Abdel Nasser came into leadership and the pan-Arabism movement began to take hold.
Now, what is this post? Are you anti-black because it seems like you’re erasing Africans from history and denying that AE are/couldhavebeen black? No, I’m not, in fact here is what most people don’t understand: Egypt does not adhere to race, as race is a Western construct created out of imperialism, colonisation, all that jazz and as such, Egypt (and most countries) identify in terms of ethnicity rather than race. The ME today still does not acknowledge race the way America and the West does because it doesn’t exist (the way it does in Western countries) back home and in quite a few other countries as well. Did you ever wonder why when you meet, for instance, an Arab and instead of automatically informing me that they’re Arab, they’ll name their country instead? If you meet someone from Africa, they go by their country over their race and overall identity as an African, have you wondered why? It’s because most people identify themselves by ethnicity and not race, because, as I’ve screamed this at the top of my lungs several times: race is a western construct. This is something I’m going to keep repeating because it’s very important to understand in terms of the Egyptian identity, specifically.
So, you may be asking, what are you saying Leena? I’m saying that it is only by Western standards and constructs of race are we forced to identify overselves in terms of our skin colour over our ethnic and cultural identity (or identities). In fact, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of AE, “any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study. Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as ‘black’, while acknowledging the scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans.“ The reason why so many Egyptians are confused by the argument of AE’s race is because we do not adhere to Western constructs of race and never have, as frustrating as that may be for someone living in the West to understand. It is not out of anti-blackness, though there is no denial of anti-blackness existing in Arab communities, but because the notion of race does not exist amongst Egyptians and quite a few other nations as well.
*Here is a wicked post by someone who ripped apart all these notions that you’re coming at me with and that your friends tried to use yesterday.
*something important to note is that the colour of our skin does not influence our identity and ethnicity; where you are from is what creates the main foundation of your identity. other things like religious beliefs, sexuality, etc, play another role of our identities.
Moving on, you’re probably wondering then what the fuck are Egyptians. Let me copy + paste this as well because everyone is better at wording things than I am:
What were the ancient Egyptians? Were they black or were they white? Because of whitewashing in both popular culture and history classes, a lot of people tend to think they were white. Because they live in Africa (a continent, let’s recall, which is substantially larger than Europe), other people assume they were black. Oddly, it’s occurred to relatively few people to look at how modern Egyptians think of themselves, because we have divorced ancient and modern Egypt in our minds as if they’re two completely unrelated cultures. Which (as I’ll explain in a bit) is largely nonsense.
For their part, most Egyptians define themselves as Arabs.
But does any of this matter? After all, the ancient Egyptians didn’t speak Arabic; they spoke their own language, attested in hieroglyphics. Well yes, they did, although Coptic (spoken by some Egyptian Christians) is actually a descendant of that language so that’s not a particularly strong argument. Coptic and Arabic are also both Afro-Asiatic languages (along with Hebrew, the Berber languages Tamazight, Amhara, and Hausa), so it’s not as if the languages are completely unrelated.
But what about how Egypt got invaded and conquered by a whole bunch of people, including the Arabs? Couldn’t that have impacted the Egyptians’ race? Well sure, that happened. Libyans, Nubians, Canaanites, Mesopotamians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans have all ruled Egypt at one point or another and the Arabs are the most recent bunch (not counting the Turks or the British). But the truth is that conquest only very rarely leads to a massive shift in the native population; the conquest of the Americas aside (which was aided very significantly by the natives’ vulnerability to Afro-Eurasian diseases), the genetic makeup of a country’s populace before and after conquest is usually pretty similar, to a point that it’s almost not worth talking about. And genetic studies in Egypt back this up: the genetic profile of modern Egyptians has been affected less than 15% by foreign admixture.
There’s also the fact that ancient Egyptians didn’t really perceive themselves as either “black” or “white.” Just look at the above painting from Pharaoh Seti I’s tomb. The top right group, with the palest skin are Libyans (Berbers Amazigh), the next one over to the left are Nubians, followed by “Asiatics” (Mesopotamians). The bottom central group are Egyptians. By their own perception Egyptians were neither particularly dark nor particularly pale, and given their xenophobic attitude towards outside cultures (which was fairly common for most ancient peoples) they would probably resent being sorted into either “race.” So why does this matter? Why is it important that we acknowledge the Egyptians don’t fit into our constructed dichotomy of black vs. white, of European or African? Well, for one thing many modern Egyptians find it kind of offensive. Despite their modern self-identification as Arabs, most Egyptians still feel a strong claim to the historical legacy of their ancient forebears and find it pretty annoying when American scholars (and, black or white, it is mostly Americans) try to pigeonhole the pharaohs into one racial category or another for political purposes. Secondly,it’s pretty clearly false as I’ve shown above. The ancient Egyptians were African, but that’s a pretty broad label, just like the word “Asian” includes within its meaning Turks, Indians, Samoyeds, Han, Chinese, and Malays. There’s a lot of similarity between Egyptians and Nubians, that’s true. There’s also a lot of resemblance between Egyptians and Palestinians. They don’t fit neatly into one super-category or the other, not when you peel away the labels and look at the actual facts. It’s also, when you get right down it, kind of imperialistic.
So what are Egyptians? Well, it’s a really simple answer. We’re Egyptians. Whether or not we identify as Arab is up to individual and is not for you to decide.
Let’s break for a second and figure out what we’ve learned:
Egyptians do not ascribe to race
race is a Western imperial construct
modern-day Egyptians are the descendants of Ancient Egyptians
AE was an African civilisation, but not a black one
Africa is a diverse and huge continent
most Egyptians today consider themselves Arab or simply Egyptian
Egyptians are considered black by US standards and not Egyptian standards and thought
the Arab identity was spread through Islam
Egyptians are Egyptians, ancient or modern
we didn’t change thanks to the ‘indo-ayran arabs’ or the greeks, romans, whomever. our genetics literally have not changed as pointed out in the beginning
you probably do not have any sort of claim to Egypt and our heritage
African does not equal ‘black’
Egyptians easily accept the duality of being African and Arab and it doesn’t bother us (so it shouldn’t bother you)
we were not ‘overrun’ by the ‘indo-ayran Arab’ settlers who ‘drove away the real black Egyptians’ because that never fucking happened
Egyptians today are the descendants of ancient Egyptians
trying to claim our heritage and cast us aside in favour of your ego or political views is wrong, historically and morally
our blood did not become ‘diluted’ due to foreign rulers and settlers
actually, most rulers who invaded AE ended up adapting to AE culture and considered themselves Egyptians—Cleopatra was of Persian and Greek descent, yet everyone sees her as another Egyptian
in fact we didn’t have an actual Egyptian as a ruler until 1953 when we established as an independent state from British colonialism and ditched our monarchy (sorry King Fuad)
to sum it all up look at another one of Deena’s posts
Here are some articles + books written by real-life Egyptians speaking about our identity: x, x, x, x, x, x Here’s more stuff about Egyptian (and the larger Arab) identity: x, x, x, x, x, x
Here is a PDF file you can download that talks about Ottomanism and Arabism in Masr
this piece doesn’t have much to do with anything but I think it’s cool. so is this and this also this exploring Arabness and now I’m just linking articles I think are interesting also look at this archive i just found also check this out it’s also kind of cool
*Here is another one of Deena’s posts “Before Talking About Egypt” which can help you along your journey of discovering Egypt on Tumblr through real life Egyptians instead of the discourse produced by Americans
Okay, fine so Egyptians don’t ascribe to constructs of race, but I’m still of African descent and therefore of possible Egyptian ancestry.
Eh, not really. If we’re going by that logic, then you’re likely to be Moroccan, Libyan, Algerian, and Tunisian as well. The majority of Af-Am were brought by the Atlantic slave trade, not through willing immigration. Egyptians do not have the right to claim the oppression African Americans endured and we do not share that history. Though it is incredibly literal to say that everyone from N. African are African-Americans, that is a whole different boat and does not deal with individual identities, ethnic groups, and cultural differences. Though really if we’re going to have a census change, I’d like if Middle Eastern and North African were on there. I digress, you probably are not from Egyptian ancestry as much as you may like to be
The First Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires; it accounted for slightly more than 3% of all Atlantic slave trade. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502[38] and lasted until 1580 when Portugal was temporarily united with Spain. While the Portuguese were directly involved in trading enslaved peoples, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade enslaved people to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era. Some Dutch, English, and French traders also participated in the slave trade.[39] After the union, Portugal came under Spanish legislation that prohibited it from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier. It became a target for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share of the trade to the Dutch, English and French.
The Second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly English, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World.[40]Slightly more than 3% of the enslaved people exported from Africa were traded between 1450 and 1600, and 16% in the 17th century.
It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa.[41] By the 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa.[42]They maintained this position during the 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic.[43]
“Here were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:[62]
Senegambia (Senegal and the Gambia): 4.8%
Upper Guinea (Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%
Windward Coast (Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire): 1.8%
Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Côte d’Ivoire): 10.4%
Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta): 20.2%
Bight of Biafra (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and Madagascar): 4.7%
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent, according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.[63]
The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
The Mandé of Upper Guinea
The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
The Akan of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire
The Wolof of Senegal and the Gambia
The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
The Mbundu of Angola (includes both Ambundu and Ovimbundu)
The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
None of the above is from Egypt or any countries in NA. Here is in info about slavery in the US (isn’t Wikipedia amazing?) and an archive of sorts. The majority of Africans who were taken into slavery and shipped to the US are from Western African heritage. This is a pretty basic fact most kids learn in grade 5. You can also try Google.
The idea that Af-Am can be Egyptian or that Egyptians, whether ancient or modern, are black was created by Afrocentrism; the idea that Af-Am are descendants of AE is a messy theory and denies modern day Egyptians of our heritage in favour of another group of persons essentially replacing us in our own history. Afrocentrism is a brilliant thing but it has some issues, such as this, when it accidentally ends up splitting Egyptians from our heritage and forcing us into American and Western standards and perspectives.
Here is a post explaining why Afrocentrism can be damaging to native Africans and African identities.
I’m not denying my own genetic make-up. I’m not denying Ancient Egypt as an African civilisation. I am disagreeing with your, and multiple others’, claim that African-Americans have a right to Egypt; that their ancestors are from Egypt. There is a difference in denying that Egypt is in Africa and that AE is an African civilisation v. when people are trying to speak over a native about their own identity. There is a difference of me being ignorant + anti-black v. me correcting you when you are attempting to claim my heritage. If you cannot see that difference, that is not my problem.
Edit: I meant to say that Arab isn’t a racial identity; it is a pan-ethnic cultural identity. Sorry!
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