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I'm just getting into this whole "who's black" conversation at large. I've never known for this topic to be an issue considering that I thought that Ethiopians, Somalis, and Eritreans were black. I don't even think if these people are black because as a black person, I know black when I see it. They don't look like whites, Muslims, or Arabs. They look like blacks just with different features. If they were mixed in with Egyptians and Arabs and I had to go find blacks to hang with, I would automatically pick Ethiopians, Somalis, and Eritreans. However, there have been people saying they these people aren't black. Really what are they considered? SN: I hope I haven't offened anyone.
I have two somalian friends who are sisters. They aren't sure what they consider themselves. Most people think their black. I mean, if you look at them, they look black. But if your really upclose and see their features, they look middle-eastern. They just accept people calling them either one. They primarily identity themselves as middle-eastern but Somalia is in Africa so technically they are African but still middle eastern. Like I said, it's confusing to them what to identify with...I can see why they don't care to label themselves in any particular group.
The definition of "blackness" is more of a social thing than a racial one. That is, it differs from country to country, and depends on a variety of factors. Who's black in the US may not be in Latin America, for instance.
Ethiopians (I've known a few of them) like to point to the heavy Semitic component in their ancestry as marking them off from the "blacker" Africans to the south. The major Ethiopian language, Amharic, is Semitic.
If race has any meaning Africa has more "races" than any other place out there and probably more than the rest of the world combined.
Saying that I would say most African-Americans are probably not of the same "race" as people from the Horn of Africa and relatively few are of the same race as Obama. I believe most African-Americans descend from peoples of West and Central Africa. There's some East African, but so far as I know very little "Horn of Africa." Although people from the Horn of Africa themselves have some admixtures due to nomads from other parts of Africa. And African-Americans may have received some admixtures from Afro-Caribbeans as I think some African peoples were sent to the Caribbean that weren't set to the thirteen-colonies so much.
Anyway I think in a technical sense Ethiopians et alia are Afro-Asiatic. Specifically a mix of Semitic and "Black African" peoples. In the case of Ethiopia I think they have some pride in "being Black African", but traditionally they also had pride/recognition as being Semites. (By Semite I don't mean Jewish as Ethiopian Jews were a minority)
I've never known for this to be such a huge topic at hand. When I see these group of people, I don't see anything but black people. They do look like they have been mixed with Central/Western Africans and Northern Africans hence locations, but I've never mistaken them for Arabs or Middle Easterners...NO WAY!
Of course they are Black. Black people come in thousands of different shades and features. You cannot categorize Black. They definitely are seen as Black when they come to the US and are racially profiled.
Ethiopia is a very interesting country, and I think it deserves more research from anthropologists and historians of the world's top Universities, and more exposure in documentary films, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, etc.
It's a very unique place. When Europe was in the Middle Ages, by the 14th century, many decades before the first Portuguese navigators reach the North of Africa, Ethiopia was already a complex society, with its own language (distinct from Arab), its own alphabet (distinct from Arab alphabet), its own Christian Ortodox Church, and some castles and villages.
Ethiopia should have many unexplored archaeological treasures...
I'm just getting into this whole "who's black" conversation at large. I've never known for this topic to be an issue considering that I thought that Ethiopians, Somalis, and Eritreans were black. I don't even think if these people are black because as a black person, I know black when I see it. They don't look like whites, Muslims, or Arabs. They look like blacks just with different features. If they were mixed in with Egyptians and Arabs and I had to go find blacks to hang with, I would automatically pick Ethiopians, Somalis, and Eritreans. However, there have been people saying they these people aren't black. Really what are they considered? SN: I hope I haven't offened anyone.
Are Italians, French, and Greeks white?
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