Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The only hypocrisy in my post is that which exists in your feeble mind. You are talking about race when I am making a point about culture. Get on my level!
lmao. My statement holds firm as you can't even acknowledge that the lumping of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East as a single racial group is ludicrous as well. Nice try dodging the simple question.
All you had to say was "I think the Eurocentric concept of race is ludicrous as well." You didn't have any problem criticizing the concept of an African race.
Reading comprehension is the key here. No where in my post did I single out the concept of a particular race.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TylerJAX
Race as you know it is a sham folks. A lot of the folks in this thread are making the mistake of giving some credence to certain 19th and 20th centuries views of race and attempting to create another borked worldview/version of history.
I'm not here to vouch for the term "Sub-Saharan Africa" but what is undeniable is that the Sahara Desert to a large degree prevented the sort of cultural exchange/diffusion that was taking place in the Mediterranean region(a large chunk of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa) until relatively late in the game. To say some Khoi villager somehow shares in the legacy of the Ancient Egyptians because they happen to be on the same continent or have similar melanin levels in their skin is ludicrous.
Your statement clearly says that it ludicrous for a Khoi villager to share the same legacy because of a similar skin complexion and are from the same continent. That post clearly addresses race as you basicially said it's foolish for someone from South Africa(Khoi villager) to believe they are share the same race and culture of the Ancient Egyptians. All I asked was "do you think the European concept of race is ludicrous as well?" All you had to say was either "yes or no" but you continue to dodge the question for some reason. Until you can answer that simple question your post is hypocrisy.
The simple question is "Where did the term "Sub-Saharan Africa" come from?" It has been answered about 100 times
Nice try dodging a simple answer.
I have already said that it's a geographical definition that carries with it racial connotations. All I said was why not put more emphasis on geographical terms like west, north, east, and south since they carry less racial baggage when it comes to just defining geographical regions. I have already stated this before as I have never dodge that answer.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 06-04-2013 at 10:47 AM..
If your going to say that's ludicrous, then why not call out the lumping of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa as one single racial group to be ludicrous as well? Yet you say nothing of that. There is so much hypocrisy in your post.
With the exception of a few groups (Basque, Hungarians, Finns, Estonians), all Europeans speak languages descended from one common source in the Bronze Age. They all also share a common history through Christianity more recently. In addition, they share written languages which date back to early Christiandom and the Roman Empire.
There is nothing similar in Africa. The Bantu languages are spoken across a wide area, and pretty close to mutually intelligible, but still, there isn't a sense of cross-Bantu identity - let alone wider black African identity, except insofar as colonialism had created it.
I have already said that it's a geographical definition that carries with it racial connotations. All I said was why not put more emphasis on geographical terms like west, north, east, and south since they carry less racial baggage when it comes to just defining geographical regions. I have already stated this before as I have never dodge that answer.
That's the point. Geographic definitions do not intrinsically carry with them any racial connotations. They are about oceans an deserts, and defining areas of the world according to such conspicuous dividing features. Only people focusing on racial connotations carry racial baggage with them.
The specific answer to your specific question is that "South Africa" is already in use to describe a particular nation. Also, "Southern Africa" is already in use to describe the area roughly south of the Zambezi River. So using any of the simplistic directional modifiers fails to correctly delineate the area in question.
I suppose geographers might have also used "Trans-Saharan", but that implies that the center of cultured thought is on one side of the Sahara, and the area referenced is on the other side, so that "carries racial baggage" too.
You are very seriously fixated on combating racism, so much so that no matter what anybody ever says about anything, you are going to scream about racial connotations. Take a deep breath.
An analogue to consider is South Asia. The Himalayas provide a real geographic barrier which stops large-scale mixing of the people to the north and the south of them. As a result while there is a transition zone, there's relatively little "East Asian" ancestry in India, and essentially no "South Asian" ancestry in China at all.
But talking about "East Asia" and "South Asia" - which have geographic descriptions, but also cultural and racial differences, does not seem as loaded. Why? Because we don't live in a world which elevates one as superior, and the other inferior, I would guess.
The bottom line is that you can read racism into Sub-Saharan African if you want, but there's nothing actually better about being "Caucasian" versus "Sub-Saharan African" just as there's nothing better about "South Asian" over "East Asian." If you don't like white supremacy, you should fight that, not terminology.
An analogue to consider is South Asia. The Himalayas provide a real geographic barrier which stops large-scale mixing of the people to the north and the south of them. As a result while there is a transition zone, there's relatively little "East Asian" ancestry in India, and essentially no "South Asian" ancestry in China at all.
But talking about "East Asia" and "South Asia" - which have geographic descriptions, but also cultural and racial differences, does not seem as loaded. Why? Because we don't live in a world which elevates one as superior, and the other inferior, I would guess.
The bottom line is that you can read racism into Sub-Saharan African if you want, but there's nothing actually better about being "Caucasian" versus "Sub-Saharan African" just as there's nothing better about "South Asian" over "East Asian." If you don't like white supremacy, you should fight that, not terminology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
That's the point. Geographic definitions do not intrinsically carry with them any racial connotations. They are about oceans an deserts, and defining areas of the world according to such conspicuous dividing features. Only people focusing on racial connotations carry racial baggage with them.
The specific answer to your specific question is that "South Africa" is already in use to describe a particular nation. Also, "Southern Africa" is already in use to describe the area roughly south of the Zambezi River. So using any of the simplistic directional modifiers fails to correctly delineate the area in question.
I suppose geographers might have also used "Trans-Saharan", but that implies that the center of cultured thought is on one side of the Sahara, and the area referenced is on the other side, so that "carries racial baggage" too.
You are very seriously fixated on combating racism, so much so that no matter what anybody ever says about anything, you are going to scream about racial connotations. Take a deep breath.
You guys are over analyzing what I wrote. The problem with the term is that unlike most geographical definitions, the Sub-Sahara term is very race based. If you guys can't even acknowledge the racial stigma associated with the term than I don't know what more I can to say to you guys. It wouldn't hurt to try and see things from the other perspective sometimes.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 06-05-2013 at 11:18 AM..
The problem with the term is that unlike most geographical definitions, the Sub-Sahara term is very race based.
No iit isn't. Sub = beneath (from Latin). Sahara is a desert , which is defined by the lack of rainfall and the inhospitability of the place to human survival and commerce and therefore something of a barrier obstructing people on either side from mixing with each other.
The convention of putting north at the top of maps is no more racial than the convention of writing from left to right, and north has been at the top of maps since before people discovered that there were Africans in Africa, and in fact, people at the top of early maps of Europe had aspersions of barbarity cast on them as well by people in the cartographic cultural centers.
It's not like anybody said "What are we going to do about all those bloody savages" and the reply was "Put them at the bottom of the map so they will know their place, the cheeky buggers."
Three natural phenomena fell into juxtaposition to dictate that north would be at the top of maps. It was known that the world was round rotating around a polar axis, compasses pointed to the north, and that was to the north star. A person with a compass or looking at Polaris stands facing north, and arranges the rest of the world around him. So the land at his feet has north at the top as lthough he were standing on an analog of the map. So it seemed logical to every early cartographer to orient their maps in such a way that north was at the top of the sheet. That was in the 12th Century. Nobody then had any idea that they were putting "inferior" savages "beneath" the cultural elite by pressing them off the lower margins.
Last edited by jtur88; 06-05-2013 at 03:53 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
