Noway Near White; Shoe Salesman: Columbus, Ohio
While looking through the comments to one of my recent posts, I came
across this response to a much earlier piece I wrote about turd-in-a-beret
Che Guevara:
on Thursday, January 12th, All the people hoe is abused by US goverment
said
You DICK!!!, I've read your coment on Che Guevara. And it is stupid as
only it can be. Che Guevara died defending the freedom of all the contries
in the world. Asshole you need to read more!!. Get into the story of your
country, remember Vietnam, did your president fight for something with a
point?? or it was just like the war against Irak for money and the
resourses of that country?. Does your president defend something at all??.
Fucker, you really need to read something, anything at all. I don't give
you my mail direction because I'm not interested in keeping a discussion
with somebody who just talk sensless shit that goes by his mind and
doesn't know anything about anything. I found your page by mistake, and
it sucks. is pointless. Go fuck yourselfe.
"Irak"? Ok, All the people hoe is abused by US government (if that is
your real name), now you've gone and done it: you've and made Mrs.
Mussalito cry.
While I'm certain that All the people hoe is abused by US government's
comment is a joke, it does serve as a reminder that that Liberals are
capable of holding just as many crazy beliefs as any backwoods
snake-handling Fundie. Occasionally, the Left is complicit in allowing
crazy beliefs to propagate by remaining silent.
A few years back a car advertisement which featured a voice-over shooting
down several long-held, popular historic myths graced American television
sets. Voice-over: "Myth: Cleopatra was Egyptian. Truth: She was Greek."
The ad ran in its original form for a few weeks and then, suddenly, it
was altered to remove the bit about Cleopatra. Why? Because some folks
complained that Cleopatra was of African descent.
Call me Kreskin, but I know that you're thinking "WTPFMH(ellenistic)V???
Everybody knows that Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty,
therefore (igitur) she was the descendent of Ptolemy, a Macedonian Greek
who was one of Alexander the Great's generals. Look, look at this! It's my
lucky Cleopatra coin! 
What, you thought that ring in my wallet was caused by a condom? She sure
looks Mediterranean to me. What kind of idiot would argue differently? I
demand answers!"
Wow, that was exhausting. Next time I do the Kreskin thing, I think I'll
just bend a spoon or something. Anyhoo, you demanded answers and it's my
job to provide 'em. All hands on deck, Sea Org members, here we go!
Welcome to the weird and wild world of Afrocentrism, a collection of ideas
easily as wacky as the chupacabra, geocentrism, and… well anything you
might read here. And one which would be equally as laughable if it was not
taken seriously some academics.
Afrocentrism made its first blip on the Bizarre-O-Meter with the
publication of George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy in 1954, but it
really didn't do a cannonball of the ladder od crazy into the pool of
fuckobazzoo until the release of Martin Bernal's Black Athena. Both
books claim, among other things, that the ancient Greeks stole Western
Culture form the Egyptians (who were, of course, darker than Wesley Snipes
after a week of starring in Othello Visits a Coalmine).
You know what? I think, instead of history lesson, it my be easier to
provide you, all the people hoe is abused by US government, with one of
my popular Mini-Debunking Kits.
1. Aristotle stole his ideas from the works of Black Egyptians which
were stored at the library at Alexandria. No. How do we know he didn't?
Well, there's the fact that library at Alexandria wasn't built until after
Aristotle's death, for one…
2. The Greek and Roman Mystery Religions were based on an earlier
Egyptian belief system. Wrong. This origin of the theory that the
Greeks and Romans swiped many of their rituals from the Egyptians comes
mainly from an eighteenth century work of fiction called Sethos,
a History or Biography, based on Unpublished Memoirs of Ancient Egypt
by the Abbe Jean Terrason. Since Egyptian hieroglyphics couldn't be read
until Jean François Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone nearly a
century after Terrason wrote his book, Terrason was created a fake
Egyptian religion based on rituals which he knew well: Greek and Roman
rituals. So, the claim made by many Afrocentrists that Greek and Roman
religions were based on Egyptian rites is based on a book of about a
fictional Egyptian religion that was based on Greek and Roman rites.
Got that?
3. Napoleon had his soldiers shoot the nose of off the Great Sphinx in
order to hide its "Negroid" features. No, no, no and no! The fact that
Five-Star Nut Louis "Is She Is or Is She Ain't" Farrakhan has made this
claim should, alone, qualify it as an economy-size crock o' shit (sadly,
Farrakhan repeated this lie during his address at the Million Man March)
The Sphinx's nose is missing in countless drawings made long before
Napoleon even set foot in Egypt.
4. The ancient Egyptians were Black. To paraphrase Bill Clinton,
that all depends on what your definition of "Black" is. While, we know
that Black Africans were known in inhabit the Nile Valley region and that
Herodotus described the Egyptians as having "black skins and kinky hair";
the truth is that the ancient Egyptians were not one, easily defined
racial group. Southern Egyptians may well have been darker than Northern
Egyptians. Pinning one color upon the ancient Egyptians (OK, we can
guarantee that they weren't White) is pretty much impossible.
I have to admit that I feel somewhat bad about debunking Afrocentrism.
After all, even though it's so full of shit it squeaks going in to a turn;
Afrocentrism was born of the best intentions: to remind Blacks of the
great and noble civilizations founded by their ancestors. Unfortunately,
instead of concentrating on the actual achievements made by African
cultures, the proponents of Afrocentrism took the easy path: they made a
bunch of crazy shit up.
For further reading, I heavily suggest Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out Of
Africa. You can click here to hear Ms. Lefkowitz on NPR.
Sorry that I haven't been posting regularly (This post was originally
planned to be up on Martin Luther King Day, for example). I'll try to
make it up to you with a super-long post, this weekend about how to
accessorize with RATYHTL.
furor - oris - madness
Rodney on 01.18.06 @ 01:50 PM EST [link] [No Comments]
