Why do African Americans romanticize Ancient Egypt

its similar to how 19th century European intellectuals tended to racialize and romanticize the greeks

only this time....white people don't go around wearing greek clothing

Because they think that since Egypt is in Africa, they had to be black, even though they were actually middle eastern.

That, and blacks have a huge inferiority complex due to you know, sucking. At everything. All the time.

inferiority complex coming from realization that your ancestors were slaves who never achieved anything great

The Kushite Pharaohs are a real thing that has been overwhelmingly exaggerated and blown out of proportion.

But, more broadly, this is what a whipped, conquered people does. They romanticize and lionize their past by conflating themselves with a lost grandeur and nobility. The Irish do it. The American South does it. The old crazy feminists did it with their "ancient matriarchy" meme. The Japanese do it. When you have been completely and thoroughly BTFO, in a way where you've never really recovered, you cling to stories and fables of a grandeur that never was.

Foundation myths for collective making of identity.

Another problem is that many blacks tend to think Egypt was the pinnacle of civilization because

muh pyramids

Not much is taught about ancient or medieval West African states in schools. Egypt is given a lot of focus and is in Africa, and so they get it into their heads that the Egyptians were always black, all the time.

The average american has a very simplistic view of the world, usually related to their own history or geopolitics.

In this view:
- Everything south of mexico is equivalent to mexico.
- Everything african is equivalent to subsaharan africa.
- Everything arab is equivalent to islamic terrorism.
Etc.

Therefore hellenic pharaohs are somehow black.

You've obviously never been to a frat party.

did they even know numinians (actual black people) were low class militia or just farmers

they don't. it's just a meme that's been blown way out of proportion by insecure white people

Why do white people romanticize ancient Egypt?

Only African civ they bothered to learn about.

WE

this

Conquered peoples always romanticize the distant past in order to save face. Look at Hitler's rise in Germany and the propaganda about an "aryan" master race. Germany got BTFO in World War I and went through the same process.

>Why do American Muh heritagers do X
Its like Asking why Bostonian Plastic Paddies funded the IRA more than Ireland Irish

Because it's the only time when they were relevant in history

Is there a word for this phenomenon so it's easier for whoever I tell about it to digest the idea?

Not that I know of, no. I just call it the We Wuz phenomenon for now.

eg.
Africans: we wuz kings and queens and shit, we wuz pharaohs
Germans: we wuz aryans, we wuz geniuses
Women: we wuz matriarchs, we wuz goddesses, we wuz warriors, etc.

Because objectively Blacks have achieved almost nothing and what little they achieved (Kushite dynasty, Songhai empire, Malian empire, Zulus, Ashanti etc) was nonetheless shit in comparison to Europeans, Arabs or Asian, hence their huge inferiority complex and need to romanticise anything.
The only "black" African people who don't do this are the only ones who did something worthy during their history, i.e. Ethiopians.

That's what I had in mind, but it's obviously not politically correct for many people because it mocks black people's dialect. But who gives a shit anyway because once you bring up the conversation about how they think they're egyptians when they're not, you've already crossed an invisible no-go zone into shitlord territory.

Africam Americans and Americans as a whole know little about the history of their people. Most slaves came from West Africa, a land with a storied past of empires and massive trade routes. Even today, 1000s of manuscripts are being found showing their written history, which was assumed nonexistent a short 30 years ago.

It's called "revisionism".

most don't, just some black nationalists do. when they were enslaved and brought to the americas, their historical and ethnic identities were wiped out, and so in trying to re-assert their humanity some naturally gravitated towards finding an ancestral group that could display to whites that they were just as powerful once.

the actual history of west african peoples was completely ignored or purposefully subverted for years and it's only been recently that it's being looked into again, so hopefully the egypt thing will fade away in time since it wont be needed anymore

>- Everything arab is equivalent to islamic terrorism.

This one is kinda true though

"Wewuzism"

>IRL Cleopatra the 7th was an incredibly inbred and probably really ugly greek greaseball that through pure nepotism became the head of state of a country making the $$$ and was thus given the dick, teeth gritted and eyes squinting, by two of the biggest alphas of the ancient world.


>basketball americans picture her as some kind of black feminist leader love goddess #woke #blm

Because they lack a unified cultural identity outside of being former slaves or descendants of former slaves.

Cleopatra was never described as ugly and I doubt either Marc Antony or Caesar would stick their dick in her if she was.

Not to mention that white cities are full of neo-classical architecture, statues, etc.

Hell people were still learning latin up till very recently.

>blown out of proportion by white people
>every single time there is any movie/tv show/comic/etc about Egypt there is always tons of blacks people on social making a fuss about there being none or not enough black people
>any time there is an article in the news about the ancient Egyptians there are tons of comments about how they were black/african
>Egyptian symbols commonly featured in black culture/media
>dozens of websites set up to argue that Egyptians were black, actual online forums where black people strategize about how to convince people/prove that the Egyptians were black

Its not just /pol/ making a big deal of it for laughs, its a very real and prominent phenomenon.

Thats because much of Europe was hugely influenced by the greeks/romans and had very solid historical/cultural ties to them unlike Egypt and Black Africa outside of the Sudan.

Well the pyramids are pretty impressive. 4000 years old, huge, and still in a recognizable shape and condition.

user, you only get ugly inbreds if the genes are bad in the first place.

The inbred Pharaohs all looked like slightly Ayy but still hot large breasted waifus, and this includes the male ones.

They generally don't.

Stop believing every meme you find on the internet.

t. Jamal
>every time there's a whitey in egypt they whine for a week straight
>popular artists telling them WE WUZ KANGZ
>mv has a show with a hideous negress whining about MUH WHITEWASHING OF CLEOPATRA (who was an inbred greek, btw)

Egypt was incredibly important and rich; why waste troops when you can just close your eyes and get it over with

Like this guy said there were indeed nubian pharoahs at one time, and there may even have been nubian mixture with some of the native pharoahs due to royal marriages. But that's not what American Afro-centrists believe, they have a very reductivist idea that every single ethnic group in Africa belonged to the modern idea of a black identity, therefore the ancient Egyptians had dark skin and are the ancestors of African Americans.

It's a response to the mentality of repression that's been pushed onto African Americans, the racial idea that one is inferior because of coming from a certain continent is thrown back in the face of the opressors if you can claim ownership of a great civilisation respected by the opressors themselves.

The problem is, it's just as bogus as the racist theories about inferior black civilisations. It also takes attention away from sub-Saharan African history, which sadly gets very little attention in the west. Imagine a generation of Americans being inspired to go out and expand the scholarship on west Africa, there's a goldmine of study there.

it was also a conscious decision.

By some of the intellectuals yes but in terms of their laws, religions, technology, infrastructure, etc much was inherited from former Roman occupation without them having any say in it.

Revisionism is a legitimate process that historians go through when new information becomes available. The illegitimate kind as done by political parties and whatnot is usually trying to blot out regrettable parts of their history, such as what the Japanese do with their war crimes.

This phenomenon is more distinct and deserves a proper term, for now we have to settle with Wewuzism.

Plutarch describes Cleopatra as a reasonably attractive woman but with incredible gift in charm and persuasiveness. I doubt she was an ugly troll but yeah not Aphrodite in the flesh either.

The earlier portrayals of her such as in old Hollywood films of a devilish temptress are not true and neither is this increasingly popular variation that makes Cleopatra out as an ugly troll with zero redeeming personal qualities.

The real historical record seems to indicate that she was charming and shrewd, not a goddess maybe but certainly a catch.

And yeah obviously a hellene and not black.

Because they don't have an independent history of their own. It's why they try to lump Africa all together into this giant fictitious singular culture, Egypt being it's titular prototype.

They hate to accept that their history begins with slavery (except for a tiny minority that can trace lineage back to specific cultures). So they make a fantasy of some "Africa", where everyone is just "African".


Ironically it's their complete ignorance of Africa that bugs me most about African Americans.

WEWUZ

Because education on the continent in general is half assed in America.
If all you knew about the continent was
>This is Africa, it's where blacks came from during the slave trade
and
>This is Egypt. It is in Africa and was impressive and had multiple dynasties of god king pharaohs. Cleopatra was a cool woman
mixed with a little
>Arabs come from the middle east, which is Arabia onward, not africa.
What the fuck do you expect people to think. Not a lot of people put so much thought into history as this place so of course they'll jump to grade school conclusions and move on.

Which is a shame because you can get really interesting stuff out of That said the actual belief is rare. Hardly anyone save the loud and ignorant complainers on the internet believe that Egypt was Black. They are right when they do say it was African, which a lot of reactionary people here and everywhere think means black.

On another note, does anyone have that picture about everything that was working against blacks in Africa when they were trying to civilize? Stuff like bad water, disease, no trade routes and the like?

That's literally a tiny online footprint, many of these comments and websites being the exact same circle of idiots.

If you were to make a poll of black people in America you'd find out that at least half believe they were black, and a minority of whites as well

I'll believe it when I see it.

A third of burgers believe in creatonism. Is it really that weird that an even more ignorant subset would believe in a equally false yet less stupid idea?

>Because education on the continent in general is half assed in America.
This. While a lot of people complain about standardized testing and common core curriculum, American education varies wildly from school to school. The same way you'd get a football coach teaching junior high biology and end up pushing creationism, you get someone teaching history through memes.

I didn't say it was weird, I'd completely understand it even. But until I actually see this poll it'll remain speculation blowing vapid social media circles out of proportion. Without at least some sort of data-backed study, I have to defer to my own experiences growing up in and around a lot of blacks, both urban New Yorkers and rural Mississippians, and literally the only time I ever ran into WE WUZ KANGS before the internet was in an art store that had a portrait of black Jesus.

because they're usually incredibly ignorant and Egypt has a prominent pop-culture presence, plus its in Africa.

that's the only reason really, most of these people know next to nothing about Egypt, its culture or its history beyond what's in the Bible or on TV.

that being said, Egyptians are pretty diverse and Upper Egyptians likely looked Cushite like Somalis, but unrelated to West African Bantu

It's false, but even if blacks originated in Egypt, why would they all be "kings"?

My family came to the USA from the UK, which is a monarchy. Does that mean I can tell people I was once a king?

You're probably very likely to be descended from a pre-norman British or English king. The Anglo-Saxon Kings traced their bloodline to Wotan, the British Kings to Maximus Magnus, the last roman general in Britian (and a claimant Emperor)

So you wuz kings, emperors and gods n' shiieeet nigga.

They're at least good at sports. I'm surprised blacksploitation doesn't add basketball to Egypt's mythical psychic negroe past.

Yeah, my mother's side of the family has a letter of recognition from the English monarchy. We're related to William Longspae, bastard son of King James or something. All I know is that my grandpa has a decent amount of land on Prince Edward island in Canada because of it.

"We wuz kings"

They don't

It's just a meme

The American education system usually teaches very little about or completely skips actually black and relevant African civilizations like Mali, Songhai, Ethiopia, or Kongo. (If you want proof just look at how many /pol/ shitposters know literally nothing about them and actually believe that blacks never had writing or metallurgy or other ridiculous claims.)

The only African civilization that gets attention is Egypt and maybe a bit of Carthage. Combine this with the standard lack of geographical knowledge among most Americans and many Americans (both blacks and whites) grow up to think that the only relevant African civilizations were Egypt and Carthage, and since they were in Africa they must have been populated by blacks. You don't see it discussed as often on Veeky Forums as the "we wuz kingz" shit but many people here also believe Carthage was a black civilization, to the point that many media depictions of Hannibal show him as a black man.


t. person who went to school primarily in the USA

Comparing this to the European romanticism of Ancient Greece is completely different

Europe has had an intellectual and historical/cultural connection to Greece that Black Africans lack with Egypt

We don't. 99% of african americans don't care about egypt. This is some retarded /pol/ meme. They cherry picked things a few black nationalists said.