"before talking about egypt" post
because i’m really tired of rhetoric regarding egypt on this website, and because i’m tired of repeating the same things over and over, here’s a post of things every person who posts something about egypt should be aware of before opening their mouths:
egyptians do not ascribe to western racial constructs. repeat this several times. egyptians aren’t white, or black, or white-passing, or brown until they’re forced to identify under these by westerners. like “poc” these terms are meaningless without something to compare it to. when you call people living in their own country “poc,” you don’t sound very well-informed.
before mouthing off about “ancient/real egyptians” and “modern coloniser egyptians,” this is what egyptians look like:
but they also look like this:
none of these are considered “more egyptian” than the other, and if we don’t do it, frankly you shouldn’t.
(i had to take some of these off a government propaganda video, i hope you’re happy. also watch it, it’s pretty catchy.)
(x)
as you can see, egypt is located in northern africa. this makes egypt an african country. it is also usually included in the politically vague “middle east,” or more accurately the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. egypt is a culturally arab country. this makes it african and arab. egyptians identify as both without issue. it is not a big deal, nor is it up to you to tell us what to identify as.
egypt has also had the same borders for around 5000 years, give or take, due to the nile being a major factor in where the concentration of populations are. therefore ancient egyptians were also north african, with close interactions with the kushite kingdom in the south, where Sudan is now. got it? ancient egypt, geographically = egypt + sudan. we know exactly where ancient egypt was located. they were nice enough to write everything down.
egyptians were never enslaved by americans or taken to america. while the egyptian diaspora is large, most egyptian immigrants are recent first or second generation. this means that egyptians have no claim to african american history, and vice versa.
nubian egyptians still exist. they are a minority in upper (southern) egypt that faces erasure, oppression and discrimination.
before deciding that ancient and modern egyptians are two separate species, please remember that egyptians still use the same farming tools, agricultural calendar, and even words as ancient egyptians. we even celebrate the the longest running holiday in history.
before blaming “arabs” for “changing egypt’s ethnicity”* please remember that by the time Muslim conquests arrived in Egypt, Egypt had already been occupied by the Greeks and Roman Byzantines for several hundred years, not to mention intermixing with Hyksos, Assyrians and Kushites since the Late Intermediate period. Egypt has always been diverse. despite that, even wikipedia will tell you that vast majority of egypt’s population is ethnically egyptian. and here’s another source. and another. shut up about this already.
the Egyptians have been in place since back in the Pleistocene and have been largely unaffected by either invasions or migrations. As others have noted, Egyptians are Egyptians, and they were so in the past as well. (x)
the purpose of this is not to deny that under US-centric classifications, most ancient egyptians would be considered black*, because they most certainly would and white-washing of ancient egypt is prevalent and harmful*, but to assert that modern egyptians are not a separate ethnicity from their ancestors and that separating “modern” and “ancient” egyptians is equally harmful, and denies egyptians a connection to their own heritage.
here are some posts i’ve made to clarify how race works in egypt*
Arab is a cultural term, not an ethnic one. Actually, more specifically, Arab is a pan-ethnic cultural, political and linguistic identification. Identification as Arab is based on linguistic, political and cultural influences*, not ethnic (or more specifically, racial) ones. Egypt identifies as Arab today due to the arab nationalist movement in the 1950s, which was a response to British colonialism.*
you cannot appropriate ancient egyptian “culture”. stop telling white people they can’t wear cleopatra outfits. this is what our tourism industry is based on.*
appropriating our heritage, stealing our artefacts*, and claiming our history as your own does not fall under “cultural appropriation”* and it is really harmful and annoying.
for reference, this is what egyptian traditional dress looks like:
(not super accurate because it differs in different parts of egypt, but you get the idea. surprise, it’s not cleopatra outfits after all!)
here is a list of the absolute stupidest (and most popular) posts regarding egypt i’ve seen on my dash that you should absolutely 100% not reblog ever:
(edit: due to confusions, i’m adding the reasons as to why these posts are incorrect here, although i initially reblogged it to explain.)
“2000 year old mummy still has natural hair, real egyptians were black africans” - most mummies still have their hair, the hair texture varies, many egyptians today have similar hair, this is not some sort of new or magical discovery and displays extreme ignorance of egypt and egyptology. this was not exactly needed to assert that real egyptians were indeed dark-skinned africans, and the implication that this is some vital piece of evidence does a disservice to a very long and full empire. also the use of “real egyptians” is confusing. who are “real egyptians?” mummies with “natural hair?” also natural in comparison to what? what about ramses II, whose mummy was found to have naturally auburn hair? not real enough?
“the reason current egyptians living there today is the same reason we have white people in america. C O L O N I Z A T I O N.” i really hope i don’t need to explain why this is wrong after that giant post. read the links. please. and don’t compare modern egyptians to settler colonialist americans.
also the nose thing? yeah like six billion other statues still have their noses. visit a museum. there are plenty of reasons noses were destroyed and statues of certain figures were disfigured by egyptians themselves as a sign of disrespect or erasure of previous rulers, or even later during coptic egypt. or it could also simply be because noses were the most fragile part of the sculpture and tended to break off the easiest (before going on about how noses from other civilisations lasted, please remember that egypt is much older than other civilisations. it’s kind of our thing.) either way, the idea of it being a huge conspiracy to “hide the statues race” is laughable because again, there are thousands of statues that still have their noses.
also this is a contradiction because if you imply europeans in the 1800s and 1900s did this, it means they were trying to deny that ancient egyptians were similar to modern egyptians (which is true because british colonisers viewed egyptians as backwards african natives and thought the ancient egyptians must have been an alien race) so where does that leave your whole C O L O N I Z A T I O N thing?
and my personal favorite:
“indo aryans from central asia” come on guys. ancient egypt wasn’t particularly mixed, but it was certainly diverse long before 7th century AD (read the above!), and Arabs are not indo aryans from central asia, and they did not displace the entire egyptian population and replace them. it is also not a great idea to homogenise africa by equating nigeria, senegal and congo to each other as well as egypt.
the problem is NOT!!! that these posts are afrocentric or saying ancient egyptians were black. i’ve already covered it extensively that yes the vast majority of them would have been considered black by today’s US standards. the problem is that these posts also contain categorically incorrect information that overshadows any attempt to defend ancient egypt from whitewashing.
(please do not reblog any of these they have caused more pain and grief to egyptians on this website than exodus ever will. nobody of any importance genuinely thinks egyptians were white anymore. the brits tried to suggest it but then again they also put forth that the ancient egyptians were aliens, so this is really Not A Thing. believe it or not hollywood does not set the standard for egyptology.)
so to sum up: don’t tell egyptians what to identify as, don’t tell egyptians what they’re supposed to look like, don’t call modern egyptians colonisers, don’t force egyptians or ancient egyptians into western racial classifications and don’t talk about egypt unless you have basic knowledge of egypt.
* links with (*) on them lead to posts on my own blog that clarify each point or explain it further, not outside sources. i only have basic knowledge of most issues from an egyptian point of view, but that’s still more than 99% of the people on this website.
