Kevin Hart and Afrocentrism: Why Some Want His Show Cancelled in Egypt by AvatarMariam Nowar
Earlier this week, American comedian Kevin Hart announced he is scheduled to perform in Egypt on the 21st of February, 2023, during his Reality Check tour.
Mixed reactions swept through the country due to his alleged Afrocentric views, with people demanding that Kevin Hart’s show in Egypt get canceled using the viral hashtag #CancelKevinHartShow on social media. Kevin Hart’s views on the link between ancient Egyptians and Black culture emerged during an episode of ABC’s Shark Tank, where the founders of Black Sands Entertainment pitched an idea of turning their comic books into an animated series and requested a $500,000 investment.
Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
Tazarah
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Very funny and also very telling how there were no issues when this movie came out...
But they want to "cancel" Kevin Hart, even though his depictions are actually accurate.
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There are Black Egyptian with some having obviously,for a lack of a better word a Negro/negroid phenotype.
Mohamed Ramadan,Big Ramy and Ali Abdelaziz.
One of his followers then chimed in with a pretty disgusting comment about how regrettable it is that Ali’s skin tone resembles his father, saying, “He’s black like his father, it’s a shame that none of his kids took any of their mother’s look or her skin tone."
It didn’t take long for Ramadan to respond saying that he is proud of his skin color and that he will raise his children to be against racism, “I am proud of my color, and the color of my father and children, God created us this way. I am also happy that my children are being raised with parents that have different skin colors, so they can grow up to know that racism is wrong.”
The mostly white cast came under scrutiny as soon as shooting started in 2014. “And so, the time-honored tradition of Hollywood whitewashing continues,” Australian writer Ruby Hamad wrote at the time.
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I'm confused? The article isn't written by Ruby Hamad and I haven't heard of this lady until now. I'm not sure what you are getting at?
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quote:Originally posted by Thereal: I'm confused? The article isn't written by Ruby Hamad and I haven't heard of this lady until now. I'm not sure what you are getting at?
she's mentioned in that CNN article talking about the casting of Gods of Egypt. She had written an article called "All lead actors in The Gods of Egypt will be white". but I haven't been able to find it
her background:
quote:https://www.rubyhamad.com/about Ruby Hamad is an author and academic with a journalism background. She is in the second half of a PhD in media studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Her best-selling debut book WHITE TEARS/BROWN SCARS traces the role that White Womanhood and feminism have played in the development of Western power structures. The non-fiction book was inspired by her viral 2018 essay 'How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour', which was published in Guardian Australia and became a global flashpoint for discussions of race and gender.
Ruby spent five years as a columnist for Fairfax media's flagship feminist portal Daily Life. Her columns, analysis, literary reviews and essays have also featured in Australian publications The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, Crikey and Eureka St, and internationally in The Guardian, Prospect Magazine, The New York Times, and Gen Medium.
The movie did have Chadwick Boseman as Thoth, the God of Wisdom but the lead actors where "white" and others
If we look at these two situations, the one now with Kevin Hart and this other one from 2016, Gods of Egypt, the interpretation of the whole thing is complex. At this point I am just showing some references to commentary in the media on both, not trying to make a particular point. This thing with Kevin Hart seems to be coming out of the Egyptian media, you'll see several articles if you google, not as many in U.S. media yet but that could be coming. There are several youtube commentary videos, mainly supportive of Hart but I'm not sure what's going on in Arabic. The Youssef Othman one is in Arabic on Twitter
on this poster
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus
Gerard Butler as Set
Élodie Yung as Hathor . Directed by Alexander Proyas Australian filmmaker of Greek descent. Proyas is best known for directing the films The Crow (1994), Dark City (1998), I, Robot (2004), Knowing (2009), and Gods of Egypt (2016).
. Élodie Yung (as Hathor in Gods of Egypt)
Her father is Cambodian and her mother is French (who would have been able to guess that?) .
.
for comparison: Ruby Hamad, Lebanese-Syrian journalist, Australian national
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who is more likely to have an ancestor who lived in ancient Egypt?
I don't know, you can't tell by looking and there is not much known about either of their backgrounds
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When Egyptians make their own films about ancient Egypt the result can be a film like The Emigrant which is discussed in this thread
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Tukuler
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Women of Egypt Mag An Advocacy Movement to Empower the Women of Egypt
JANUARY 20, 2021 Colorism Within Egypt | Susan Emam January 19, 2021 By: Susan Emam
Photo by Henar Sherif and Adel Essam – O-art-studio (No Color Project) “…Skin colour will continue to serve as the most obvious criterion in determining how a person will be evaluated and judged.”
This was written by Lori L. Tharps in her book titled, “Same Family Different Colors”. While this book is centred around confronting Colorism within the United States, this same intersection between skin tone and privilege is applicable to modern Egyptian society.
Colorism was first coined by feminist writer Alice Walker to describe the global systemic bias towards those with Afrocentric features. It is a colonial ideology that was imposed upon indigenous communities by European settlers and has unfortunately persisted into modern day society. This bias exists on both an unconscious and conscious level and serves to privilege those with Eurocentric features (lighter skin, straight hair, thinner lips and narrow nose) while disadvantaging those with Afrocentric features (darker skin, curly hair, fuller lips and broad nose).
The pressure to fit into this unrealistic Eurocentric mold is disproportionately felt by women that are low income. This intersection between class and gender is integral when understanding why people may have these views about themselves and others. It is important to lead compassionately when engaging in Colorism discourse and approach this topic through a lens of healing rather than condemnation and shame.
In my personal experience, I was often on the receiving end of comments that made me uncomfortable, and made me confront my privilege as a light-skinned woman with straight hair in Egyptian society. When I tried to discuss Colorism with my Egyptian family and friends, it was often dismissed or it was considered something that was the norm. It became clear to me that there was an accepted distinction between Egyptians with light skin and those that had dark skin.
Ironically, few fit this Eurocentric mold. While there is great diversity amongst Egyptian people, the majority tend to have darker skin tones and curly hair textures. Those with features that are Afrocentric leaning can expect to be looked upon unfavourably by society at large—from family members, teachers and future employers. In this way, it can inhibit access to opportunities.
The late Egyptian Filmmaker Nada Zatouna described her experience as a Nubian woman living in Cairo in the docuseries, “Words from the Egyptian Revolution”. She highlighted her experience growing up in Cairo where she was often asked if she was from Sudan or another neighbouring country. Even though it is well known that people in the upper Egyptian region are known to have darker skin and curlier hair textures, she was constantly placed in a position where she had to justify her Egyptian heritage.
Women rights activist Entesar al-Saeid has attributed the root of these biases to the Egyptian media. Within the entertainment industry, light-skinned actors with coloured eyes and straight hair dominate cinema. The predominant narrative is that light-skinned characters are intelligent, beautiful and deserving of love and opportunities. Dark-skinned characters with Afrocentric features are portrayed as illiterate, domestic workers and overall as less deserving. The 2019 black-face scandal with Shimaa Seif in the prank show titled Shaklabaz exemplifies how topical this issue remains. In an offensive depiction of a Sudanese woman, Shimaa painted her skin dark and was seen attempting to steal phones while drinking alcohol on a microbus.
Shimaa Seif in Shaklabaz portraying a Sudanese woman The unattainable Eurocentric ideal has been capitalized by corporations in the form of skin-lightening products. They are marketed in the form of creams, pills and injections that are designed to slow the production of melanin. These toxic chemicals are marketed to consumers through the harmful narrative that having lighter skin will provide greater access to life opportunities. Within the last year, Egyptian women have also begun taking toxic chlorine baths to achieve their desired skin tone. These practices have extremely serious side effects that can lead to irreversible health complications. While many countries have banned skin-lighting products and practices, Egypt has failed to do the same.
The diversity of Egyptians is beautiful and it is something that should be embraced rather than shamed. Though the colonial imposition of colorist ideology runs very deeply within Egyptian society, I believe it can be unlearned.
If you are someone that has previously or currently engaged in these behaviours towards yourself or others, recognize that the first step is always awareness. We all suffer from varying degrees of unconsciousness, and it is important to approach yourself with compassion and understanding. What is learned can be unlearned, and a cycle of perpetuating damaging narratives can be broken.
If you are a beneficiary from this system like I am, the most important thing to do is listen. Listen to people of color speak about their experiences. Educate and inform yourself on how you are afforded privilege and opportunities in society. Use your privilege to allow people of colour, or those that have a darker complexion than you, to have the space to speak. Most importantly: remain critical of your position in society, of advertising and media. Empower yourself and others to resist believing in colonial narratives, and embrace the beauty in the diversity that Egypt has to offer.
Susan Emam is a first generation Egyptian Canadian. She is in her second year of law school at the University of Alberta and will complete her Juris Doctorate by 2022.
One comment Reem JANUARY 20, 2021 AT 5:19 PM Well said! As someone who experienced colorism, thank you for this
Tukuler
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Racism in the Middle East: The Arab films and TV that promote hatred Joseph Fahim argues that Black representation is negligible at best in Middle East mainstream culture, from movies to social media
Throughout its history, Arab entertainment has marginalised and lampooned Africans (screengrabs) By Joseph Fahim Published date: 25 June 2020 10:07 UTC | Last update: 2 years 5 months
In September 2005, nearly 2,500 Black Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt began protesting at their destitute conditions. Men, women and children started to camp at the park in Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmoud Square, part of the middle-class neighbourhood of Mohandessin.
Marginalised by the authorities, their demands were simple: give them refugee rights; or let them be resettled in a different country. They were ignored, so refused to leave the space.
Bullet in the Heart film An anonymous Nubian extra plays the role of a bar tender in A Bullet in the Heart (Rosasa fi al-kalb) from 1944 (screengrab) On 30 December, the police violently waded in to clear the square. By the end of the raid, according to official reports, at least 20 unarmed Sudanese citizens had been murdered, including women and children. Other reports put the number at three times that or even higher. The massacre was largely overlooked by the Egyptian media and the public and quickly forgotten.
One week later, I was walking down a street in the affluent Cairo neighbourhood of Hadayek El Qubba, which housed a school for Sudanese refugees. Several teenagers were leaving at the end of the day. Then, a group of young Egyptians ganged up on them, before singling out one kid who was smaller than the rest. They separated him from the rest of the group and started circling him as they embarked on a tirade of racist mockery.
There was one word that the Egyptian hooligans kept calling him: “Othmana”, a feminine derivative of “Othman” and a name used in a racist context for several decades thanks to Egyptian cinema.
How racist caricatures are born These incidents came to mind in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests and condemnation worldwide, including across the Middle East and North Africa.
How groups in society perceive each other is framed by different factors, including upbringing and learned experience. Another is the influence of media and entertainment. There was an irony, then, in how some sections of Egyptian society tried to show solidarity, especially online, with Black Americans and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
" June 2020: Black youths in Tunis protest against the death of George Floyd (AFP) That’s because no other ethnicity has been belittled and ridiculed in Arab entertainment, which is dominated by the Egyptian industry as the region’s most populous nation, as much as Africans, from Arab-language films of the 1930s to Hollywood blockbusters in the present day.
Before Sudanese refugees arrived in Egypt after the country’s civil wars, Egypt’s Black population was chiefly comprised of Nubians from northern Sudan and southern Egypt, who had long resided on the banks of the upper Nile. They were estimated to constitute around three percent of the country’s population by 2015.
From the early days of Egyptian cinema during the 1930s, Nubians were cast in subordinate roles, such as servants or concierges, who were either invisible or else there to be mocked at; meek, resourceless people, with little intelligence, little talent, little agency.
As Viola Shafik wrote in Arab Cinema: History & Cultural Identity in 1998: “The two Nubian languages have not been used in a single film. Even visually the Nubian minority has been misrepresented.” For decades, any Black male character was always known as “Othman,” a cast extra whose sole function was to cheer on the lighter-skinned protagonists.
"El-Kassar positioned this black character within the Egyptian national family,” writes Alon Tam, at the University of Pennsylvania, “even pitching him as an all-Egyptian figure. At the same time, he undermined this position by marking Othman's skin colour and accent as inferior, and by associating him with other ‘foreign’-Egyptians.”
A rare exception was the widely popular character of Othman Abdel-Basset, the brainchild of comedian Ali El-Kassar (1887-1957), from 1935 until 1944. El-Kassar himself was not Nubian: born in Cairo, he mingled with the city’s Nubian community before he invented a racial caricature, complete with cracked accent, coy body language and reserved demeanour.
Othman Abdel-Basset became the most well-known Black character in Egyptian pop culture, giving Nubians a spectrum of emotions rare to the Arab screen. It was one of the very few - if only – instances of a Nubian character taking centre stage in mainstream Egyptian film.
To El-Kassar’s credit, he strived to create a working-class hero, ascribing him jobs - such as pie-seller or government employee - that differed from the usual servant-concierge ghetto. And there’s undeniably great humanity and playfulness in the character.
But Abdel-Basset still suffered from the cliches that have addled Black characterisation since, shaping how many Egyptians have perceived Africans for decades to come.
By the 1960s, when Nubians had been displaced in the wake of dam construction, first under the British protectorate and then the Egyptian government, Black characters were still relegated to the periphery of the screen. Blatant racist mockery had intensified and become the norm.
Even to be perceived as dark-skinned could stall a career. Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) became one of the most popular stars of his generation - but in his early days, producers were reluctant to cast him, most notably in the classic adaptation of El Karnak (1975), despite being backed by director Ali Badrakhan. The role eventually went to the lighter-skinned Nour El-Sherif.
Nour El-Sherif (left) replaced the darker-skinned Ahmed Zaki in the 1975 film El Karnak (screengrab) The examples continue into the 21st century. In the 2001 feature Africano, directed by Amr Arafa and starring Ahmed El-Sakka and Mona Zaki, one character shouts: "Is there a power cut in there or something?" as a group of Africans enter a nightclub.
“Your night is as black as your face,” the titular protagonist of Muhammad al-Najjar’s 2005 comedy, Ali Spicy, tells an escort hired by his uncle. “If you turn off the lights, nobody would see her.”
According to a study by the Border Center for Support and Consulting, 51 Egyptian films between 2007 and 2016 featured stereotypical depictions of Africans.
Racism in the digital age Casual racism is not just restricted to cinema: with the explosion of TV and then digital platforms, so it has also spread to smaller screens.
In the 2018 comedy Azmi We Ashgan, Africans are depicted as uncivilised servants who practice sorcery (there’s also a very liberal use of the n-word).
In 2019, the prank show Shaklabaz (above), depicted TV comedian Shaimaa Seif wearing blackface to play an uncouth Sudanese woman on a congested minibus
And Egyptian actor Maged El Masry told an anecdote during a talk show about being set up with a group of African girls whom he instantly kicked out of his car.
But such racism is not restricted to Egypt.
In Tunisia and Morocco, it's rare that you will see Black TV anchors or presenters: not only does this fail to reflect the countries' ethnic composition, it also stops younger Africans from trying to enter the profession. There is also Nasser al-Qasabi, playing the primitive simpleton in the Saudi Arabian sitcom No Big Deal (Tash ma tash). The Kuwaiti series The Block of Jokes (Block Ghashmara) also had one episode where its two leads donned blackface, playing a pair of gregarious, uncivilised desert dwellers.
Indeed, it is blackface that is the most glaring example of racism in MENA entertainment. One might expect the younger generation in MENA to reject such archaisms, as practised by legendary action star Farid Shawky in the period drama Antara Ibn Shaddad (1961).
Two examples of blackface in pop videos by Egyptian singer Boshra (left) and the Lebanese star Myriam Fares (screengrabs). Not so: it has simply been repurposed for the 21st century. In the last few years, blackface has surfaced in the music videos of Egyptian singer Boshra and the Lebanese star Myriam Fares. Online, there was a resurgence in recent weeks as Blackfacing Arab actors and singers took to social media and mistook fetishisation and cultural appropriation for solidarity: culprits included Tania Saleh, Moroccan actor Mariam Hussein, and Algerian actor and singer Souhila Ben Lachhab.
In January 2020, Black Algerian Khadija Ben Hamou was subjected to racist abuse online when she was crowned Miss Algeria. One commentator wrote that he initially thought “she was a man” and that her face “is hideous".
In 2020, in Arab entertainment, Blackness is still presented as something that is ugly and dangerous, or else hip, cool and to be crassly appropriated. In this respect, parallels can be drawn with the West’s attitude towards the Middle East, which historically encompasses both orientalism and reductivity, such as the Hollywood terrorist bad guy.
Black “characters”, if you can call them as such, are not even fleshed out: beside the historic servants-concierge-style roles, Black characters are now reduced to hysterically tall dudes (usually Sudanese), as in the 1988 Egyptian play Alabanda; or hip and cool US-inspired rappers. Seldom does a Black character, even in blackface, have a role that lasts more than a few minutes.
Change in arthouse cinema? One bright spot in this reprehensible chapter of modern Arab cultural history is a slow but increasing public awareness of racism.
El Masry was forced to make a public apology amid a social media outcry and the show was suspended by the Higher Council of Media. There were also no instances of Blackfacing or racial mockery of Africans during this year’s Ramadan TV season.
Capernaum Rahil, as played by Eritrean refugee Yordanos Shiferaw, in the Oscar-nominated drama Capernaum (Mooz Films) And in wider society, incidents of bullying and abuse of Africans across the region have resulted in the arrests of their preparators. Tunisia, for example, set a regional precedent in 2018 by criminalising racism.
There are notable attempts at Black characterisation, such as Rahil in Nadine Labaki’s 2018 Oscar-nominated drama Capernaum (2018), an illegal immigrant worker, as played by Eritrean refugee Yordanos Shiferaw.
The recent rise of Sudanese cinema is encouraging, including Marwa Zein’s Khartoum Offside (Oufsaiyed Elkhortoum), Amjad Abu Alala’s You’ll Die At Twenty and Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees, winner of the best documentary award at Berlin in 2019. A new generation of African Arabs have the confidence and expertise to finally tell their stories.
But such gains are limited. The role of Rahil failed to deviate from the often-arthouse perception of Africans as the long-suffering exotic stranger. The Sudanese wave, while artistically strong, is confined to the niche, limited art-house circuit (it’s also worth noting that too many serious-minded and independent MENA films fail to integrate Africans in their stories).
" Sudanese drama You’ll Die At Twenty has won prizes at international film festivals (Andolfi/Pyramide International) For a tangible shift in perceptions and attitudes to occur, African film-making needs to be integrated into the mainstream, with more Black agency in front and behind the camera.
For nearly a century, Africans have been Arab cinema’s disposable extras, be they invisible, blackface objects of ridicule, primitive shamans or exotic American rappers.
No representation means no acknowledgment of existence. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government continues to confiscate the last of the little remaining land of the country’s Nubians who are still demanding the right of return.
The role of slavery In 2006, one year after the Mustafa Mahmoud incident, I chaired a public film discussion. The subject of discrimination against Egypt’s Sudanese community arose and I couldn’t help but mention the massacre as an example of racism.
The discourse did not go well: half of the audience said that the “lazy” Sudanese had it “coming to them” for “polluting” public property, and also that the government did not have the economic means to support them. The other half claimed that the number of deaths was lower than reported. Everyone there denied that the Sudanese suffered from any form of discrimination in Egypt.
And this, for me, surmises the issue at the heart of the Arab world’s anti-Black racism: self-righteousness. In Egypt and elsewhere, we fail to confront our hatred and bigotry, our ignorance and condescension.
The persistence of Black marginalisation in Arab entertainment is a byproduct of governments’ reluctance to acknowledge the discriminatory measures that have been adopted against Africans for centuries.
The 1866 engraving Slavers Revenging Their Losses shows men, women, and children, led by Arab slavers (creative commons) The history of African slavery in the Middle East and North Africa is less well known than that perpetuated by Europe and the United States, but it has a longer history, dating as far back as the 8th century. Some writers estimate that 17m East Africans were enslaved and taken to the Gulf as well as what are now modern-day Morocco and Egypt
The trade was still thriving during the 19th century. In Oman, slavery was only abolished in 1970; it was only criminalised in Mauritania and Western Sahara in 2007 and 2010 respectively.
Endemic racism was the foundation of the trade, which used human life as mere economic chattel. By indulging in blackface, the Arab entertainment industry perpetuates such prejudices.
We may cast a critical eye on America for its centuries-long systemic racism - but we also need to start looking at the mess in our own backyard first of all.
The views expressed in this opinion article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer. He is the Arab delegate of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, a former member of Berlin Critics' Week and the ex director of programming of the Cairo International Film Festival. He co-authored various books on Arab cinema and has contributed to numerous outlets in the Middle East, including Middle East Institute, Al Monitor, Al Jazeera, Egypt Independent and The National (UAE), along with international film publications such as Verite. To date, his writings have been published in five different languages.
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: Racism in the Middle East: The Arab films and TV that promote hatred Joseph Fahim argues that Black representation is negligible at best in Middle East mainstream culture, from movies to social media
Throughout its history, Arab entertainment has marginalised and lampooned Africans (screengrabs) By Joseph Fahim Published date: 25 June 2020 10:07 UTC | Last update: 2 years 5 months
In September 2005, nearly 2,500 Black Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt began protesting at their destitute conditions. Men, women and children started to camp at the park in Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmoud Square, part of the middle-class neighbourhood of Mohandessin.
Marginalised by the authorities, their demands were simple: give them refugee rights; or let them be resettled in a different country. They were ignored, so refused to leave the space.
Bullet in the Heart film An anonymous Nubian extra plays the role of a bar tender in A Bullet in the Heart (Rosasa fi al-kalb) from 1944 (screengrab) On 30 December, the police violently waded in to clear the square. By the end of the raid, according to official reports, at least 20 unarmed Sudanese citizens had been murdered, including women and children. Other reports put the number at three times that or even higher. The massacre was largely overlooked by the Egyptian media and the public and quickly forgotten.
One week later, I was walking down a street in the affluent Cairo neighbourhood of Hadayek El Qubba, which housed a school for Sudanese refugees. Several teenagers were leaving at the end of the day. Then, a group of young Egyptians ganged up on them, before singling out one kid who was smaller than the rest. They separated him from the rest of the group and started circling him as they embarked on a tirade of racist mockery.
There was one word that the Egyptian hooligans kept calling him: “Othmana”, a feminine derivative of “Othman” and a name used in a racist context for several decades thanks to Egyptian cinema.
How racist caricatures are born These incidents came to mind in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests and condemnation worldwide, including across the Middle East and North Africa.
How groups in society perceive each other is framed by different factors, including upbringing and learned experience. Another is the influence of media and entertainment. There was an irony, then, in how some sections of Egyptian society tried to show solidarity, especially online, with Black Americans and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
" June 2020: Black youths in Tunis protest against the death of George Floyd (AFP) That’s because no other ethnicity has been belittled and ridiculed in Arab entertainment, which is dominated by the Egyptian industry as the region’s most populous nation, as much as Africans, from Arab-language films of the 1930s to Hollywood blockbusters in the present day.
Before Sudanese refugees arrived in Egypt after the country’s civil wars, Egypt’s Black population was chiefly comprised of Nubians from northern Sudan and southern Egypt, who had long resided on the banks of the upper Nile. They were estimated to constitute around three percent of the country’s population by 2015.
From the early days of Egyptian cinema during the 1930s, Nubians were cast in subordinate roles, such as servants or concierges, who were either invisible or else there to be mocked at; meek, resourceless people, with little intelligence, little talent, little agency.
As Viola Shafik wrote in Arab Cinema: History & Cultural Identity in 1998: “The two Nubian languages have not been used in a single film. Even visually the Nubian minority has been misrepresented.” For decades, any Black male character was always known as “Othman,” a cast extra whose sole function was to cheer on the lighter-skinned protagonists.
"El-Kassar positioned this black character within the Egyptian national family,” writes Alon Tam, at the University of Pennsylvania, “even pitching him as an all-Egyptian figure. At the same time, he undermined this position by marking Othman's skin colour and accent as inferior, and by associating him with other ‘foreign’-Egyptians.”
A rare exception was the widely popular character of Othman Abdel-Basset, the brainchild of comedian Ali El-Kassar (1887-1957), from 1935 until 1944. El-Kassar himself was not Nubian: born in Cairo, he mingled with the city’s Nubian community before he invented a racial caricature, complete with cracked accent, coy body language and reserved demeanour.
Othman Abdel-Basset became the most well-known Black character in Egyptian pop culture, giving Nubians a spectrum of emotions rare to the Arab screen. It was one of the very few - if only – instances of a Nubian character taking centre stage in mainstream Egyptian film.
To El-Kassar’s credit, he strived to create a working-class hero, ascribing him jobs - such as pie-seller or government employee - that differed from the usual servant-concierge ghetto. And there’s undeniably great humanity and playfulness in the character.
But Abdel-Basset still suffered from the cliches that have addled Black characterisation since, shaping how many Egyptians have perceived Africans for decades to come.
By the 1960s, when Nubians had been displaced in the wake of dam construction, first under the British protectorate and then the Egyptian government, Black characters were still relegated to the periphery of the screen. Blatant racist mockery had intensified and become the norm.
Even to be perceived as dark-skinned could stall a career. Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) became one of the most popular stars of his generation - but in his early days, producers were reluctant to cast him, most notably in the classic adaptation of El Karnak (1975), despite being backed by director Ali Badrakhan. The role eventually went to the lighter-skinned Nour El-Sherif.
Nour El-Sherif (left) replaced the darker-skinned Ahmed Zaki in the 1975 film El Karnak (screengrab) The examples continue into the 21st century. In the 2001 feature Africano, directed by Amr Arafa and starring Ahmed El-Sakka and Mona Zaki, one character shouts: "Is there a power cut in there or something?" as a group of Africans enter a nightclub.
“Your night is as black as your face,” the titular protagonist of Muhammad al-Najjar’s 2005 comedy, Ali Spicy, tells an escort hired by his uncle. “If you turn off the lights, nobody would see her.”
According to a study by the Border Center for Support and Consulting, 51 Egyptian films between 2007 and 2016 featured stereotypical depictions of Africans.
Racism in the digital age Casual racism is not just restricted to cinema: with the explosion of TV and then digital platforms, so it has also spread to smaller screens.
In the 2018 comedy Azmi We Ashgan, Africans are depicted as uncivilised servants who practice sorcery (there’s also a very liberal use of the n-word).
In 2019, the prank show Shaklabaz (above), depicted TV comedian Shaimaa Seif wearing blackface to play an uncouth Sudanese woman on a congested minibus
And Egyptian actor Maged El Masry told an anecdote during a talk show about being set up with a group of African girls whom he instantly kicked out of his car.
But such racism is not restricted to Egypt.
In Tunisia and Morocco, it's rare that you will see Black TV anchors or presenters: not only does this fail to reflect the countries' ethnic composition, it also stops younger Africans from trying to enter the profession. There is also Nasser al-Qasabi, playing the primitive simpleton in the Saudi Arabian sitcom No Big Deal (Tash ma tash). The Kuwaiti series The Block of Jokes (Block Ghashmara) also had one episode where its two leads donned blackface, playing a pair of gregarious, uncivilised desert dwellers.
Indeed, it is blackface that is the most glaring example of racism in MENA entertainment. One might expect the younger generation in MENA to reject such archaisms, as practised by legendary action star Farid Shawky in the period drama Antara Ibn Shaddad (1961).
Two examples of blackface in pop videos by Egyptian singer Boshra (left) and the Lebanese star Myriam Fares (screengrabs). Not so: it has simply been repurposed for the 21st century. In the last few years, blackface has surfaced in the music videos of Egyptian singer Boshra and the Lebanese star Myriam Fares. Online, there was a resurgence in recent weeks as Blackfacing Arab actors and singers took to social media and mistook fetishisation and cultural appropriation for solidarity: culprits included Tania Saleh, Moroccan actor Mariam Hussein, and Algerian actor and singer Souhila Ben Lachhab.
In January 2020, Black Algerian Khadija Ben Hamou was subjected to racist abuse online when she was crowned Miss Algeria. One commentator wrote that he initially thought “she was a man” and that her face “is hideous".
In 2020, in Arab entertainment, Blackness is still presented as something that is ugly and dangerous, or else hip, cool and to be crassly appropriated. In this respect, parallels can be drawn with the West’s attitude towards the Middle East, which historically encompasses both orientalism and reductivity, such as the Hollywood terrorist bad guy.
Black “characters”, if you can call them as such, are not even fleshed out: beside the historic servants-concierge-style roles, Black characters are now reduced to hysterically tall dudes (usually Sudanese), as in the 1988 Egyptian play Alabanda; or hip and cool US-inspired rappers. Seldom does a Black character, even in blackface, have a role that lasts more than a few minutes.
Change in arthouse cinema? One bright spot in this reprehensible chapter of modern Arab cultural history is a slow but increasing public awareness of racism.
El Masry was forced to make a public apology amid a social media outcry and the show was suspended by the Higher Council of Media. There were also no instances of Blackfacing or racial mockery of Africans during this year’s Ramadan TV season.
Capernaum Rahil, as played by Eritrean refugee Yordanos Shiferaw, in the Oscar-nominated drama Capernaum (Mooz Films) And in wider society, incidents of bullying and abuse of Africans across the region have resulted in the arrests of their preparators. Tunisia, for example, set a regional precedent in 2018 by criminalising racism.
There are notable attempts at Black characterisation, such as Rahil in Nadine Labaki’s 2018 Oscar-nominated drama Capernaum (2018), an illegal immigrant worker, as played by Eritrean refugee Yordanos Shiferaw.
The recent rise of Sudanese cinema is encouraging, including Marwa Zein’s Khartoum Offside (Oufsaiyed Elkhortoum), Amjad Abu Alala’s You’ll Die At Twenty and Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees, winner of the best documentary award at Berlin in 2019. A new generation of African Arabs have the confidence and expertise to finally tell their stories.
But such gains are limited. The role of Rahil failed to deviate from the often-arthouse perception of Africans as the long-suffering exotic stranger. The Sudanese wave, while artistically strong, is confined to the niche, limited art-house circuit (it’s also worth noting that too many serious-minded and independent MENA films fail to integrate Africans in their stories).
" Sudanese drama You’ll Die At Twenty has won prizes at international film festivals (Andolfi/Pyramide International) For a tangible shift in perceptions and attitudes to occur, African film-making needs to be integrated into the mainstream, with more Black agency in front and behind the camera.
For nearly a century, Africans have been Arab cinema’s disposable extras, be they invisible, blackface objects of ridicule, primitive shamans or exotic American rappers.
No representation means no acknowledgment of existence. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government continues to confiscate the last of the little remaining land of the country’s Nubians who are still demanding the right of return.
The role of slavery In 2006, one year after the Mustafa Mahmoud incident, I chaired a public film discussion. The subject of discrimination against Egypt’s Sudanese community arose and I couldn’t help but mention the massacre as an example of racism.
The discourse did not go well: half of the audience said that the “lazy” Sudanese had it “coming to them” for “polluting” public property, and also that the government did not have the economic means to support them. The other half claimed that the number of deaths was lower than reported. Everyone there denied that the Sudanese suffered from any form of discrimination in Egypt.
And this, for me, surmises the issue at the heart of the Arab world’s anti-Black racism: self-righteousness. In Egypt and elsewhere, we fail to confront our hatred and bigotry, our ignorance and condescension.
The persistence of Black marginalisation in Arab entertainment is a byproduct of governments’ reluctance to acknowledge the discriminatory measures that have been adopted against Africans for centuries.
The 1866 engraving Slavers Revenging Their Losses shows men, women, and children, led by Arab slavers (creative commons) The history of African slavery in the Middle East and North Africa is less well known than that perpetuated by Europe and the United States, but it has a longer history, dating as far back as the 8th century. Some writers estimate that 17m East Africans were enslaved and taken to the Gulf as well as what are now modern-day Morocco and Egypt
The trade was still thriving during the 19th century. In Oman, slavery was only abolished in 1970; it was only criminalised in Mauritania and Western Sahara in 2007 and 2010 respectively.
Endemic racism was the foundation of the trade, which used human life as mere economic chattel. By indulging in blackface, the Arab entertainment industry perpetuates such prejudices.
We may cast a critical eye on America for its centuries-long systemic racism - but we also need to start looking at the mess in our own backyard first of all.
The views expressed in this opinion article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer. He is the Arab delegate of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, a former member of Berlin Critics' Week and the ex director of programming of the Cairo International Film Festival. He co-authored various books on Arab cinema and has contributed to numerous outlets in the Middle East, including Middle East Institute, Al Monitor, Al Jazeera, Egypt Independent and The National (UAE), along with international film publications such as Verite. To date, his writings have been published in five different languages.
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
US Protests 'Blackface' Arab stars spark backlash over tasteless solidarity with US protests
Racism Arabs for Black Lives urges community to do its part against racism
Racism Black Muslim activist calls on community to do more against racism
I guess you've seen Chinese, Korean, Japanese, & Dutch blatant blackface I tv shows, movies, & Christmas celebrations. A few years ago Spaniards mocked Lewis Hamilton the mixed ethnicities UK race car driver by wearing Afro wigs with blackface during the the race.Arabs don't have a monopoly on blackface neurosis/psychosis syndrome.
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Speaking of Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, they too sometimes get mocked in European films, commercials and as stereotyped images on products like candy.
China stereotype on candy
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2683 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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A somewhat better reflexion was in the Marvel series Moon Knight, pertaining the overall population. Well, at least they had Saffron Hocking and Layla Abdallah El-Faouly as a main character.
But still… they aren't trying hard enough to give us the images closer to what the ancient KMTians left behind. Which would reflect the people still living in the region of the Nile Delta region.
Neither of them: Kevin Hearth or Youssef Othman, show an accurate reflexion of these ancient people.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
who is more likely to have an ancestor who lived in ancient Egypt?
I don't know, you can't tell by looking and there is not much known about either of their backgrounds
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: Racism in the Middle East: The Arab films and TV that promote hatred Joseph Fahim argues that Black representation is negligible at best in Middle East mainstream culture, from movies to social media
[…]
Throughout its history, Arab entertainment has marginalised and lampooned Africans (screengrabs) By Joseph Fahim Published date: 25 June 2020 10:07 UTC | Last update: 2 years 5 months
In September 2005, nearly 2,500 Black Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt began protesting at their destitute conditions. Men, women and children started to camp at the park in Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmoud Square, part of the middle-class neighbourhood of Mohandessin.
Racism Arabs for Black Lives urges community to do its part against racism
Racism Black Muslim activist calls on community to do more against racism
posted
About ancient Egypt in films, in The Mummy Returns the Scorpion King is portraid by Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), and his soldiers also look not too white. In a later movie called The Scorpion King they for some reason changed the ethnicity of King Scorpion and made him an Akkadian mercenary instead.
King scorpion and his soldiers in The Mummy Returns
posted
Wikipedia has a list of films set in ancient Egypt. I notice it is not complete. Where is for example The Mummy from 1959, with Christopher Lee?
quote:Originally posted by Tazarah: Very funny and also very telling how there were no issues when this movie came out...
But they want to "cancel" Kevin Hart, even though his depictions are actually accurate.
Would have to agree in part- re the hypocrisy. If the leading actors look "too black" various Egyptian whiners are up in arms, as if black people somehow were never in or don't "belong" to Egypt, even as the hypocrites can see painting after painting of dark-skinned indigenous people in their own books and on their own monuments or tomb walls. They did the same hissy fit back in the 1980s when Lou Gosset portrayed Anwar Sadat. Gossett had no "afrocentric" agenda - he was a popular, bankable American actor who just happened to bear some resemblance to Sadat, but no! The sky was falling! Some of these hypocrites are among those still insisting that the Egyptian ass-kicking in the 1973 War was because "American pilots" wuz "secretly" flying for the Israelis and other such BS..
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Archeopteryx: When Egyptians make their own films about ancient Egypt the result can be a film like The Emigrant which is discussed in this thread
FYI. Egypt is run by the Afrangi (foreign descent) elite of not only Arab but Turkish, Circassian, Mamluk etc. ancestry. Hence, the overwhelming majority of Egyptians on film or TV are NOT Baladi (indigenous) and thus reflect as much reality on the Baladi people as Bollywood movies in India reflect common (dark or black) Indians.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^^ This film actually got problems, but not because of "racial" issues but because of religious causes since it showed biblical figures, which is not allowed in Islam. The director had to change the names of some of the films protagonists and he also removed the supernatural and miraculous elements.
So far as I found this is one of very few Egyptian movies about ancient Egypt (if not the only one?).
Even if it is no exact reconstruction of ancient Egyptian demography it is still interesting to see how ancient Egypt is depicted in Egypt itself and not by Americans, Italians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Japanese and others.
Yas Island is a man-made island once part of mainland Abu Dhabi (capital of UAE) and, as part of the idea behind the Formula 1 proposal, a strip of land was dredged – what is now the canal.
The area is intended – and already is – as a multi-purpose entertainment, leisure, and retail project, all of which has been built by ALDAR.
The Grand Prix circuit opened in 2009, with the first Formula 1 race taking place the same year. Since then, the attractions and facilities have kept on coming.
Kevin Hart is hiring Yas Island’s next ambassador, to be paid $100,000
posted
If one goes strictly after skin color the people in the French animated film La Reine Soleil (The Sun Queen) do not stray very far from the color of many ancient Egyptian artworks, i e they are rather brown. I do not know if it avoke some protests in Egypt when it was shown in Cairo in 2007. It seems many appreciated it.
quote: A prestigious premiere took place in Cairo on 13 March with a highly majestic setting: the Pyramids of Giza. More than 1,200 viewers applauded the film.
posted
^ That French animated movie was discussed in this forum when it first came out and I recall that the producers and art directors based their designs on actual ancient artwork from the Amarna period.
Does that make the (white) French makers of the film 'Afrocentric'? Better yet, were the ancient Egyptian artists from Amarna also 'Afrocentric' for depicting their rulers they way they did??
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^ ^ Seems that the French film also got some criticism, but not for being Afrocentric but for some historical mistakes. But it was no documentary, more a fantasy so one can maybe not expect total realism. I have not read Christian Jacqs book so I do not know how realistic it is.
Seems that Egyptians reacted harder on Kevin Hart and Black Sands maybe because they are African Americans. Or maybe the zeitgeist has changed somewhat in 15 years.
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Seems that the French are not afraid of making animated films set in Africa with dark skin protagonists. And it also seems that those films are successful. At least La Reine Soleil and Kirikou seems to have been well received.
Has anyone known Ethiopians to get miffed at Rastafarian interest in their country? Ethiopia isn't where most of the ancestors of Black Jamaicans came from. However, while there undeniably are Horn Africans who look down on their "True Negro" brethren, I've yet to see a large number of Ethiopians complain about Jamaican Rastafarians "appropriating" their national and cultural heritage. Why is that?
why is it when it comes to egypt people have a hard time claiming them as Black. Look at that man he is reddish brown egypt is in control of people who are not his color.
African Americans have a reddish brown skin tone that is Rich skinned brown. That is not what Arabs have nor the countries of nort African.
Its safe to say Ancient Egypt is Black African stop being stubborn and stupid about color its clear they are not white and they do not have a light brown color to there name. Ancient Egypt is Black African
Posts: 9651 | From: Reace and Love City. | Registered: Oct 2005
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why is it when it comes to egypt people have a hard time claiming them as Black. Look at that man he is reddish brown egypt is in control of people who are not his color.
African Americans have a reddish brown skin tone that is Rich skinned brown. That is not what Arabs have nor the countries of nort African.
Its safe to say Ancient Egypt is Black African stop being stubborn and stupid about color its clear they are not white and they do not have a light brown color to there name. Ancient Egypt is Black African
There are people with a dark brown reddish undertone in North Africa, its just that they don't get as much "shine". All if not most attention goes to Arabic looking types in Northeast Africa.
This is what the complexion and facial trait is of the average Egyptian woman (also know as caramel complexioned).
why is it when it comes to egypt people have a hard time claiming them as Black. Look at that man he is reddish brown egypt is in control of people who are not his color.
African Americans have a reddish brown skin tone that is Rich skinned brown. That is not what Arabs have nor the countries of nort African.
Its safe to say Ancient Egypt is Black African stop being stubborn and stupid about color its clear they are not white and they do not have a light brown color to there name. Ancient Egypt is Black African
Black Sands doesn't use the reddish brown color
this color is not common in America although a chocolate brown is used some of the Egyptian art also
Manuel Godoy, CEO of Black Sands interviews his partner and co-founder Teunis de Raat, Head of Studio
Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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this color is not common in America although a chocolate brown is used some of the Egyptian art also
The caramel complexioned would be considered this reddish brown skin tone.
quote:"What is caramel skin tone? Caramel complexion is a rich shade that is described as warm, golden, and buttery, or cinnamon brown. It is the mid-point of dark and light skin tones. The caramel complexion is rich in a range of greenish-yellow, golden and red undertones"
quote:Originally posted by Ish Geber: The caramel complexioned would be considered this reddish brown skin tone.
quote:"What is caramel skin tone? Caramel complexion is a rich shade that is described as warm, golden, and buttery, or cinnamon brown. It is the mid-point of dark and light skin tones. The caramel complexion is rich in a range of greenish-yellow, golden and red undertones"
these are the examples of caramel skin from your link above
Tomb of Nakht, an Egyptian official, scribe and astronomer of Amun, probably during the reign of Thutmose IV 18th dynasty
Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Originally posted by Ish Geber: The caramel complexioned would be considered this reddish brown skin tone.
quote:"What is caramel skin tone? Caramel complexion is a rich shade that is described as warm, golden, and buttery, or cinnamon brown. It is the mid-point of dark and light skin tones. The caramel complexion is rich in a range of greenish-yellow, golden and red undertones"
Trotter and Gleser's (Trotter and Gleser: Am J Phys Anthropol 10 (1952) 469–514; Trotter and Gleser: Am J Phys Anthropol 16 (1958) 79–123) long bone formulae for US Blacks or derivations thereof (Robins and Shute: Hum Evol 1 (1986) 313–324) have been previously used to estimate the stature of ancient Egyptians. However, limb length to stature proportions differ between human populations; consequently, the most accurate mathematical stature estimates will be obtained when the population being examined is as similar as possible in proportions to the population used to create the equations. The purpose of this study was to create new stature regression formulae based on direct reconstructions of stature in ancient Egyptians and assess their accuracy in comparison to other stature estimation methods. We also compare Egyptian body proportions to those of modern American Blacks and Whites. Living stature estimates were derived using a revised Fully anatomical method (Raxter et al.: Am J Phys Anthropol 130 (2006) 374–384). Long bone stature regression equations were then derived for each sex. Our results confirm that, although ancient Egyptians are closer in body proportion to modern American Blacks than they are to American Whites, proportions in Blacks and Egyptians are not identical. The newly generated Egyptian-based stature regression formulae have standard errors of estimate of 1.9–4.2 cm. All mean directional differences are less than 0.4% compared to anatomically estimated stature, while results using previous formulae are more variable, with mean directional biases varying between 0.2% and 1.1%, tibial and radial estimates being the most biased. There is no evidence for significant variation in proportions among temporal or social groupings; thus, the new formulae may be broadly applicable to ancient Egyptian remains.
(Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, Am J Phys Anthropol, 2008, Stature estimation;anatomical method;regression formulae; Egyptians)
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I hadn't followed up on Kevin Hart's show planned for Cairo, the thread started in late December 2022 but I just checked and
(about feb 20, 2023)
"R Productions
It is with a heavy heart that we share with you, due to local logistical issues, the cancellation of our Kevin Hart event scheduled for February 21st, in Cairo. You have always shown us continuous support in all our events and for that we’re grateful. In the meantime, we are asking for your patience as we work with the TicketsMarché team to make sure that all the refunds are met in the shortest time possible.
It is our dream to create the best experiences for all of our clients and ensure that Egypt is placed on the international map at the highest possible standards. We will continue to work towards that dream every day.
Again, thank you for your continuous support and understanding.”
Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
If he said this he was not just saying he considers ancient Egyptians to be black he was saying that they are the ancestors of African Americans
There are indeed some Black Americans who make these false claims.
The ancient Egypts can be described as a group of Black people and that is another debate that Eurocentrism has tried to corrupt.
If we look where this started we can understand how we ended up in this cycle. Black academics in Americans responded to the white academic claims of owning ancient Egypt as a white caucasian civilization. And things like this only helped to muddy the waters even more: "Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods".
quote: “Some groups (using cemeteries E-01-2, E-03-1, E-03-2, and E-09-4) show some affiliation with sub-Saharan Africans, readable in the pottery assemblage and other grave goods, as well as some morphological features
quote:"Many of the sites reveal evidence of important interactions between Nilotic and Saharan groups during the formative phases of the Egyptian Predynastic Period (e.g. Wadi el-Hôl, Rayayna, Nuq’ Menih, Kurkur Oasis). Other sites preserve important information regarding the use of the desert routes during the Protodynastic and Pharaonic Periods, particularly during periods of political and military turmoil in the Nile Valley (e.g. Gebel Tjauti, Wadi el-Hôl)."
Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
^^^ note, despite the title, the video was first posted in 2010
Had they (the goverment) paid out reparations, a lot to mental health issues could have been avoided.
To be honest, when I was in Egypt people expected my to be from there and to visit family. I have seen looking like Pharrell Williams, Evander Holyfield etc.
When I looked at the murals and statues I saw these local Egyptians in them. These local people did identify as Black up to the point it started to annoy some whites who traveled along during that trip.
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
Seems some people are so fixated with Egypt while not talking so much about West Africa and Central Africa where most of the ancestors of todays African Americans came from. Seems it is more exciting to talk about ancient Egypt since it is a more "spectacular" and well known civilisation.
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2683 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: [QB] [QUOTE]
Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
ALBAWABA - for the first time ever, Kevin Hart will be adding a stop in Cairo for his upcoming tour ''Reality Check'' tour.
The comedian and actor will be performing at Cairo Stadium hall 1 on Feb. 21, 2023.
Hart took to his Twitter account to announce his itinerary to his fans: ''So excited to announce I’ll be coming to Cairo, Egypt in 2023 for the first time ever! Tickets go on sale Monday, Dec. 12 at 12 pm!''
But Egyptians don't seem too pleased about the event, as social media users started a hashtag demanding Hart's event to be canceled.
The hashtag started after the star's previous statements about the origins of the king of ancient Egypt, which some described as a "racist statement" to Egyptian history.
At the time, Hart said: ''We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
lioness, I'm not sure if she is an employee of Al-Dustour or just recommending people write there (?) but her twitter description her says in Arabic: "Write a weekly critical article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dustour "
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wiki: Al-Dostor (also Al-Dostour and Al-Dustour) (Arabic: الدستور, lit. 'The Constitution', Egyptian Arabic: [eldosˈtuːr, edːosˈtuːr]), is an independent Daily Egyptian opposition newspaper. Al Dustour was first published in December 1995[2][3] and is published weekly in Arabic. At the time of Mubarak's departure (February 2011), Al-Dostour was the fifth largest daily newspaper in Egypt, with a daily edition selling 45,000 and weekly edition selling 85,000 copies.
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However the tweet and the 42 comments (some by the original poster) the alleged Kevin hart quote is not mentioned
I searched on twitter also generally for that quote, it has a unique phrase in it "cemented by education in America." I don't see any history of that phrase on the internet or twitter prior to the Al Bawaba article >
(allegedly Kevin Hart):
“We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
^^ I can't imagine Kevin Hart phrasing the whole statement like this even if he might agree with it. It doesn't sound like the way he would word it to me.
this is the author of the Al Bawaba article where as far as I know the quote first appeared but the article does not give a source for it. The question is where did she get it from?
quote: Al Bawaba Managing Editor - Entertainment Alexandra Abumuhor Alex Abumuhor is a Design student at the German Jordanian University who is a celebrity fanatic wholly and fully. She can think of no better job than to interview celebs, making sure everyone is up to date with everything that's happening. She loves supporting local businesses, sheltering animals and making people happy.
Hart had allegedly said in an interview: “We must teach our children the true history of black Africans when they were kings in Egypt, and not just the era of slavery that is cemented by education in America. Do you remember the time when we were kings?”
It is not clear, however, when and where Hart made these comments.
If he said this he was not just saying he considers ancient Egyptians to be black he was saying that they are the ancestors of African Americans
There are indeed some Black Americans who make these false claims.
The ancient Egypts can be described as a group of Black people and that is another debate that Eurocentrism has tried to corrupt.
If we look where this started we can understand how we ended up in this cycle. Black academics in Americans responded to the white academic claims of owning ancient Egypt as a white caucasian civilization. And things like this only helped to muddy the waters even more: "Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods".
I think you could make the argument that the term “Ancestors” in certain contexts is more analogous to Forebears/Forefathers than it is to literal ancestors. I’d maybe even argue it kinda has to work like this for any sense of ethnic (and by extension racial) identity to really work; at least in a non-endogamous society. Otherwise we’re all just groups of different families/lineages who live in the same area and speak the same language. Obviously that’s enough for the social and linguistic aspects of ethnicity, but doesn’t satisfy the relatedness aspect of it; because if your ancestors aren’t my ancestors then we aren’t really “related”. Our relationship would be strictly social or geographical with this interpretation.
Now, to me the most obvious caveat with this logic is that, in any given region members of an ethnic group will have ancestors in common, so this never really works in the real world; but given the fact that this is true for our entire species, i don’t think this really invalidates the reasoning. “Relatedness” in many respects is measurable, but hard boundaries will always be arbitrary, at least in regards to human ethno-cultural groupings.
AfrAm to AE is certainly near the extreme at the extreme end of the spectrum but still - if AE’s are black, then “they” would necessarily have to be counted among the ancestors, i.e. forebears, of all [modern] black people. Otherwise, what’s the point of propping up “Blackness” as a meaningful concept at all. We know that given the diversity of “Black” African peoples, the idea that we’re all one group is ridiculous in the first place.
{As an side, i know you’re probably referring to people who would try to claim direct descendance from Egypt, with nothing else in between. I genuinely do not believe most people hold that position. Just as I don’t believe something like “We are the original people” means that folks literally think that they themselves are 300,000 or whatever years old, and are actually the first humans in existence}
Case in point, if an AfrAm were to say that Harriet Tubman was their ancestor, most people probably wouldn’t bat an eye. Problem is, as far as i know, she didn’t have any [biological] children. So by virtue of the fact that she doesn’t have any direct descendants, it’s infinitely more likely that an AfrAm has an AE ancestor than it is that Harriet their ancestor, in a literal sense. That AfrAm and Harriet may have a common ancestor before either of them has an AE ancestor, but she cannot be that AfrAm’s ancestor.
To your last point: For my money, a Sengalese man is the most influential (or at the very least most recognizable) African-centered Egyptologist to date. AfrAms might be the most visible, and i’d probably even give you that AfrAms are the main culprits, bur “Black academics in America” aren’t the only ones who play/played a part in this.
-------------------- "One dog ain't enough, and two is too low" - Three Dog
quote:Originally posted by Breadlum: AfrAm to AE is certainly near the extreme at the extreme end of the spectrum but still - if AE’s are black, then “they” would necessarily have to be counted among the ancestors, i.e. forebears, of all [modern] black people. Otherwise, what’s the point of propping up “Blackness” as a meaningful concept at all.
FWIW, if we are to count all the darker-skinned people in Upper Egypt today as "Black people", then they would certainly qualify as a Black people who are descended from the ancient Egyptians.
Also, I doubt the people who get upset about African-Americans claiming AE as among the "ancestors" would feel the same if those same African-Americans were talking about, say, the Zulu or Maasai, even though I doubt a significant chunk of African-American ancestry comes from either of those ethnic groups. It seems that a perception that AE weren't "Black" plays a big role in that.
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