As early as casting announcements exodus: Gods and Kings has been a controversy magnet. Welsh and Australians actors playing Egyptian Kings rubbed certain people the wrong way. Various groups sprinted to the internet with hashtags like #boycottexodusmove and wacky memes. But wait-a-minute, everyone knows Egyptians are Arabs and everyone knows Arabs are white (never mind the fact that Arab is a poly-ethnic linguistic group that isn't race specific) so was the big deal? Is this just ethnic nitpicking? Well writer and editor David Dennis Jr. thought it was a big enough deal to write this in a post on Medium:
"But to make the main characters white and everyone else African is
cinematic colonialism. It’s creating a piece of historical 'art' that
carries on oppressive imagery that’s helped shackle entire countries and
corners of the world."
Joel Edgerton tried to quiet the flames when he admitted,
““I do say that I am sensitive to it and I do, I do understand and empathize with that position.”
Ridley Scott joined in to defend his casting choice by saying,
"Egypt was –- as it is now -– a confluence of cultures, as a result of
being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East and
Europe. We cast major actors
from different ethnicities to reflect this
diversity of culture, from Iranians to Spaniards to Arabs. There are
many different theories about the ethnicity of the Egyptian people, and
we had a lot of discussions about how to best represent the culture."
A few months later Ridley Scott added more fuel to the fire when he told Varity,
“I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax
rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from
such-and-such."
and
"I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”
Both of them admitting to (and defending the) strange casting while being careful to avoid the elephant in the room, being careful not to use those two words in a sentence: "black" and "Egyptian"
Along comes media mogul Rupert Murdoch weighing on the 20th Century Fox distributed movie. He took to twitter with a few of fascinating tweets:
Being a strait shooter Mr. Murdoch decided the
answer to this much debated question concerning the racial makeup of a people living some 5,000 years ago can be found in his
circle of friends today.
There is a refreshing honesty when he tweeted "they treated blacks as slaves" which is the kind of thing I have literally only heard said aloud by self-identified white supremacists but I suspect many people quietly believe.
Look, I understand his confusion, the types of Egyptians
Rupert would most likely be associating with are the wealthiest minority (White Arabs) who aren't the indigenous peoples that founded Egypt thousands of years ago.
I understand how he could unwittingly side with Charles
Gabriel Seligman who invented "brown
skinned whites" as a solution to the dilemma the white supremacist model faced. How can the Negro be both intellectually inferior sub-humans and build a great civilization that predates many of their own?
I understand this because it’s the predominate paradigm in pop culture. To even suggest something so wild: that this
African nation that shared linguistic, culturally ascetic, and religious ties
with its African neighbors could also share racial ties, sounds ludicrous to the
average American (or Australian in this case).
With that said he does ask a poignant question: “Since when are Egyptians not white?”
In any debate it's always good to have clear definitions lest one commit the fallacy of equivocation. Race
is not an ethnic group nor is it a biological category. Race is a
sociocultural grouping of human being based on their phenotypes (observable
physical characteristics) invented in the 17th century. The Phenotypes
commonly associated with the Black or Negro Race are dark skin, tightly
curled hair, full lips and round noses (although the Anhara and Tigria of Ethiopia and the Somalians for example are Black people with "aquiline" noses ).
Pictured: Old scientific racism classifications
With that said I tried to look to other less Internet famous quotes about Egypt’s racial
background to weigh in on this debate.
1. Aristotle (384- 322 B.C.E)
It turns out Ol' Aristotle had some choice words to describe his Egyptian contemporaries. Who is Aristotle you ask? Oh, just the guy who discovered logic.
"Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians
and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from
women, the complexion of courage is between the two."
-Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) (Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a)
"Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is
it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs
of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory;
for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were
crookedness of the hair."
-Aristotle on the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians
“the Egyptians and Ethiopians are very black.”
-Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Physiognomonica
Pfft. Arostotle. Who is that guy anyway? Right?
2. Herodotus (490-425 B.C.E)
Herodotus also known as the father of history had a few things to say about the the skin color and hair texture of the the Colchis, Ethiopians, and Egyptians.
"the people of Colchis must be
Egyptians because like them they are black-skinned and wooly-haired."
-Greek Historian Herodotus (History,
Book II.)
"[Egyptians] have the same tint of skin which
approaches that of the Ethiopians."
- Greek Historian Herodotus
What does the father of history know about history?
3. Lucian (125-180 AD)
Lucian was a Greek satirist and in the dialog quoted below he indirectly confirms
that ancient Egyptians had black skin.
Lycinus (describing a young
Egyptian): "This boy is not
merely black; he has thick lips
and his legs are too thin . . . his hair worn in a plait behind shows that he
is not a freeman."
Timolaus: "But that is a sign of really
distinguished birth in Egypt,
Lycinus, All freeborn children plait their hair until they reach manhood. It is
the exact opposite of the custom of our ancestors who thought it seemly for old
men to secure their hair with a gold brooch to keep it in place.
(Lucian, Navigium, paras 2-3)
-Greek writer, 125 B.C. Lucian
4. Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus Greek historian who traveled to Egypt around 60 BC belived
Ethiopian were the the originators of Egyptian civilization. He has some choice
quotes relating to Egypt and Ethiopia
"They (the Ethiopians) say also that the Egyptians are
colonists sent out by the Ethiopians"
and
"They further write that it
was among them that people were first taught to honor the gods and offer
sacrifices and arrange processions and festivals and perform other things by
which people honor the divine. For this reason their piety is famous among all
men, and the sacrifices among the Aithiopians (Ethiopians) are believed to be particularly
pleasing to the divinity,"
He goes on to say,
"There
are also numerous other Aithiopian tribes [i.e. besides those centered at
Meroe]; some live along both sides of the river Nile and on the islands in the
river, others dwell in the regions that border on Arabia [i.e. to the east],
others again have settled in the interior of Libya [i.e. to the west]. The
majority of these tribes, in particular those who live along the river, have
black skin, snub-nosed faces, and curly hair".
-Ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus
(Diodous Siculus, Bibliotheke, 3.
Translated by Tomas Hagg, in Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vol. II: From the
Mid-Fifth to the First Century BC (Bergen, Norway, 1996))
”5 From
these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language,
by their clans, in their nations.
6 The
sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush:
Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.”
-The Bible (Genesis 10:5-6) Speaking on the common linage between Cushites
(Ethopian) and Egyptians
Pfft the Bible. Not like it's inerrant or anything. And who wrote Genesis? Moses? What does he know about Egyptians?
6. Constantine de Volney 1783
Prior to Napoleon’s troops defacing the sphinx of Giza French nobleman Constantine de Volney commented:
"Just think, that this race of Black men, today our
slave and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts,
sciences, and even the use of speech! Just imagine, finally, that it is in the
midst of people who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and
humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery, and questioned
whether Black men have the same kind of intelligence as whites!”
and
"In other words the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes
of the same stock as all the autochthonous peoples of Africa and from the datum
one sees how their race, after some centuries of mixing with the blood of
Romans and Greeks, must have lost the full blackness of its original color but
retained the impress of its original mould."
- Constantine de Volney (French nobleman, philosopher,
historian, orientalist, and politician)
Pictured: Constantine de Volney drawing of the Giza Sphinx prior to it's defacement.
Not Pictured: The Giza Sphinx.
7. The Anzac troops (During the first World War)
Fellow Auzzies get in on the fun with this quote during Word War numero uno.
“My God, we didn't know the Egyptians were niggers!”
The Anzac troops (The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps)
Quotation attributed to their arrival in Egypt during the First World War
Pictured: The Anzac now knowing the Egyptians were niggers.
8. Sir E.A.Wallis Budge 1902
Sir Budge to the distaste of his colleges jotted:
"The prehistoric native of Egypt, both in the old and in the new Stone
Ages, was African and there is every reason for saying that the earliest
settlers came from the South."
"There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the
historic Egyptians that suggests that the original home of their prehistoric
ancestors was in a country in the neighborhood of Uganda and Punt."
- British scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge (1902. A History of Egypt from the End of the Neolithic Period to the Death of Cleopatra VII, B.C. 30: Egypt and her Asiatic Empire)
9.Thomas Legh (1812-1814)
Thomas Legh, member of the British Parliament visited Egypt
& Nubia in 1812-1814 and wrote:
"There has been considerable dispute about the colour of the ancient
Egyptians, some authors asserting that they were Negroes, while others maintain
that the present Copts are their descendants, and attempt to prove their
supposition by the appearance of mummies, which exhibit complexions of dusky
brown, lips occasionally thick, but the nose frequently aquiline. The opinion
that the former inhabitants of the country were Negroes
is founded chiefly on the expressions used by Herodotus, who calls them
'dark-coloured and woolly haired', and on the character of the head of the
Sphinx, which has the Negro features, and may be justly supposed to offer a
correct representation of the countenance of the Egyptians. On the other hand, with respect to the present Copts, it cannot be
denied, that the dark hue of their hair and eyes, the former of which is
frequently not more curled than is occasionally seen among Europeans, their
dusky brown complexions and aquiline noses, all correspond pretty exactly with
the paintings to be found in the tombs of Thebes. It
is remarkable, however, that the inhabitants of the island of Elephantine (i.e.
at the border of Nubia) are nearly black. But notwithstanding their colour,
the females of Elephantine are conspicuous for their elegant shapes, and are,
upon the whole, the finest women we saw in Upper Egypt."
- English traveller Thomas Legh, member of the British
Parliament
10. Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Ethnographic Mural)
The Egyptians also had input on how they looked. Below is a "quote" of a hieroglyph called an ethnographic mural. You can see they pictured themselves on the darker end of the spectrum with brown-skin, Afros, and African style braids. While being lighter than the jet black Nubians their murals show Ancient Egyptians to be much darker than light-skinned neighbors from Libya and Palestine
Pictured: Egyptian ethnographic murals. Egyptians (bottom left)
Pictured: Mural with picture of corresponding people group.
It's also good to mention that Kemet (the actual name the Egyptian called their nation) means Black land.
11. Cheikh Anta Diop 1974
This historian,
anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins
and pre-colonial African culture had this to say,
"By the time Alexander the Great was sweeping the
civilized world with conquest after conquest from Chaeronia to Gaza, from
Babylon to Cabul; by the time the first Aryan conquerors were learning the
rudiments of war and government at the feet of the philosopher Aristotle; and
by the time Athens was laying down the foundations of European civilization,
the earliest and greatest Ethiopian culture had already flourished and
dominated the civilized world for over four centuries and a half. Imperial
Ethiopia had conquered Egypt and founded the XXVth Dynasty, and for a century
and a half the central seat of civilization in the known world was held by the
ancestors of the modern Negro, maintaining and defending it against the
Assyrian and Persian Empires of the East.”
-Cheikh Anta Diop Egyptian Historian
12. Mostafa Hefny
Now Mostafa isn't from antiquity and he isn't a historian per se but he is an Egyptian. A Egyptian man who because Currently, in the United States anyone, irregardless of their phenotypes, who is indigenous to North Africa, is classified as white. He says:
“I have been awarded, inadvertently, the negative effects of
being black such as racial profiling, stereotypes and disenfranchisement due to
my Negroid features. However, the legal demand of my racial classification of
‘white’ prevents me from receiving benefits established for black people, “
-Mostafa Hefny an Modern Egyptian immigrant Source: You can http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/07/egyptian-immigrant-wants-to-be-reclassified-as-black/
“We don’t have Egyptians of European decent in Egypt. We
have a population a mixture of Ancient Egyptian blacks who intermarried with
Arabs right after the Arab conquest. The ancient Egyptian population was brown
and black before the Arab conquest. Before the Arab conquest came the Greeks.
The Greeks came in 300 B.C. and they started to intermarry with the local
population and then the Romans came and ruled from 70 B.C. until they were
conquered by the Arabs and kicked out by the Arabs in the 7th century. These
people intermarried with Egyptian Copts and made the pigmantaion much lighter
because of this intermarriage.”
Pictured: Mostafa Hefny, Egyptian, and clearly a white man.
13. DNA
Okay this one isn't a quote but... DNA! Back in December of 2012 the results of DNA testing showed
that the mummies of Pharaoh Rameses III and his son belonged to human Y chromosome
group E1b1a. This is the Y chromosome group of Sub Saharan Africans who speak
Niger–Congo languages.
"Results indicated the autosomal STR profiles of the Amarna period mummies were most frequent in modern populations in several parts of Africa. These results are based on the 8 STR markers for which these pharaonic mummies have been tested, which allow a preliminary geographical analysis for theseindividuals who lived in Egypt during the Amarna period of the 14th century BCE."
In summary
And don't get me started on this woman playing Moses' Ethiopian wife!
Well I guess the answer according to ancient historians, Egyptian hieroglyphs, 18th, 19th, early 20th century
historians, contemporary historians, modern Egyptians, The Bible, DNA evidence,
and even some racist fellow Australians who actually went outside of the
predominantly Semitic Arab Cairo is... since forever.
Good luck with your movie Mr. Scott and Mr. Murdoch but between the white supremacist undertones and the anti-Christian overtones (see: Moses schizophrenic and God as Petulant Child) I'm sitting this one out. I don't understand what the demographic you guys were shooting for here... the atheist white supremacist crowd?
P.S. Looks like Hollywood is really unapologetic about this whiteEgyptian thing: God's of Eygpt coming to a theater near you February 26th 2016
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