I am watching a show on the History Channel about Cleopatra. As the experts discuss what she may have looked like, one professor at Howard University talked about how her students kept asking, “Was she black?”
The assumption I’ve heard many times is that someone from Africa must be black, or negroid. I’ve heard this said about Moses, Jesus, and now Cleopatra. I’m no expert, but I’ve read several times in historical texts that negroid people in Africa were often called “Ethiopians” so as to distinguish them from “Mediterranean” cultures.
My issue with this is “so what?” The proper response is “Because it is our heritage, and heritage is important.”
Alex Haley wrote an excellent book on his family’s history. I enjoyed the television mini-series. Roots was a great story. But it was also a story of people trying to improve themselves, and leave the past behind except as a memory.
What my father or grandfather did and experienced has nothing to do with how I conduct myself. Their experiences affect me only in how there is a direct link. There is something to the logic that if my father beat me, I might be prone to beat my kids. But that would be my decision, not his. I might be just as likely to not hit them in memory of the beatings I endured. And things my great grandfather did have no effect on me. In fact, his mother was Apache, and I have no urge to wander the desert naked.
During Black History Month, this kind of speculation is common. I can’t understand its relevance. Is it the sense of “Look how great blacks have been in the past”? If so, isn’t that self-defeating? It is the same as saying “Look how far we’ve fallen.” Swahili is the language of southeastern Africa, not the western areas where Africans were taken as slaves. How does that fit “heritage” except that people of the same skin color spoke it?
Skin color means nothing. I wrote about this on Dr. King’s birthday. I still believe what he had to say:
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Will blacks in this country ever believe that whites have adopted King’s view?
i can’t wait to see the articles that describe Kerry’s wife as an african-american.
Comment by rammer — February 21, 2004 @ 7:23 am