I hope you don't mind me moving this to a new topic. The other was getting long and I didn't wish to continue it.

Horemheb wrote:

"Kem, let me try to address some of your points. By the way, I thought they were well stated. First, when I speak of 'stronger culture' I simply refer to power, nothing more, nothing less. Rome had 'superior power' in it's time much as the United States does today, much as the British did in the 19th century and the French in the 18th. Euro-America has producde more raw economic and military power in the last 500 years than has been seen in history. I'm sure you do not dispute that. I notice that it is not Cambodian or Kenyan troops in Iraq but American and British. That said, the economic power produced by these cultures has created an elobrate educational stucture. Fore the last 500 years this structure has produced some of the greatest minds in history in many area. One of these areas is history and all I contended is that these are, for the most part, dedicated men striving for the truth. They took us to the moon, they wilkl soon take us to Mars and they have acomplished many wonderous things. They are not 'white folks' promoting some racist view of history. It is simply the most absurd theory I have ever heard. The problem is that you hear it all to often from minorities and people from second and third world countries. I think they have motives that are psychological and political, not historical. Kem, there are many racists in the world and they are not all Euro-Americans."

I can appreciate your willingness to open discussion. If all you are searching for is the truth, like I am, I'll gladly engage you. I'm going to try to keep this as much in line with AE as possible, so I will not touch every point.

"Euro-America has producde more raw economic and military power in the last 500 years than has been seen in history."

This is a very complicated matter, that would take too much time to explore. I will just say that military victory is dependent on many factors, but the bottom line is that the winner gets to tell the story. The story is not always accurate however. Ramses II's claims of victory over the Hittites is not believed by many Egyptologists today, however I'm sure most AE's at the time believed the story.

"I notice that it is not Cambodian or Kenyan troops in Iraq but American and British."

In another forum I'd discuss this, but for now I'll just say that there are a number of reasons other countries are not in Iraq.

"One of these areas is history and all I contended is that these are, for the most part, dedicated men striving for the truth." ... "The problem is that you hear it all to often from minorities and people from second and third world countries. I think they have motives that are psychological and political, not historical."

We have been over this topic many times, so I ask first that you check the archives for more info because I don't wish to go into much depth.

The idea that AE's were not black is (relative to AE history) fairly recent. I'm sure by now you have heard of the accounts of ancient Greeks, who actually saw AE's. But even in more modern times, the idea still persisted. Around the mid 1780's, a Frenchman (at least I think he was French) named Count Constantin de Volney, visited Egypt and wrote about what he saw. You can find this in his text "Voyages en Syrie et en Egypte". He basically noted that the modern Egyptians (modern at that time) looked like black people who had mixed with Greeks and Romans over the years (mulatto) with their "bloated faces, puffed up eyes, flat nose and thick lips". He also noted that the Sphinx was "typically Negro in all its features". Note that at that time, the Sphinx possibly still had his nose as many 18th century artists drew the monument with a nose in tact:
http://touregypt.net/historicalessays/sphinxa5.htm

Still, even without the nose today, if you look at the monument from the side his high cheek bones and thick lips are still evident.

This idea of the Negro Egyptian didn't change until the mid 1800's when Champollion the Younger basiaclly re-wrote history. He argued that the black skin and wooly hair were not sufficient to mean Negro, and that Volney assessment was inadmissable. The rewriting of history had begun.

In the 1990's, Mary Lefkowitz would rewrite history even further by declaring that Herotudus' statement did not translate to "black skinned, wooly haired", but instead "brown skinned, curly haired". I guess that makes it easier to clasify AE's as Arab??? Today, you will find some texts on Herotodus that Lefkowitz's version, though some still have the "Black skinned, wooly haired" phrase. In Lefkowitz's defense, she does mention that

"Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54."
http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/Mary/contents.html

Why these did these things happen? I will leave that up to you to decide. But in the mid 1800's I'd have a hard time believed it was because of scientific advances. If you have time, I'd suggest checking out Cheikh Anta Diop's "The African Origin of Civilization" to see a side of the story you're not used to seeing.

quote:

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
Keino, sorry to take so long responding to your post. I found your comments very interesting to say the least. I understand what you fellows are saying about the victor writing the story and I agree with that. I teach a class on the 'American Civil War' and you can be sure that if the south had not been defeated in that war the history as taught in the south would have been vastly different from what it is today. No doubt the Communist regime in Russia distorted the history of the old Tsarist regime as well. We can well imagine what a history class would have been like in Nazi Germany has they won WW II. So I do agree that to some extent history is shaped by the victors.

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Horemheb, I too am sorry for taking forever to reply. You seem to be caught up on this, "victor-victim mentality" which still does not change the facts. No one is looking to play the victim or to hate on the victor. There has always been winners and losers and believe it or not black and brown peoples have been winners for a much longer time than Europeans. Now to my main point! The only way that ancient Egyptians became Caucasians is with the change in definition of that African, black, white, and Caucasian came into play to confuse. Brown/ black people with curly and kinky hair became Caucasian/white in regards to history, but when dealing with them in the living and real world they were and are treated like they were well- black/mulattoes. The terms black, African, white and Caucasian are now used in an illogical way as if it were a puzzle. The definition of white and Caucasian was greatly expended to many brown/black people as if it was an honour or privilege or token to superiority. With the whole world being feed nonsense that white is superior and black is inferior as well as with white/Caucasians (certain Caucasians, but whites as a whole) obtaining massive wealth, everyone started to buy the farce. With an entrenched global caste system set and monetary benefits why wouldn't people believe this notion? Because of our intelligence, we humans can be easily conditioned and the masses(majority) responded just how they were expected. If the black phenotype had set a caste system with blacks at the top and entrenched the world with this nonsense, then people would have reacted the exact same way but in high reguards to blackness. Now this is where your victor-victim thing truly comes into play- with the perception of black and white with inferior and superior respectively hence some people wanting the brand of being white. Hence it was easy now to throw in the "pure Negro" dogma because with the esteem of blackness being so low anyone with a hint of difference would want to associate with anything besides being black while hoping that they are viewed and TREATED as white.

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Time Will Tell!- Bob Marley