Re: theres is no such thing as african american

Jason Murray - The Great One <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> offered this sage advice: 

: "Pilar Quezzaire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message

:> : I bet you cannot tell me what that is.  Don't say 'Semetic' either...
:>
:> I dont' have to. They're Central Asian, if they come from the same area as
:> Muslims.

: Muslims don't come from central Asia and Muslims do not denote a race of
: people, it is a relgion.

*SIGH* I was really hoping you'd follow the thread here. Muslims from the 
Middle East have the same genetic base as Jews originally from the area. 
Does that help? Confusing terms is a habit I see, so I be more careful to 
be clear. 

:> As being distinct from other people in the Middle East.
:>

: They are.  Weinstein, Goldman ans such are not Hebrew in origin.

They are also not originally from the Middle East! Again, following the 
thread helps. They are, however, Ashkenazi Jews, and therefore, Jewish. I 
know they think so. I agree with them. 

:> : Your right.  That just are not Hebrews...
:>
:> What? I can't exactly parse that sentence. Some of them are from the
:> original "Hebrew" stock. Not all. That's true of /anyone/ native to this
:> region.

: Hebrews were beofore Muslims.  Many non-arabic peoples often mix
: (purposely?) Islam and arabness totgehter so that they can identify with the
: more popular Muslims.

Umm...okay...what exactly are you driving at here about that? Yes? Is that 
what you want me to say? Is this helping your blackness argument? If it 
is, I'm not seeing why. 

:> What's false? If you're Jewish, you're a Jew. Most of the world seems to
:> understand this.
:>

: Your right.  Most of the world does not really understand it, they have just
: been told it and take their word for it.  These Jews are not from the
: middles east, they are from Europe.  You can see the European mentallity in
: Israel.

But that doesn't make them so-called Jews. It makes them Jews who 
originated from Europe. Some of the "European mentality" you mention is 
quite visible in wealthy Arabs too. The Sauds are feudal, for goodness'
sake. 

:> Yes, of course there were people of African descent that intermarried, I
:> said that. What does tha have to do with the categories that exist now?
:> Not a dang thing.

: Catagories today are political more than anything else.  I dismiss most of
: them.  I am going by what we know most people to be.  I don't care if you or
: I like any particualr people or not.

This has nothing to do with what we like or want. It also has nothing to 
do with the history you're trying to fabricate here. All categories to do 
with ethnicity have been political since time immemorial, what's your 
point? 

: That and you are forgetting that the dominant genetic
:> pool in the Middle is Central Asian and Indo-Euorpean, not African, or
:> "black".

: You know that's BS.  I guess your just a little biased on that.  As much as
: I tried to find out who is who, it seems as if the white and the black (of
: course is mixed in with most there) seem to be more or less equal.  Central
: Asian is an after thought.  Indo-European has not been proven to exsist.  No
: one can seem to describe an Indo-European, just like no one can describe a
: Semite or even an Arab.

What? What in heaven's name are you talking about? Indo-European as a 
language group and a genetic set of groups has been established for quite 
some time. The migration theory and hemotological studies have shown that 
most people who are native to the Middle East are of primarily Central 
Asian stock. That makes sense, as many of the countries considered to be 
part of the "Middle East", like Afghanistan and Iraq, are central Asian! 

What are you reading? What are you talking about? 

: Someone who is Iranian is not African, not even genetically,
:> unless they have recent admixture with someone who is African.

: Try looking at the anceint Perisan peoples, then come back to me.

You know, you are really not listening. You dont' understand the 
difference between a phenotype and a genotype. People can /look/ many 
different ways not be of the same genotype. There are people like Dravidic 
Indians and Australian aborigines who LOOK "African" (phenotype) but when 
genetically screened, are NOT African (genotype). That's what's going on 
here, this is established science, and no matter ho wmuch you want them to 
look like you, they are not you. 

Period. 

  They
: clearly show a hell of a great deal more in common physically with Africa
: than with the present-day gvernemt in Iran.

I'll try this again: 

1) It doesn't matter what a group looks like, all of the time, when 
determining genetics.

2) "Ancient" Persia has seen a lot of changes over thousands of years. 
Migration and interrelations with other groups alter the population. 

3) Have you met any ancient Persians personally? Do you also know that 
some Persian groups in the ancient world were in fact from North Africa, 
many of them never having SEEN Persia? The Carthaginians? They ring a 
bell? Linguistically, they were Persian, but genetically they were 
African, or Afro-Persian, depending. 

But most of them never made it back to Persia after they established 
Carthage. 

: You can call it Afrocentric all you want, but that does not mean that
: Afrocentic claims a re false.

Afrocentric is not the issue for me. False is, and much of that stuff is 
as false as the Eurocentric theories running around.

  As a matter of fact, those Afrocentircs are
: responsible for finally getting the white man to fess up about the ancient
: Egyptians and others being black and not some mysterious group of people.

Not all Egyptians were black. Some were, others were not. Most were a mix. 

: Now if they can take the 'mysterious' title off of the Funj.

What "mysterious title" is that? The Funj were Sudanese, Cushitic in 
origin. It's well-known they were sub-Saharan African, some with Arabian 
admixture. These racial categories you are using so hard and fast didnt' 
exist then, maybe that's why it's so difficult for you to understand. 

What are you reading? It sounds about thirty years out of date. 

:  So, calling
: someonthing Afrocentric does not make me think 'this must be false' then.  I
: always look for the proof on both sides.  So far, the white man tells the
: most lies or omits things all together.

The black man seems to be doing a damn good job of it too. I'm not 
impressed with either, personally. What's worse, the black man is roughly 
thirty years behind in scholarship, which makes it very hard for this 
mixed-race recently-educated African historian to listen to this. 

:> You see "Africa" in Dravidic Indians too, but guess what? That's a
:> /phenotype/, not a /genotype/. Genotypically, both Middle Easterners and
:> Dravidic Indians are Indo-European.
:>

: Physically, they are more black than white.

That's phenotype, and it doesn't make them of African origin. It makes 
them look like it, or it makes them dark people of Indo-European origin. 

It doesn't make them white. It makes them who they are. 

  Iranians are more white than
: black, but as India fades in from Pakistan, the blackness appears.  Genetics
: are meaningless.  all they prove (depending on what markers they wanted to
: give to a white person after finding out how much most of the 'great' people
: have in common) is what we already knew, people are mixed.

Dark skin is not "blackness". Big lips don't make a person more connected 
to you. Genetics are /quite/ meaningful in helping to establish this. 
Cultural studies are equally as important. You are trying to make some big 
black diaspora that doesn't exist, and that most of the world does not 
need. It's just as bad as the theories of white supremacy that had 
dominated scholarship for so long. Just because you are on the black side 
of extreme and racist doesn't mean you're right. 

You're not. 

:  It does not
: surprise me if anyone has something in common with anyone else.  On
: applications, they don't ask for your genetic make-up, they ask for your
: race.

If you are Indian...you don't write Black. Your point is lost here. I 
can't think of a single Indian in this country who is dark and therefore 
refers to themselves as black. Black is a culture here as well as a race. 

:> You can't go on looks if you're talking about genes.
:>

: You can't go by genes if your talking about anything.

Since you're talking about nothing, I can undestand why you continue to 
think that.

:> It matters to me that people are not misinformed.

: So stop misinforming people.

I'm not. I'm not going to let you sit here and make Black World for 
yourself. It's wrong. 

:> You're not talking about "blood". You're talking about phenotypes -- what
:> they look like. We are in agreement that most people in the Middle East
:> belong to the Indo-European/Central Asian genotype.

: No we are not.  I never said that.   Most people in the mid-east are a
: mulattoized type of flat otu black or flat out white.

No, they're not. But since you don't care about icky stuff that ruins your 
ideas like science, I'll leave that out. By the way, "mulatto" went out 
with the Dixiecrats. 

:> see them as black if they were of partial African ancestry and CATEGORIZED
:> THEMSELVES as such. That's only proper. Black in this country is a
:> culture, not just a color, and that needs recognition.
:>

: That has nothing to do with how YOU SEE them.  If you SAW them as black
: looking, that is all you need.

That's where you're wrong, and that's a BIG difference between you and me. 
I DON'T look at a phenotype and assume anything. I can usually tell the 
difference between someone dark-skinned from India or the Middle and 
someone African. When I can't tell, or I am uncertain, I ask. What *I* 
think of them should be a reflection of what THEY think of themselves, and 
it is my duty to ask them. You want to assume blackness, and I don't. It's 
racist of me to do so, and I'm not racist. 

  It does not matter what they would call
: themselves.  We know people have a tendancy to lie or go with who is popular
: or in control.  Dominicans routnily claim that they are not black in any way
: possible. 

They claim to be Latino culturally, and they're right. They're not part of 
the black American culture here necessarily. They are still of African 
origin, and most of the Dominicans *I* know are aware of that. But they 
are culturally Latinos, so why should they call themselves anything else? 

: They also claim they have nothing in common with Haitians (who
: they share an island with), but we, knowing history and having common sense
: know otherwise.

Yeah, and that has a lot to do with island rivalries that have existed for 
centuries. It's more than a race issue there. In fact, it's hardly a race 
issue at all, but you can't see that because you're obsessed with racial 
phenotypes. 

Some of us aren't. I know you can't get that. 

:> Osama bin Laden is Saudi. Waaaaay back when, he may have been Yemeni or
:> part of the mixed Dongola/Sabean culture that lived on the Red Sea in
:> Africa and the Arabian penninsula.

: There is no 'waaaaaay' back then shit.  Even if it was, it clrealy shows in
: him.

Since you hate icky science, I will leave that part alone. 

:  He may be your hero, but he is a black man.  You don't have to like
: him if he is black, but those are the facts.  You would be hard-pressed not
: to find an arab without blackness in them in some way.

You are truly presumptuous to speak for a people you are not a part of 
and telling them what they are. That is the most rude, obnoxious, and 
insensitive thing I've seen in a while. No wonder Dominicans don't want to 
be "black", I dont' want to be either if they act like this. 

Fortunately, I know most of us don't. I will consider the attitudes you 
display here glaring exceptions, however emabrassing.
 
  I have also studied
: and learned that you would be hard-press not to find one without whiteness
: in them in some way.  Over 5,000 years of mixing is what you are looking at
: my man.  Just look at what has happened in the western hemisphere in only
: 500!

You haven't "studied" anything new, you haven't studied science, and
you've certainly not studied history.

:  That doesn't make him African or black,

: It may not make him African, but it does make him black.

No, I'm afraid that's you wanting him to be like you because maybe he 
looks like you. Wishing doesn't make it real. 

:> it makes him Saudi, or Middle Eastern.

: Those titles are voided because they can be anyone and look anny way.  It is
: only a nantionality, until they change the name of the country again.

Maybe on your planet, but some of us live on Earth. 

: I would not, and I am almost postive that he would.  I have yet to run into
: an Asia-Arab who has denied their African roots.  I have run into clearly or
: mainly black African-Arabs who have denied their African roots, and they
: come from Africa!

No one's denying African roots. Many would not use your racial categories, 
nor would they dismiss culture. I'm sorry, you can keep wishing they were 
your toys, but  you can't have them. 

: He may prefer the title of Saudi.  African-Americans don't prefer the title
: of black, but that is what we have been known by.  The racist white man is
: to blame.

Right, because he made all bad things, including many people of African 
descent in this country. By your definition, that make us bad too, because 
some of us happen to look more like him. 

:> That's a copout. A big one, and one that's untrue, I might add.
:>

: You know it to be true.  Prove me worng.

Go travel. Go ask. Go read. 

Then come back to me when you know something. 

: Black is no culutre (coming from a black man), it is a title forced upon us
: by the American white man so that we would not have any thought about where
: we came from.

So why are you using the title so freely if you hate it so much? 

:  Now it is to lump us all together regardless if we look white
: or not, for the purpose of racism, power, selfishness and tradition.

Yet you use it more readily than they do. Some of us don't like to keep 
drinking poison after we find out it's poison. If you wanna stay sick, 
cool, just don't hand me the glass...

:> Race is what people make of it,

: Somewhat, but the white man has made a lot of it.  His power has made those
: of you afrid to say that you have African blood in you. 

I'm not afraid to say I have African blood in me. I'm also not willing to 
spread it around and think I can use wherever I see a dark face. It's not 
my place to do it. Only people insecure about it WOULD think to do so. 

If we went by phenotypes with me, I'd likely be white. I dont' want to be, 
it's not who I am, and I would resent anyone telling me so. That's why 
what you are doing peeves me. It's not your right to pick for anyone, just 
as it wasn't right for whites to do it. You can't use the same tools and 
expect a more positive result. 

: It has made people
: who look more African than many Africans dent any trace of Africaness.

Some of them don't have any! You're assuming that certain colors and 
features are exclusive to Africans. They're not. There's not going to be 
some big uprising of the "African-looking" people of the world against the 
"European-looking" people of the world either, so stop.

: Right, but it does not mean that they are not black because of it.

Oh yeah, it does mean they're not, if they're not.  

: (my brother considers himself black,

: Your brother is strong.

My brother is my brother. He's currently unemployed, wish that would 
change. 

:  my
:> father, multiracial, because of their respective upbringings).

: Your father (no disrespect) is old.

My father is my father, and you would do well to respect him. He likes who 
he is, and I like who he is, just as I like my brother. The fact that you 
dismiss a man that has nothing against you just because he doesn't call 
himself what you call yourself shows what kind of person you are. I have 
no time for you. 

: We can't because we are always told that we are black and when someone is
: asked to describe us, they always say black.  Even if we look like a white
: person or a so-called hispanic.  When an Italian looks like a black person,
: people still think white because they know someone is Italian.  We cannot
: escape a white sumpremist mindset, yet.

I did escape far more than you. I don't want anything to do with you. I
don't want to think the way you do, and I don't want my children to think
the way you do.

A black racist is just as bad as a white one, IMO. I think I'll take my 
multiracial self and leave you alone. 

--
Pilar