Talk:Black people/Archive 8

message: !!!
--24.131.34.59 02:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't take out major chunks unless concensus is reached

message: I think we should be more specific when talking about ethiopians. It isn't a purely homogenous contry, there are different ethnic grops. plus when people talk about ethiopians being caucasian i think they're referring to habesha not oromo, so why is there a picture of oromo boys. something should be done to correct these inaccuracies. I would appreciate user:yom's input
:All the genetic studies I've seen are based on amharas and oromos but a lot of people would argue that race is just a social construct so genetics are not relevant.  Coon would have considered the kids in that picture caucasoid because of their elongated facial features but others argue that's nonsense.  Look, there's no point debating this because there are no right or wrong answers.  It all depends on how you want to define black people.   I think the article does a good job showing all opinions,  but opinions are all they are.  Timelist 22:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do not know why a footnote to this effect cannot be included so someone who wants to investigate further has some place to start. People want to have nice neat simple answers, and reality is often far more complicated.--Filll 12:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  habesha/ethiopians 

message: I am still dissapointed that noone wants to talk about the inaccuracies within the ethiopian section.If we are to make this a legitamite and scholarly article we must adress the fact that ethiopia does not consist of a single ethnic group, there are habesha,afar,oromo,gambella and many more.correct me if i'm wrong but when people debte as to whether ethiopians are black or notthey are quite probably referring to habesha. If this is true will someone tell me why there is a picture of oromo children, i am ethiopian/habesha and i can assure i do not look like those young boys. also if we want to decide who is black or not we must define what black is. Is it cultural,genetic,geographic or a combination?.Once we come to a defintion or a set of opposing definitions that are too diferrent to reconcile (as most often happens) we can then show what groups would be defined as black.We should attempt to make sections that adress these issues thereby enhancing the legitimacy of this article.
sorry i didn't realize i created the same article twice, nevertheless i would appreciate people's input danya 23:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I responded before just above. I do believe that the fact that Ethiopia is not monolithic should definitely be discussed. If there is not room in the article, put it in a footnote or another article, linked to this one.--Filll 00:41, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The genetic studies of Ethiopians are based on the general Ethiopian population not just the subset you belong to, thus it makes sense to pick a very typical Ethiopian group like the oromo.  I know there are some ethiopians (especially in the North) that do have a lot of Arab blood, but we don't want to give a skewed impression of the general population.  That picture is perfect because it shows the ambiguity of their appearance in that their facial feautures are Caucasoid, but their skin and hair texture is negroid.  Timelist 01:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Firstly we don't exactly have arab blood but we can talk about that later, you are right when you say we don't want to give a skewed version of what ethiopians look like timelist, so i propose that we put up a picture that shows the variation within the ethiopian population, for instance a picture with a dark skinned ethiopians, a light skinned ethiopian, ethiopians with certain facial features and so on... i would do it myself but i'm a new member and i do not have the facilities to do so.74.96.108.178 20:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I think that the variation of peoples inside Ethiopia is very interesting. However, as Halaqah says, it might not belong on this page. It sounds like a huge amount of detail that might be better suited to a specialized page on Ethiopian peoples, linked to this page. Also,  do we have a reference that shows exactly which peoples in Ethiopia were included in the Ethiopian genetic study and what variations within Ethiopia were found? Or are we just talking nonsense based on no information?--Filll 12:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not difficult to make a new article. I think many ethiopians have dark skin, but not all. Whether they are black or not depends on what definition you want to use. But what I do know is, that Ethiopians are human beings; homo sapiens sapiens.--Filll 03:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: No we don't need a new article. Everything is fine as it is.  The fact of the matter is the most reliable source in the whole article (Oxford) says Ethiopians are not black and that has been cited, along with critcism by those who think the motive is racist.  It's also been cited that Ethiopians were considered black in the ancient world, so the article is balanced. Kobrakid 19:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: What they mean is that they don't have broad features or large jaws.  The kids in the photo have narrow delicate features, which some people think is caucasoid, but at the same time they have dark skin and tight curly hair which has long been associated with negroid.  If we showed a lighter skin more hybridized Ethiopian, we would be pushing the POV that Ethiopians get most of their caucasoid features from external sources, but it's more accurate to show that even indigenous dark skinned Ethiopians have elongated features, since the Eurasian Adam lived in Africa. Timelist 21:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Habesha/Ethiopians black? 

message: :I am native to Africa. I am white. :D. --Adriaan90  (Talk|Contribs) 14:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And, please, let these so-called "European-Africans" also define themselves. I define myself as African. When I go to Europe one day, I will become European again. I see nothing wrong with that. But anyway, I don't see how this discussion is contributing to the article at hand, so yeah. PS: I don't know what Wikipedia's policy is about moving people's comments into new sections, like you did with mine. It now looks like I randomly posted an off-topic comment. But it's ok, I am not going to make a fuss. --Adriaan90  (Talk|Contribs) 16:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

text: According to the physics regarding thermodynamics, if the world was 10 000 years old, the whole universe would have been frozen over, because heat would spread evenly through space. Your theory is flawed, about the age of my race, to begin with. Further, This is not about race, frankly I don't know what this is about, but there is an argument going here about "why white people act black when they live in Africa and why that is wrong". --Adriaan90  (Talk|Contribs) 20:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you missed his point.  The world is not 10,000 year old, however by 10,000 years ago humans had finished colonizing most of the Earth and were genetically isolated into major geographic groups that would come to define the major races (if you believe in race).  This has now changed as humans have become increasing mobile. Timelist 21:57, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Europeans are not Africa (or Black)

message: Why dont you guys protect this page from new users? Clearly it is a page that is being targeted by racist people, just protected it.--Halaqah 11:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. If the article got semi-protection,  the amount of racist vandalism we're forced to revert should go down at least a bit. Timelist 20:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Protect this page

message: Here is a question that just struck me. The Nazi scientists had a racial theory in which the Aryans were the Master Race. And the Germans, or at least some of them were supposed to be Aryans. And Aryans  came from Northern India. Does anyone know the other features of the Aryan theory, or what other beliefs about races the Nazis had? I think that these were held in many places besides Germany for a few decades  in the early 1900s. What was their view on black people? I know they had formulae based on measuring heads and noses for deciding a person's race.--Filll`
:Yup, I know all about it! Still, it's rather a big subject. I suggest that you read Aryan, Aryan race and Nordic theory. You might also look at Aryan invasion theory (history and controversies). Paul B 13:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nazi Views

message: I also read someplace that there is a theory that the original Greeks were blond and blue eyed. What is this based on ? Anyone know? --Filll 13:22, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's based on Nordicist theory of the early twentieth century, which equated the Proto-Indo-European population with northern Europeans. Since Greek is an IE language, the assumption is that its speakers entered Greece from the north and that therefore the original Greeks would have been "Nordic". The fact that Greeks originally came from the north is supported by Greek mythology, but there is no emphasis on being blond or blue-eyed. Indeed, the "north" in relation to Greece is the central Balkans. Nordicists argued that ancient Greek populations became racially mixed with supposedly "inferior" races over time, especially during the period when Greece was controlled by the Ottoman empire. This was supposed to explain the decline of Greece from being the most advanced nation on earth, to being culturally backward. Needless to say modern Greeks rather resent the idea that they are somehow a different people from their famous ancestors, so there are many Greek nationalist websites which attack this theory. It's worth noting that Afrocentrist and other writers reversed this argument as far back as 1901, when Sergi published his theory of the Mediterranean race in which he argued that ancient Greeks were related to African populations. There's an interesting article in the Journal of Negro History from 1917 which discusses this point. They were still arguing the point in 1929. This debate has erupted again since Black Athena and genetic studies by the controversial geneticist Antonio Arnaiz-Villena.   Paul B 12:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check the article on redheads. I think there are written reports from early in human history that record the presence of the kind of people who are magnets for skin cancer cavorting in southern climes even at that early time. Later records of "mad men and Englishmen in the noonday sun" indicate that we never got the message. Or maybe we grub-complexioned ones realized the truth and the most of us moved north where we were expected to isolate ourselves. ;-)  P0M 22:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original Greeks

message: The current text says: "Scientists believe that the need to absorb vitamin D in Northern climates gradually made skin become lighter"
In past decades scientists may have theorized that skin color changes occurred gradually. Perhaps they thought that skin color changes were the result of the accumulation of many small mutations.  It is my memory, however, that recent attempts to trace out the genetic changes that made possible adaptations to special conditions and that define the major genetic differences between, e.g., Australian aboriginal populations and African populations, have been the result of specific single mutations. If that is the correct picture according to the genetic record, then individuals who did not carry the mutation but attempted to live in areas where heavy clothing would have cut down on UV reception and vitamin D production would not have prospered, and those with adaptive characteristics would have gradually outbred them becoming the prevalent type in northern regions that depended on food stuffs that did not provide an abundance of vitamin D.
In the early years after the mutation appeared it would have been rare for both parents to share the mutation so skin colors would have been of an intermediate shade, But over many generations the higher mortality rate, lower fertility rate, etc., of the vitamin D deficient individuals would presumably have produced the result that we see most clearly today in places like Scandinavia. P0M 05:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History of science problem

message: What the heck is an "unfree image" of a black woman? I sort of liked that picture. Why remove it?--Filll 15:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The use of that image in this article violates the terms of WP:FAIR.  The uploader claimed that the image is fair use because it illustrates the object in question (a black person) where no free equivalent exists, but since a free image might reasonably be found or created it therefore does not meet the WP:FAIR policy. --Strothra 15:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put the image back in. The rational for removing it was utter nonsense. This article needs complete protection. Timelist 19:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia's policies are its policies. Too bad if that upsets you, but Wiki must abide by copyright law. --Strothra 20:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I am an administrator enforcing WP:FAIR policy. Again do not re-insert the image. Please find a free image. Joelito (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unfree Image