Moors were Black

And by the way Moors were Berbers and Arabs and Syrian Muslims thus white, though not as white as Iberians and Visigoths which called them Moors for their darker skin

Originally posted by jfsndvs ...African is African.

Originally posted by Reginmund No, it is a geographical term. It denotes Africans from the south of Sahara.

No, it's a racist term created by racist Europeans.  We can go back and forth with this if you like.

Originally posted by Reginmund Yes, and considerably so. It separates northern Africa from southern Africa like the Mediterranean separates North Africa from southern Europe. Neither make up an insurmountable obstacle, but they have both divided their northern and southern peoples culturally as well as ethnically.

Wrong.  Berbers are culturally and ethnically related to other Western, Northern, and Eastern Africans.  Their language and cultures are similar to Chadic groups in West Africa, Nilotic groups in the Sudan, along with Somalians and Ethiopians in East Africa.

Originally posted by Reginmund Yeah, it does. It means they looked like *gasp* North Africans.

I agree. They looked like Africans.

Originally posted by jfsndvs No, it's a racist term created by racist Europeans.  We can go back and forth with this if you like.

If it makes you feel better we can call it "Africa south of Sahara", although the meaning is exactly the same.

Originally posted by jfsndvs I agree. They looked like Africans.

That's too unspecific. African is not an ethnicity, Africa is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world. North Africans look radically different from Africans south of the Sahara, and they looked just as different 1300 years ago. Evolution takes much, much longer than that.

Originally posted by Reginmund That's too unspecific. African is not an ethnicity, Africa is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world.

And sub-saharan is not too unspecific?  The Dinka do not look like the Xhosa; the Wolof do not look like San people; the Yoruba do not look like Somalis; etc.  Why separate North Africa from the rest?  Is European or Caucasian an ethnic group; Slavs and Germanic Europeans are considered Caucasian, but different ethnicities.

Originally posted by Reginmund North Africans look radically different from Africans south of the Sahara, and they looked just as different 1300 years ago. Evolution takes much, much longer than that.

I'm tired going back and forth with this.  Show me proof of what they looked like 1,300 years ago. 

Throughout the planet, there is no place where people look radically different from their neighbors.  There is a continuous sweep of changing features throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia.  The people on the south-eastern border of Russia do not look radically different from the people of northern China.  Go to Africa today, you will not see radical differences.
You have the inferiority complex.  For some reason Europeans feel a need to steal African civilizations and claim African peoples.  These people were always in Africa. 

Read Ancient Greek accounts of the peoples of northern Africa; look at their depictions of northern Africans.  Some were light; some were dark; all were African, unless they came from elsewhere like the Carthaginians.  Skin color is virtually meaningless when trying to describe a people.

Europeans have an aversion to dark skin for some reason.  What is so wrong with the people of northern Africa having dark skin?  Whether their skin was dark or light, they were Africans, culturally, ethnically, and linguistically.  They are not Caucasian.  You people have Greece and Rome; celebrate that.

Originally posted by Reginmund Think about what a grave insult this is to the civilizations of "Africa south of the Sahara".

I claim all African peoples and civilizations for Africa.  Africans have created greatness throughout the entire continent. 

Civilization was developing in Africa before the Sahara desert existed.  Cultural links were created that did not exist for the Africans who left the continent tens of thousands of years before (i.e. Europeans and Asians).  The peoples of western Africa, the Sahara, northern Africa, and north-eastern Africa congregated around the rivers and lakes that existed in the Sahara until it dried up about 4,000 b.c.  The ones who remained in the Sahara were called the Garamantes, ancestors of modern berbers.

Originally posted by pinguin Friend, the Nile is a little bit off from Morocco. If you see a map you will notice that the Maghreb is pretty close to Italy, France and Iberia. In fact, a lot closer that Egypt or the Sahara.

You claimed North Africans were special in regard to the rest of Africa.  Well, the ancient Egyptians were North Africans.  The same degree of distinctions traversed the entire continent.  My argument is that there is no need to use sub-saharan as a descriptive term.

Originally posted by pinguin You better ask Phoenicians rather than Greeks, though, because they knew better; Phoenicians settled the Western Mediterranean both in the European side and the Maghreb.

The Greeks settled in Spain and Libya.  I can't ask the Phoenicians because there are no records.  We do have Greek accounts though.

Originally posted by pinguin That's enough! You are a very ignorant man, I am afraid.

Everyone is ignorant of something.  I'm not willingly ignorant though.  If you have information, then show me.  There's no need for the name calling.

Originally posted by pinguin How come you believe Spaniards were analphabets by Muslim invasion!!! Never hear of Seneca! Never heared about Hispania, the jewel of the Roman Empire?

This was centuries prior to the invasion.  The Visigoths took over Spain, and they were illiterate.  I said at the time of the invasion the Spaniards were illiterate.

Originally posted by pinguin Spain was never analphabet at the Middle Ages, sir! Even Visigoths knew how to write and quite well.

These are minor points.  The major point is that they never described the invaders.  If the Visigoths could write, good for them.  You said that they said that the invaders were not dark-skinned.  Prove it.

Originally posted by pinguin The analphabets were the Malians!

 

Originally posted by pinguin No one denies the influence of the Maghreb in Spain. However, even in Muslim times, the influence of Arabia, Syria and even Persia was a lot stronger in Spain than the Moroccan.

Okay, but there was some African influences.

Here is the Moor's head of Corsica, it's the island's emblem:

Bro,I gave you the Egyptian Picture so you can get it from an ancient and solid African source yourself.

I suppose that these were the ones closest to the Egyptians, but berbers existed throughout northern Africa, western Africa, and the Sahara.

You just said it yourself ,would say the Egyptians aren't black they Libyans the hue color in the  hieroglyphs are way different from the hue ancient Egyptians paint themselves.

What's your point?  From what I know they called themselves Imazighen (free people).  The Greeks labeled them Mauros, meaning "black."

So hold ,you mean to tell you guys were an Empire who let the Greeks coin you a name. What is the Moor name in Moorish? LOL


WTF!? The emperors of Mali and Songhai were known throughout the Muslim world, and some were known in Europe (Mansa Musa for one).  They were not vassals to anyone.  These were the most powerful empires in western Africa in their time, and the wealth of the emperors was legendary.  Both empires constantly subjugated and fought off attacks by berbers, including Tuaregs.  I don't know if you're making stuff up or were miseducated about African history (I think the latter).

Are you lacking brain cells,If a foreigner comes into my country ,sets up his own mosques,indoctrinates me with his reilgion, and takes slaves its a weak So Called Empire period.Thats were they went wrong.Your telling me they picked up Islam out of the thin air.

You can assure me all you want.  Hell, if you were a berber yourself, you could assure me.  But it don't mean nothing unless you prove it.

Check this out bro,give me the exact historical name of this so called Moorish Empire or give me the name for this  Empire of the Moors that your so sure of. And please don't come with any Fabricated Noble Drew Ali semantics either.

Originally posted by Suren

Yea there only two things that can survive after mass verbal destruction
One bites the cheese
The other scatter with his buddies when the lights come on.

Originally posted by jfsndvs African is African.  Sub-saharan is a racist European creation.

everything that complicates your africa = black vs white view of the world is racist, can you see the irony with your logic?

 Sub Saharan Africa is a valid term, so is the horn of africa, southern africa, eastern europe, scandanvia, southern asia etc

Originally posted by jfsndvs No one can know what the people who invaded Spain looked like.  Just because most were from North Africa does not mean that they looked a certain way.

wrong we have a good idea, and if they come from North Africa logic would suggest they look like North Africans.

read a bit of Berber Ibn Battuta writings and tell me he doesnt talk of his african brothers in Mali as different from himself.

Originally posted by jfsndvs Caucasian denotes people who came from the Caucus Mountains.  Any attempt to describe the people of North Africa (prior to Arab conquest) or North-East Africa as Caucasoid is racist, as it was meant to be in the 19th century.  Unless you can prove that they came into Africa from somewhere else, they are African.

african but not the same as someone from Congo. any attempt by you top try and make Berbers into something they are not is equally racist. berber are Caucasoid, its a apt general descirption on how they look. Its is not a term of origin or ethnicity.

Originally posted by jfsndvs Moorish Spain was not an Arab civilization.  Moors were, and are, African, and the culture of Moorish Spain was a mixture of African, Arab, Spanish Christians and Jews, and possibly Persian.  It was cosmopolitan.

  what is 'African culture' is it a culture from Africa (like berber) which sounds correct or something else like when you say Arab culture which is not geograhic based. would a bantu speaker recognise elements with the Berbers that a european would not for instance?

Originally posted by Leonidas everything that complicates your africa = black vs white view of the world is racist, can you see the irony with your logic?

Edited by jfsndvs - 14-Feb-2009 at 08:20