Oakland sunshine., 1915-10-02
RACIAL ORIGIN OF AEsoP.
Les Y,ed Critics Disagree With Du 6ois
That Great Novelist Was Black.
u. yoT5N RRUcE GRIT"

BY JOHN e. BRUCE GRIT
The learned critics and book review.
ers on some of the metropolitan papers,
who know good many things that are
not exactly so, have strenuousiy oD-
iected to DR.. w. e. B. Du Bots char
acterization of Aesop in his book "Ine
Negro az an African. There are some
books about Africa and the Afrlcans
which a good many Of these ready re-
| viewers and critics have not read ana
which, If they would read them IN
some leisure moment, would enable
them to speak and write more convinc-
ingly about Africa and its people.
These same critics and book review
ers go up In the air whenever any one
asserts that Alexander Hamilton,
Washington's secretary OF the treas
urv. was a man with large strain OF
Negro blood-the son Of quadroon
mother and a white father. None or
his biographers, for obvious reasons
|, have gone into this phase OF his MIS-
\ tory. But in the island OF Nevis,
= w. L.. where Hamilton was born,
4 the tradition will not down.
\ All of the early writer's contempt
raneous with Aesop who have written
\ about him describe him either as 8
.dark" or "black" man and repulsive
In his personal appearance. with
woolly hair and pendent lips" etc.
One of the Arabian poets, who must
have seen him at some time or other
or got pretty good description OF MIN
from some one who had met MIN,
speaks of him thus, "Brimfui OF WIS
dom; black as night.
Now, whoever saw white man
'black as night" except he was
member Of the burnt cork fraternity,
a coal miner or a fireman, where SOFT
coal is used? In the thirty-first chap
ter of the Koran, which is entitled
/, Looman. says the learned DR.. ID. w.
| Blyden, Rodwell supposes that Log
man is the same person whom the
Greeks. not knowing his real name,
have called Aesop, or Aethiops. He Is
! celebrated in secular Arabian poetry.
\ Dean Stanle,, in his Jewish ChurcH'
pays striking tribute to the character
| Of Loqman.
THE mandates Of Loqman, Ihe
wise maxims of Loqman," are frequent
nbrases in classic Arabic literature to
/ indicate the wisdom and judgment OF
! the great African. DIR. Du Bots Is on
safe ground in claiming Aesop as an
African, and he is supported In this
| by writers ard historians, some OF
: them contemporaneous with the
mighty black, who knew what tney
were talking about.
The testimony of these earlier wit
nesses is more dependable and Vaiua-
BILE than that Of moderns, who have
acquired the very bad habit OF read
ing history with their prejudices and
|, interpreting it to meet the popular
prejudices Of their day and generation.
How these critics are able to say with
SO much positiveness that Aesop was
not an African, ''black as night" doth
not appear Ia the testimony they have
adduced. Until it does we must CON
tinue to believe the testimony OF the
writer's and historians, some OF whom
saw Aesop face to face.
II His blackness and ugliness maus
such an awful impression upon then
u that they were impelled to describe
H him in terms which cannot be twisted
II or distorted to mean other than what
they intended e., that he was al
ugly, repulsive black, with splay feet
pendent lips, large abdomen ana al
II the physical characteristics OF the AT
rican. He certainly was.