What I mean is that Africa is phenotypically diverse because the African continent has a stunning level of ecological diversity. It snows in southern Africa and in the mountainous Berber regions of North Africa. The Khoi-San people of Southern Africa tend to be light-brown complexioned. I have never seen a jet black Khoi-San. Also, their eyelids have an epicanthic fold, a trait we typically associate with East Asians. Basically I am saying that Africa has lots of variance in skin-tone and other phenotypical traits that scholars believe predated racial admixture. Out-migrations to temperate zones stretched this diversity even further, eventually evolving into what we now call "races." See especially S.O.Y. Keita on this topic. He has several lectures and publications online. Check out his co-written essay The Persistance of Racial Thinking. Here are his lectures. kzs
On Monday, July 23, 2012 5:21:00 AM UTC-4, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
-- On Monday, July 23, 2012 5:21:00 AM UTC-4, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
all that i am reading these days--a lot--concurs with this assessment of kwame's below concerning arabs and arabness. i want to stress that, the prestige of islam, but also the need to see oneself as belonging to a community.
it is actually similar to judaism, where many jews (to my surprise) see themselves as descended from the ancient hebrews--and i am including people who, like me, were born w blue eyes and blond hair (ok, you wouldn't know it to look at me now).
but all that means is that people find reasons to identify with those ancestors with whom they want to see themselves, or perhaps with whom they fear to see themselves.
as for race, i don't understand how "phenotypical diversity" could predate "racial admixtures."
i assume we are all descended from some lucy and her lovers in africa; that over the millenia, with migration, there was adaptation to different climates which generated different physiologies; and that those people, who were engaged in mixing their genes one way or another, wound up doing so with new types sooner or later. any notion of a pure race somehow persisting or preceding these processes doesn't make sense to me.
lastly, to repeat the first point, all you have to do is to travel in the sahel or sahara to find confirmations of kwame's point: arabness is not self-defined by skin color, and yet, ironically, within the arab world racism does persist. and it is islam that is the key marker to prestige that underscores this location of identity.
i guess there is a second irony, namely, that when malcolm x performed the hadj and encountered muslims of all shades and colors he perceived--or was it misperceived--an ideal of color-blindedness which he associated with islam.
he was right as an ideal ("all muslims are brothers")
but not so right on the lived reality within the arab world.
ken
On 7/23/12 6:19 AM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:
I think we all agree that Arab racism is pervasive and, at times, horrific, but I have also encountered jet black Arabs who denigrate African culture in the name of Islam/Allah (as do some jet black Christians in the name of Jesus). Certainly agree that "Arabs" have a range of complexions, but that is also the case for Africans generally. Phenotypical diversity in Africa is vast and, as I understand it, predates racial admixtures. Also, Mwalimu Mazrui fails to mention that many so-called "Arabs" in his region (the Swahili coast) has less to do with genetics and more to do long-standing trade with actual Arabs (and Iranians). "Arabness," in Africa, I suspect, is frequently more about the prestige of Islam and less about having actual Arab ancestors--a good example of "social construction" (I agree that this term is overused).
So back to the topic at hand...
There are tons of videos online of Libyans brutalizing phenotypically (stereotypically?) black Africans. I can't say if the brutes identify as Arabs, but I doubt if they identify as white. In any case, they certainly don't look white to me. I'm African American so clearly my view is shaped by American notions of whiteness and blackness. And, of course, I understand that there are many of notions of race (take Latin America, for example, which sort of reverses the US "One Drop" rule--to put it crudely, any drop of white "blood" renders you something other than black or "negro").--
What is your definition of whiteness in Libya, brother Abdul? Have a look at these videos and tell me if the brutalizers are "white." They all look brown skinned to me. None of them would pass for white in the USA (again, not claiming that US notions of whiteness are universal):
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ongpYnyvQ
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0t2n5CDvMA
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1aI4QtenBM&bpctr= 1343017632&skipcontrinter=1
On Sunday, July 22, 2012 11:29:51 AM UTC-4, Abdul Bangura wrote:Lessons from the Great Ali Mazrui, Imam Fadil Soliman and New Scientific FindingsMwalimu Kwame Zulu Shabazz and Mwalimu Kenneth Harrow, for me, I follow the Great Mwalimu Ali Mazrui's classification of the Arab race in one of his many effulgent books titled Towards a Pax Africana: A Study of Ideology and Ambition. And I quote: "The Arabs as a race defy straight pigmentational classifications. They vary in colour from the white Arabs of Syria and the Lebanon, the brown Arabs of the Hadhramout to the black Arabs of the Sudan and some of the eastern parts of the Arabian peninsula. Within Africa itself the range of colour among Arabs is also from white to black, though each colour cannot as smoothly be allocated to a specific area. Even within Egypt on its own the range of colour is virtually as wide as it is in the Arab world as a whole" (Mazrui, 1967:113).Our former Imam from Egypt Fadil Soliman used to occasionally admonish White Arab racists by reading the numerous passages in the Qur'an that clearly state that racism is un-Islamic. He would then point out the White Arab racist tendencies in the so-called Middle East and North Africa and those that have been brought to the US and preach against them. So, I am not going to be naive to ignore the fact that some Arabs whose skins are whiter do believe that they are White and act in very peculiar ways. In fact, until the terrible events of September 11, 2001, some of these White Arabs believed that they were so white that they kept their distance from Afrikan Americans and Black Africans. It is after they were subjected to racial profiling and other racist treatments at airports and other venues like us Blacks that they started seeking solidarity with us. And when I give talks at their events, I remind them of this and then suggest ways we can all work together to push our agendas.Having been to many of those countries, I know what I am talking about when I speak of White Arab racism. I also used to be gong ho about the over-stated "social construct" paradigm. But I became weary of it when it began to be used to explain everything. And after recent studies reported in World Science that contradict the notion that race does not exist, I am no longer sold wily nily to the "social construct" paradigm. See, for example, the following URL:In Peace Always,Abdul Karim Bangura/.----- Original Message -----From: kwame zulu shabazzTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Sent: 7/22/2012 7:27:08 AMSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: CNN Breaking News.....Lesson on Libya"Arab" is confusing but fascinating category, certainly not "white" (Abdul) in the normative sense of the term (apologies to the great Chancellor Williams). According to most linguists, Arabic is an African language from the Afroasiatic family (the term "Afroasiatic" is, as Diop, Obenga, and Chris Ehret have argued, a bit muddled). Proto-Afrosiatic originated in North Africa. The speakers of what would become Arabic migrated from North Africa to West Asia 20 kya (If I recall this estimate correctly). West Asia was then swept up by "northern invaders"--a people that we would call "white" today (this history is in dispute, I think)--and, later Islam. Perhaps it was this confluence of peoples and cultures that led to Arabs being called "white" by some.
Subsequently, this hybridized group went in all directions spreading Islam. A subset of this group "returned" to Africa (back migration). The situation now is super complicated. Islamicization/Arabization (like Christianity, Islam was often spread by the sword or ethnocentric propaganda) in Africa has led to some indigenous Africans, esp. in North Africa and the Swahili coast, to self-identify as "Arab." For this reason untangling who is "black" or "Arab" ("white"?) in Libya or anywhere in else in Africa is a daunting task. Gadaffi, from what I recall, is of Berber descent, not Arab. But, again, who is or is not Arab or Berber in North Africa is super-complicated. I imagine that Gadaffi self-identified as Arab or African or Berber depending upon the situation, much like, say, Egyptians might identify as white or black or Arab or African or Egyptian depending upon the situation, individual inexperience, region of origin and so on.
Re: Appiah (Ken). Agree w/Abdul that I wouldn't hang my hat on Appiah's ideas regarding race in Africa (btw, Abdul, thanks for the Lewis Gordon reference. I'm reading up on him now). I took a class on race with Appiah in about 2005. I'm a black nationalist strongly influenced by the teachings of Malcolm X so, needless to say, Prof. Appiah and I didn't agree on much. What is interesting is that Appiah's views on race shifted a few years later. Whereas in his earlier writings he viewed "race" with suspicion, a confused figment of our imagination (i.e. "social construction"), he now acknowledges that race has social utility beyond merely being oppressive and "incoherent." If I recall correctly, Appiah credited debates with Skip Gates as one source of his modified view. You can read a bit about his new perspective in this 2011 write up:
http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities- medals/kwame-anthony-appiah
Appiah even questioned the modern concept of race, though his views have shifted since then. �As a teacher, I think it is important that one can change one�s mind. You make an argument. People make a counterargument. Sometimes they persuade you. So, I am less of what philosophers call an eliminativist than I probably was.� Race as a form of social identity now seems, to him, comparably coherent next to gender, ethnicity, nationality, and religion.
--
On Friday, July 20, 2012 6:59:04 PM UTC-4, Abdul Bangura wrote:Mwalimu Harrow, for a poignant corrective to Kwame Anthony Appiah's flawed postulate, I suggest you consult the great Lewis R. Gordon's book titled Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997).----- Original Message -----From: kenneth harrowSent: 7/20/2012 7:58:27 AMSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: CNN Breaking News.....Lesson on Libyaabdul evokes racial differences as the grounding for his politics, and we similarly evoke african versus western difference as a grounding for politics, at least when discussing interests.
so here is a brief introjection on race:
--following appiah, race is a myth. it is a construct, invented to serve the purposes of various groups
--one of the groups would be that entity which seeks to establish dominion over another group. so, european colonialists called themselves white and their subjects colored, or black.
--this actually occurred in the 19th c, maybe beginning at the very end of the 18th c, and reached its peak in the late 19th c
--it started to be challenged in the early 20th c by anthropologists whose forebears had invented "scientific racism"
--attempts to define race, that failed, were grounded in somatic differences or in ancestors
--those attempts, ridiculous on the face of it, were rapidly undone with contemporary genetic and historical sciences
--yet they persist. abdul can speak for himself when he defines white and black as used below; but to think of arabs as white only makes sense when accepting a definition of race as that which people use to define themselves, for whatever reason
--self-definitions are created only in relation to others, and change over time
--ergo, racial definitions change over time. there is a reason for calling someone colored or non-white.
--in the 19th and early 20th c, in the u.s., non-whites include italians, irish, jews, african-descended peoples, hispanics.
--obviously, after wwII those groupings changed, and are changing as i speak (think about mexicans or chicanos, black hispanics, mixed race caribbeans, etc etc)
--so race isn't a myth, in the sense of something that is unreal, because our intellectual constructions have a reality, a discursive reality, of their own, which matters, which can accommodate or promote genocide. consequences.
most important: these constructs serve a political agenda
--one might be to defend the interests of what one takes to be one's own community, which i assume abdul is doing--but he can speak for himself
--in that case, it becomes us versus them, as opposed to a politics that opposes an us-them binary division
--think the politics of black white in the sahel, with Mali now divided, like mauretania, or like sudan, between populations that use terms like black and white or arab, where neither somatic difference or ancestry or genes, or eye color, or hair type, or anything, works to create distinct differences.
--so we have history, finally, which says, you--you arabs--you enslaved us, us blacks, and thus you are intrinsically different from us, as we can all see. history creates perception, and not vice versa. but when absul says, "white arabs," isn't it the converse?
i leave it to you, abdul, to tell us what you mean by white, and thus by black, or Afrikan.
thanks
ken
On 7/20/12 3:13 AM, Abdul Karim Bangura wrote:
And where is the hypocritical Arab League? Indeed, Libyans are mostly Afrikan, not white Arabs, who are a tiny minority.
-----Original Message-------
From: MsJoe21St@aol.com
Sent: Jul 19, 2012 6:53 PM
To: Camnetwork@yahoogroups.com
Cc: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com , nigeriaworldforum@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: CNN Breaking News.....Lesson on Libya
Hello:The new world order is crystallizing to the old Warsaw Pact and NATO. Couldn't wait for the results.MsJoe--In a message dated 7/19/2012 10:42:20 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, BreakingNews@mail.cnn.com writes:Russia and China veto U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on Syrian regime.
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