Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black peoplepoisonsthe Arab world

i would believe that people always saw difference, and assigned positive values to themselves and often lower to others. but the question of whether race, as we understand it, that is the question of color and features, was actually perceived until late in history, at least in the west, is at issue or not. i would have to be convinced by more than a passing reference; i am skeptical. as for religion, that's a huge area where each people projected images of themselves onto the concept of the divine. just google-image, for instance, paintings or statues of jesus or god  or mary, at any century and location, and they all come out weirdly different, looking like the very people the artist lived with. in africa this happened less during colonialism, for obvious reasons, but after, began to finally change, thank god.

when i think of how the greeks, for example, portrayed the barbarians, it was in their beards or musculature or broad physical features--the barbarians being the people further north. how the egyptians regarded others can be seen in physical traits, but i wonder--am skeptical--that it was race as we understand it. 

how this worked with aztecs or chinese people, i don't know; but you can be sure that every people on earth had their "others," and that the patterns must have varied regionally as well as depending on the century, as gloria just said.

that's the real key: over time these views of otherness change radically and in response to the issue of who has the power to rule.

how greek ideals of beauty iinfected the romans would be another interesting question.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 1:41 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black peoplepoisonsthe Arab world

 

This corresponds generally with my 

understanding of the situation. Note

 that  some scholars believe that the

Ancient Egyptians were Nubians who

 moved northward.

See Diodorus Siculus, Book 2

on this. Debates continue.

You give the impression that 

the Egyptians were doing the 

Nubians a favor. It's the other way

around, somewhat. When the Assyrians 

attacked  Egypt, some Egyptians 

appealed to the Nubians for

assistance.

Please tell me more about

Emanuel. Isn't that a  Hebrew name, 

and not Egyptian? Yeshua to Iesous 

I get. 

Well the Muslims had every reason

to honor Black people. If not for the

generosity of  the Ethiopian Emperor

Armah, who protected  the family and 

early believers and supporters of the 

Prophet of Islam, Islam  may not have 

survived its early days. Isn't the Kaaba

a replica of an Ethiopian structure?

Isn't the fourth holiest city in Islam 

located in  Ethiopia, namely, Harar? 

When  Amr ibn al-As invaded Egypt in

639 CE his main objective was

to oust the Romans and that he did.

Things started to go downhill for

the Nubians in terms of 

stigmatization, though, when the 

invading Arabs forced the Nubians 

to provide annual tributes of  400 

captives in exchange for political 

autonomy and protection and to

avoid conquest through the Baqt

of the 7th century CE. It

 was a forced compromise that 

set the stage for massive 

discrimination by  both

Arabs and Turks in sequence. It really

was an indicator of Nubian defeat, and

in reality, a blow to Nubian dignity.

I  suggest that narcissistic, and

supremacist representation  emerged

in one or two monotheistic religions,

but not all.  I tend to associate 

anthropomorphism with polytheism

and religions that are holistic and

protective of the environment  but

I may be wrong.

GE

On Jul 28, 2020, at 18:02, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:



Ken & GE:

Symbolism, Religion and Servility of Blacks.

You are in fact both right in your different ways when you suggest that servilization of Blacks is due to history of slavery and invasions of the continent.

Servilization of Blacks took place over a long time gradually with a domino effect across the globe.

During the polytheistic past any and all groups had value as did their Gods and brute force in valour accounted for exceptionalisms.  This was why the Egyptians accepted Nubians ( Sudanese- some of the darkest skinned Africans) as pharaohs for 200 years accepted their superior pisition in Egyptian society as a consequence.

Then came the conquest of Alexander the Great of Macedon which went as far as Indian via Egypt as a result of which the then global super power Egypt had extended white rule and the establishment of the ( Greek) Ptolemy dynasty of which the last known ruler was Cleopatra who inspired the Hollywood movies and the permanent racialised change began.  Then followed the invasion and conquest of Egypt by Rome.  Between these two events the gradual racialized servilization of Blacks was consolidated cemented by the ascendancy of monotheism.

The period of Roman conquest was coterminus with the crucifixion of Emnanuel the Christ and the decision to abandon his Egyptian name for a European ( Greek) alias, Jesus,  marked the official commencement of racism against Blacks in Western discourse.

In view of the fact that two Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine ended persecution of Christians in the empire and made it religion of the Roman state thereby abandoning polytheism rather than face the rebellion of the oppressed masses who embraced the religion means their support was secured as soldiers  to expand the frontiers of the empire ( onward Christian soldiers.)  Thus Pharaoh Akhenaten' s age long experiment in Egypt had come full circle via Moses and the Israelites to formation of the Christian faith in Asia Minor, Rome, Egypt and the wider world.

Monotheism relies on anthropomorphism for its effectiveness so whose physical features should THE God bear but that of the conquerors who imposed the religion on conquered colonised lands!  Thus those whose features least reseblmble the God are cast in servile role due to the physical features 'imperfections' relative to the divine paragon of perfection and that sealed the fate of servilization of Blacks across the globe.

The Arabians soon caught up with the implications of the rise of monotheism launched their own version in Islam  and because they recognised the implications of anthropomorphism forbade making images of Allah.  Also because they were well aware of the role of Blacks particularly Egypt in the history of the human race began a veneration of the colour black as in Kaaba, the Black Stone and black robes.

Unfortunately this was not enough to offset the prejudices against captives from conquered Black polytheistic states.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <harrow@msu.edu>

Date: 28/07/2020 19:47 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black peoplepoisonsthe  Arab world

gloria, thanks for clarifying

i was debating with a friend at what point this racial marker or servility and inferiority, racism as we think of it, was introduced. i hazarded a half-educated guess that it came in the 18th century. i wonder if anyone has some hard historical evidence on this.

for instance, going loosely by the laws in virginia, they became racialized late in the 17th century. before that a white could be held in bondage, and subject to laws controlling the bondage. by the end of the century specifications re race were applied.

the u.s. is late in this game, too. i don't know how the portuguese regarded blackness int he 15th and 16th centuries when they arrived in africa and then initiated the slave trade.

no idea how the spanish regarded it. nor how it accorded with the entire mediterranean power structure with the ottomans vs the spanish....

lots of histories on this listserv who can help out here

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:05 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black people poisonsthe Arab world

 

You have to go century by 

century to identity the periods when outsiders intensified the process and turned Blackness into a marker of servility. Recall that internal slavery did not have a Black skin marker, generally. The marker was socio - cultural not genetic. I was careful to modify the statement by saying "part of...."the cause was foreign invasion.

Africa was not the only continent with domestic slavery. The Greeks and Romans

are well documented for this, and Charles Verlinden points to the Mediterranean slave trade of Germanic traders and Slavic victims. What  I am referring to is the widespread introduction  of a new marker of servility with  invasions of the Arab,Turkish, Dutch, Portuguese etc.

Thanks for your comments.

Gloria Emeagwali 

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 10:43 Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

hi gloria

it wasn't outsiders' conquests that brought the practice of enslavement, if that is your point. prisoners of war were often, broadly, enslaved and often sold off, going back a long ways. maybe in some instances they were incorporated into the community, but i'd bet more often those who were captured became members of a lower caste status. anyway, the slave trade across the sahara and on the east coast depended on prisoners being sold, going back 2 thousand years, perhaps, across the desert. or 1000 in any event

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 12:52 AM
To: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black people poisonsthe Arab world

 

Ken,

You said that the prejudice is because of the history of enslavement in the continent. Well you are looking at the effect rather than the cause.  

 Part of the cause is  the invasion of the continent by the  Germanic Vandals, the Greeks, Persians, Romans, Arabs and Turks and their conquest of Egypt, Sudan, and also what is now Morocco, Algeria etc.  The prisoners of war etc were enslaved. Incidentally there were lots of White slaves also under the Turks, who brought into Egypt, East European slaves (Slavs) but in the long run they blended in with the group that became dominant .The Arabs are often blamed for Turkish transgression in areas like Egypt. They in fact fell under Turkish domination within the Ottoman Empire, at one point until 1918.

  Now when we focus on East Africa, south of Ethiopia in the Swahili region,  the Arab Omanis would be the main culprits and not the Turks and that is after they, the Omanis, betrayed the request to help fight against Portuguese invaders, 

and became the main colonizers and human traffickers, following in  the footsteps of the Portuguese. 

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2020 4:59 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black people poisonsthe Arab world

 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Ken.

I agree with you in toto.  I just had a second mature learner with me recently ( this time male, in his 50s) and the first thing he too said to me was am an African like you too.  And he added as coda' when I tell some  Africans they just look at me, is it because of the skin colour?'  I told him he wasnt the first Morrocan to tell me that.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <harrow@msu.edu>

Date: 27/07/2020 21:00 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bigotry against black people poisonsthe  Arab world

this is a pretty well done piece. i'd agree that colorism is alive and well in much of the arab world; but not in all, and there is considerable resistance to racism that the article doesn't really seek out. it's like the black african music iin morocco, much loved by many people, while prejudices against darker skinned peoples, sometimes associated w berbers, bizarrely, is also alive. we all have societies with a way to go to get past prejudices, and the history of enslavement in the whole region played a large role in fomenting racism.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2020 10:56 AM
To: dialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Bigotry against black people poisons the Arab world

 

<image001.jpg>

Maids for sale
Bigotry against black people poisons the Arab world, too

Protests in America have shone a new light on an old problem

Middle East & AfricaJul 23rd 2020 edition

---

Jul 23rd 2020

BEIRUT

·          

·          

·          

·          

Day after day, week after week, the cars pulled up outside the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut and ejected their passengers: tired-looking black women, their modest possessions stuffed into cheap suitcases (pictured). With the economy in free fall, many Lebanese families could no longer afford to pay their domestic workers. Nor could they easily send them home. The price of repatriation flights had surged because of covid-19. So their solution was to dump the women outside their embassy. Dozens were left to fend for themselves.

The protests in America over racism and police brutality have drawn much interest in the Middle East. Some people reacted with shock, some with Schadenfreude. For others, though, America's unrest was an opportunity to discuss the problems with race in their own countries.

Most Arab states have a black minority. Black communities in north Africa trace their roots to antiquity: the Nubians, for example, called Egypt home long before their country acquired its Arab identity. In the Levant and the Gulf many people are the descendants of slaves taken by Islamic empires, or of African Muslims who made pilgrimages east and decided to stay.

All face discrimination. Dark-skinned people are referred to with terms like abd ("slave"). Egypt's dark-skinned former president, Anwar Sadat, was called his predecessor's "black poodle". Blackface is a common sight on Arabic television. In a widely shared video a black Palestinian actress, Maryam Abu Khaled, recounted the casual bigotry she encounters, such as a mother telling her daughter to get out of the sun lest she, too, turn black.

Skin colour can make marriages fraught when families see it as a marker of socioeconomic status or pedigree. Discrimination exists in the workplace, too. Black Iraqis, a community with more than a thousand years of recorded history, struggle to get government jobs and are typically relegated to menial work.

The worst treatment, though, is reserved not for citizens but for migrants. In wealthy Gulf states it manifests in a tacit racial hierarchy. Fancy hotels might employ black migrants as security guards or porters. They are less common in jobs that require interaction with customers, like waiters or hairdressers. Those better-paid roles often go to lighter-skinned workers from Asian or Arab countries.

Egypt is thought to host around 5m African migrants, many of whom fled war and oppression in places like South Sudan and Eritrea. They have faced years of abuse. About two dozen Sudanese were killed in 2005 when police raided a protest camp. In years past some tried to reach Israel, a long journey across Sinai's desert that left them prey for human traffickers. Those who crossed the border met discrimination and frequent attempts to deport them—regardless of conditions in their home countries.

Some Lebanese advertise their housekeepers on Facebook as if they were property. A post in April offered a Nigerian maid, "very active and clean", for 1.5m Lebanese pounds ($1,000 at the official exchange rate). Bigotry can trump class: a black diplomat recalled being pursued in malls by security guards who thought her a housekeeper and wanted to know why she was shopping without her madame.

Faustina Tay, a Ghanaian maid in Lebanon, was found dead in March in the car park underneath the home where she worked. Doctors ruled her death the result of a fall. Her case was not unusual. Even before the economic crisis, human-rights groups estimated that around two domestic workers died each week in Lebanon, mostly by suicide. (Not all are African.)

For years activists have urged the government to scrap the kafala system, which prevents foreign workers from leaving an abusive employer without also leaving the country. Economic crisis may make the issue less pressing: fewer Lebanese can afford to employ foreign maids. In June a Ghanaian television channel covered the return of 211 citizens from Lebanon, most of them female domestics. They described long hours, beatings and having to steal food to survive. "No one should make that mistake and go back to Lebanon," one woman said. "They don't respect us." ■

 

 

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/0D839477-BA75-4E79-AC47-B011390F4405%40austin.utexas.edu.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB2456E87057E005283899C304DA720%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB298272FF69C1BB1DBCC08DC1A6720%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM6PR01MB556484F5126461C17C31D6CFDE730%40DM6PR01MB5564.prod.exchangelabs.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB24561B04EB801A5DCB15516CDA730%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAMkN8aoggMbyzFhaHUKdt_k7j1A%2BD2DAOCCFVSfbrYQj_G7ccw%40mail.gmail.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB24563732004D5DEB5D3C653BDA730%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB298202CCC5B1AC695D798D1EA6730%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/D780D7DF-B649-4775-A8DA-0C4783B8C900%40gmail.com.