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They are actually in sub-sahara Africa. Most people below the line ARE black.
What the heck is so difficult about that?
Caribdoll is hypocritical.
She says she is West Indian,yet has an issue with the term Sub-Sahara?
Sub Sahara actually is a more geographical correct term than West Indian.
Why? Because the people actually live below the Sahara Desert.
West Indian? It isn't geographically correct. India is in Asia. The Indian Ocean is in Asia.
You are from Central America,not Asia.
It hasn't got a thing to do with racism.
LOL. Incorrect. The term "West Indian" has a different meaning than the term "Sub-Saharan." The former has cultural meaning. Since when do Africans walk around calling themselves Sub-Saharan African? And further, the term West Indian describes me and numerous West Indians since we are of Indian descent (meaning in Asia) but reside in the West. Next time don't make assume because you don't people's backgrounds.
What term has a racial and insensitive component attached to it? Sub-Saharan, or Caribbean? You have not made yourself clear.
Going by my previous posts on this thread it is clearly obvious that I was referring to the term "Sub-Saharan".
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You've never been in Mauritania, have you? Nor South Africa, either, I'll bet. I've been to both, and I know a little bit about what I am talking about.
Then you would know that lumping those two countries together just because they are "South of the Sahara" seems rather foolish. They should be looked more as being part of Western or Southern Africa.
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You're the one who wants to lump Japan with Pakistan, calling them both "Asia" just because geographers have conveniently declared a single land mass to be Asia, and Japan and Pakistan are both on it, and calling it "insensitive" to speak of Japan as being in a part or East Asia, or Pakistan as South Asia, or even (erroneously) as the Middle East.
I'm not talking about referring to them as a continent, as both countries are in Asia. I'm talking about how those two countries are viewed from a geographic region of a continent. Pakistan and Japan are never lumped together as the same region in Asia. Pakistan is considered part of South Asia while Japan is considered part of East Asia. This goes back to my point about countries like Mauritania and South Africa being lump together as one geographic region instead of being looked at as being part of either Western Africa or Southern Africa.
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And No, I do NOT have to understand that something is racial and insensitive just because you personally have gone on a campaign to get all bent out of shape about it. You have jumped to the conclusion that I personally am a prejudicially racist person who wishes nothing but harm to black people of Africa, and that I express that hatred by using a conventional term to name the part of the world they live in. In fact, it is your position that is racial and insensitive, by refusing to recognize an abundantly obvious and conspicuous geocultural reality, and arguing a fiction.
First of all, I have never called you a racist so lets not get so bent out of shape on that. What's funny is that you think my position is racial and insensitive. All I suggested was that the regions of Africa should be recognized more as being west, east, north, and south as opposed to being lump together just because it's south of the Sahara. The term "Sub-Saharan Africa" has a history of being synonymous with the term "Black Africa". My position is clearly less racial as it deals with more specific geographical regions(ex. East, West) as oppose to using terms that carry with it insensitive and racial connotations.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 05-13-2013 at 11:06 AM..
Look, the bottom line here is that there is this huge uninhabited mass land called the Sahara which separates North Africa from the rest of the country. it's just natural Geography should reflect that obvious fact.
It's like Britain vs Continental Europe. It just reflects the uncontrovertible fact that Britain is separated from the continent even though in this case it's only a narrow channel as opposed to a huge desert.
People usually don't use the term Continental Europe like they do other geographic definitions of Europe. Europe is looked at more as being either Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern. No reason Africa can't be looked at more as having those same geographic definitions as well. I thought you being a geography freak would agree with that.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 05-13-2013 at 11:16 AM..
LOL. Incorrect. The term "West Indian" has a different meaning than the term "Sub-Saharan." The former has cultural meaning. Since when do Africans walk around calling themselves Sub-Saharan African? And further, the term West Indian describes me and numerous West Indians since we are of Indian descent (meaning in Asia) but reside in the West. Next time don't make assume because you don't people's backgrounds.
Not from Central America either...hilarious!
Arabs call it black africa.
Sub-sahara is a geographical region. So is the West Indies.
I've seen plenty of black people use West indian,when they clearly aren't of Indian descent.
Since you didn't mention the country you are from I just said Central America.
Since the Arabs call it black Africa,maybe its racist on their part.
But deep down I don't feel they were being racist.
How else are the Arabs and berbers supposed to distinguish themselves?
They are actually in sub-sahara Africa. Most people below the line ARE black.
Where is the line? The northern colonial borders established for Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan? Define blackness, more importantly the precise point in which a black person becomes an non-black person.
Unfortunately for you, a line in the desert just won't do particularly when the line has shifted so radically over just the last 5,000 years and or that early humans never seemed to be able to stay within the boundaries that we've seen to drawn for them in recent years.
So, actually there is nothing simple about the analysis.
Interesting photograph of two San women of the Namibian desert. The San are genetically one of the oldest known descendants of archaic humans who also inhabit the sub-Saharan region of Africa. I find if more than a bit fascinating that if one looks hard enough one can see the prototypical characteristics of many extant humans etched in their faces once again calling into question the entire concept of race.
Sub-sahara is a geographical region. So is the West Indies.
I've seen plenty of black people use West indian,when they clearly aren't of Indian descent.
Since you didn't mention the country you are from I just said Central America.
Since the Arabs call it black Africa,maybe its racist on their part.
But deep down I don't feel they were being racist.
How else are the Arabs and berbers supposed to distinguish themselves?
The point is that the terms Sub-saharan and West Indian are different. The latter also has a strong cultural component, no matter if your background is African, South Asian (India etc), East Asian etc.
Who cares what the Arabs do? LOL. Racial ideology is more than simply the recognition of complexion.
How else were Arabs/Berbers to distinguish themselves? The same way people have done for years upon years? Culture, language etc.
Where is the line? The northern colonial borders established for Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan? Define blackness, more importantly the precise point in which a black person becomes an non-black person.
Unfortunately for you, a line in the desert just won't do particularly when the line has shifted so radically over just the last 5,000 years and or that early humans never seemed to be able to stay within the boundaries that we've seen to drawn for them in recent years.
So, actually there is nothing simple about the analysis.
Interesting photograph of two San women of the Namibian desert. The San are genetically one of the oldest known descendants of archaic humans who also inhabit the sub-Saharan region of Africa. I find if more than a bit fascinating that if one looks hard enough one can see the prototypical characteristics of many extant humans etched in their faces once again calling into question the entire concept of race.
Excellent post...
...and that picture is so beautiful. Not only their looks themselves but their expressions & body language.
Of course common people don't say "I'm from sub-Saharan Africa". No talks like that anywhere in the world. But government officials, academics and journalists in Africa use that term constantly.
By the way, Africa is also a word made up by "whitey". You may want to stop using it as well.
I already know about Ta-Meri, Alkebulan, Ethiopia, etc.. No need for you to try to lecture to me about what to use and what not to use. For your information, I only use it because of the context of today.
Then you would know that lumping those two countries together just because they are "South of the Sahara" seems rather foolish. They should be looked more as being part of Western or Southern Africa.
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I do not lump countries together "just because they are" in a certain global area. I lump them together because they have demonstrable similarities that they do not share with other non-lumped countries, which I have observed first hand and kept abreast of since. I know the difference between Bangladesh and Myanmar. I know the difference between Turkey and Bulgaria. I know the difference between Belize and Guatemala. Partly because I paid attention to what I saw there on the ground, and partly because I open my eyes to information that has come more lately to my attention. And mostly because I ignore people whose main purpose in life is to act as Sensitivity Police from their armchair.
Mauritania is a borderline example, because it has been so much influenced by Saharan peoples. But three of the five most dominant native languages recognized in Mauritania are Niger-Congo, which makes them related to the Zulu languages of South Africa. Social customs in Mauritania are more similar to those of South Africa, than to Tunisia. Senegal is certainly very, very similar in general cultural ways to Zambia, aside from the French/English distinction.
You are merely using guesswork to presume cultural differences, that do not exist on the ground. Things like social greetings and marriage customs and child-rearing and community property and status of women and marketplace ethics are very similar, from Senegal to Mozambique, except to the degree that they have been forcibly altered by the colonization of different European powers on the one hand and Islamic acculturation on the other. Given that, if I dropped you off in either Mozambique or Guinea-Bissau, both of which speak Portuguese, you would be hard pressed to tell me which country you were in. Quick, run to a map to see where those countries are, so you can reply to me with your bounty of knowledge about them.
On the other hand you'd have no trouble telling me whether you were dropped off in Sweden or Portugal, and nobody on those countries considers it an insult or a personal attack or racist or insensitive or worthy of an argument to suggest that they are both on a peninsula of Eurasia called "Western Europe". And even use the same money and allow each other's citizens free entry without papers.
On the other hand you'd have no trouble telling me whether you were dropped off in Sweden or Portugal, and nobody on those countries considers it an insult or a personal attack or racist or insensitive or worthy of an argument to suggest that they are both on a peninsula of Eurasia called "Western Europe". And even use the same money and allow each other's citizens free entry without papers.
Perhaps that might be because there remains an ongoing deprecation of so called sub-Saharan people and civilizations which for some reasons(sic) there hasn't been the subject of debate regarding the superiority or inferiority of the Swedish vs Portuguese people or their societies. But then that's just a guess on my part.
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