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Just had to say this was a pretty funny and ridiculous thread.
I saw that Africans are not "black" and that black/brown skinned Africans are not "negroid."
Too many of you are way too obessessed with a "white/black" historical narrative.
The Moors IMO were black. I base this on the European (white) painters who depicted them in paintings/drawings in the 1100s and 1200s as black skinned persons.
The fact that you all are arguing about it, when Europeans portrayed them as black and described them as such from AD700 and forward is pretty hilarious.
The real question IMO is why won't you admit that they are black.
Negroid and African is not a factor in the discussion. Europeans described them and depicted them as black. I believe their first hand depictions and descriptions. What is such a travesty about believing the actual pictures and descriptions of people from the 8th century forward. It is very odd.
At that time, Middle Ages, people that painted those illustrations never respected any historical or etnographic context.
According to them, the sea was inhabited by monsters and there were people with three eyes and Jesus dressed like a medieval peasant.
AD700? Then they were in the middle of the cold war...Islamic invasion. It was necessary to identify the enemy as something different, blue, yellow, black, checkered or with horns.
At that time, Middle Ages, people that painted those illustrations never respected any historical or etnographic context.
According to them, the sea was inhabited by monsters and there were people with three eyes and Jesus dressed like a medieval peasant.
AD700? Then they were in the middle of the cold war...Islamic invasion. It was necessary to identify the enemy as something different, blue, yellow, black, checkered or with horns.
So the white people painted white were not white?
Are you saying that they only distorted the black people and not the Europeans/white?
There are also very early depictions of Moors playing chess, shown as black skinned individuals. In some of those pictures, they are playing with white/Europeans.
I really don't "get" why you or anyone else would want to say the Moors weren't "black" when the word Moor means "black." It is silly.
I really don't "get" why you or anyone else would want to say the Moors weren't "black" when the word Moor means "black." It is silly.
Having only read the last few posts here and seeing how representation of "The Facts" seems to be influenced by one's political outlook, may I just point out that "Black People" are not actually black, but varying shades of brown?
The Moors were Muslims-- people of Mediterranean origin, classically considered Caucasian. It is the people of sub-Saharan origin who were classified as Negroid. Even Hannibal has been depicted as being "black," but Carthage was a colony started & populated by the Phoenicians (hence the Roman term "Punic") another Mediterranean bunch. Livy is the primary source of info we have about Hannibal and he makes no mention of skin color, yet the picture persists.
Krokodil gives a good explanation for the depictions as being editorial comments, not accurate descriptions.
Having only read the last few posts here and seeing how representation of "The Facts" seems to be influenced by one's political outlook, may I just point out that "Black People" are not actually black, but varying shades of brown?
The Moors were Muslims-- people of Mediterranean origin, classically considered Caucasian. It is the people of sub-Saharan origin who were classified as Negroid. Even Hannibal has been depicted as being "black," but Carthage was a colony started & populated by the Phoenicians (hence the Roman term "Punic") another Mediterranean bunch. Livy is the primary source of info we have about Hannibal and he makes no mention of skin color, yet the picture persists.
Krokodil gives a good explanation for the depictions as being editorial comments, not accurate descriptions.
Again dude - Moor means "black."
I am a black American (I don't call myself an African American because I am not an African).
White people are not "white" either, they are various shades and some are also brown. All people IMO are varying shades of beige to dark brown; however, due to silly classifications based on "race" (which doesn't exist in the context of humans IMO as we are all of the human race) there is a such thing as a "black" person such as myself.
The terms "caucasoid," "negroid," and "mongloid," were all based on stereotypical views of various persons in the world and those views came from the prejudicial minds of Europeans/caucasoids who placed themselves on top of that hierachy.
There is no such thing as a caucasoid or a negroid. They are no longer scientific terms and are vestiges from a racist past used to substantiate the superiority of the caucasoid "white race" which doesn't exist.
There are many subsaharan Africans who do not have the classic nappy hair and wide noses and big lips but they are very dark skinned, like the Tutsi's of Rwanda. The genocide there partially occurred as an indirect classification of the former colonial rulers placing the Tutsi's above the Hutu's based on them being less "negoid" yet both tribes are subsaharan African.
There is no such thing as those classifications. The Moors had dark brown skin for the most part, which is how white/Europeans depicted them. Again, it is silly and odd that you or Krokodil would attempt to insinuate that they were not "black" since their name, given to them by Europeans means "black."
Race was not a social construct centuries ago like it is today. However, there was still a lot of diversity in the world in regards to our skin hues.
IMO attempting to say that the Moors were not black is a way for people to further attempt to spread the idea that only the white/Caucasoid (which doesn't exist) is superior in war and intelligence. By ascribing to this belief, and using those retired racist terms, you are aligning yourselves with a racists past.
The Moors being black just was. It doesn't add to nor negate their positives or negatives on Europe, Norther Africa, or Asia (i.e. "the Middle East"). There have been very interesting and beautiful and powerful cultures all over the world with members of various skin colors, mostly brown since a majority of the world's population has always been brown and not "white."
OK, let me be a little less diplomatic: everything we know about Hannibal goes back to Livy's description which says nothing about skin color, (Livy, De Condita Urbis. Bk 21) yet it is commonly bandied about today that he was "black." Moor may mean black, (what language? Please document.) but that doesn't mean they were black. As mentioned by others, European depictions of the Moors show them as being certainly different and maybe even the suggestion that they were evil. Editorial license on the part of the artists, if you will. Certainly a plausible explanation for the depictions.
The terms caucasian, negroid & mongoloid date back to the time when these groups were relatively isolated in terms of geography. They were based on observations of superficial physical characteristics. Political correctness has led to the abandonment of the terms, but now facile, accurate genotyping has demonstrated their veracity, in the statistical sense. (Please review population gene pools & gene frequencies).
If, as a descendant of sub-Saharan Africans, you feel some need to insist the Moors were black, go ahead, but science is not on your side.
As has been abundantly stated...The people commonly and historically called "Moors" going back to Roman times were a Mediterranean people of mixed genetic roots who were, in all likelyhood, the "blackest" people that the Romans encountered in their immediate area of conquest or control in the Mediterranean. They were not, are not, sub-saharan people but were Berbers and were commonly, but not universally black skinned. The Romans encountered them in Morocco and ancient (coastal) Mauritania and labeled them with a term that later morphed into "Moor". That term was not used for Nubians or Ethiopians living farther to the south. The root of "Moor" is probably debatable but it designated Berber people who were generally black-skinned and living in North Africa. There was a group of these people in North Africa who were known as the Mauri people (no, not the New Zealanders). The North African Maori folks made incursions into Iberia in Roman times long before the rise of Islam. Berbers all along the coast of North Africa are a genetic mix but are considered a Mediterranean people. Berbers might have dark or black skin but might also have light or even blondish hair and lighter colored eyes. Many were Romanized and Christianized....St. Augustine was a Berber. All sorts of people paraded through that part of the world going back to the Ice Age. There is said to be genetic evidence of a link to the Sami (Laplanders), for example. The Roman and later Arabic-Islamic conquest of North Africa brought more genetic mixing. So the "Moors" were a mixed Mediterranean people who were primarily Berbers in origin but broadly mixed genetically. Many or most were black-skinned but not all and as the populations became mixed through Roman and Arab-islamic conquest and incursion the term "Moor" was apparently broadly applied to an entire population group of which many were black or very dark-skinned. These people later occupied the larger large part of Spain.
I think this ongoing debate is more about language and linguistics than about history or genetics. In modern times, and largely outside of the historical context, "Moor" has taken on a different meaning as "black", a narrower definition. It looks like terms used here might mean different things to different people: "White", "Moor" and "Black". I have even seen posts on other CD threads where the writer declares that Italians and Spaniards are "Black" because they are not as "White" as say Norwegians or northern European might appear. That might just be a failure of the English language to differentiate or it might reflect a personal thinking issue. The Spanish term for a darker (dark olive or brownish) skin or featured person is "Moreno" (a word derived from Moor) but the term Negro/Negra refers to Black. There are probably variations in terms and usage in different parts of the Spanish speaking world. In English there doesn't seem to be a similar term that is descriptive while not being racial and probably pejorative depending on the user.
There is a curious other internet debate that parallels this one about Shakespeare's character Othello, probably the most famous 'Moor' in English literature. The only "Moor" that the English Elizabethans had encountered on their home soil was the ambassador from Morocco (Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun). While in London, the ambassador had his portait painted and he is clearly dark but not 'black'. I suspect that for every portait of a "Black" Moor you might be able to find one of a not-so-Black Moor. Stepping over the body of Othello which is most commonly understood today to be a black man (as he says he is in the play), the English Elizabethans viewed "Moors" as being dark-skinned "Turks" which was sort of a code word for Muslims at the time. Shakespeare chose to make his Venetian Moor black-skinned but Othello didn't have to be except in the context of the story and the playwrite's use of symbolism. Perhaps, over time, this helped "Moor" and "Black" become almost synonomous in the English language.
Last edited by SunGrins; 03-28-2016 at 04:46 PM..
Reason: spelling
I'm wondering how many people today who have the last name "Moor", or "More" or "Moore" in their family tree are descended from the Moors? With so many genetic testing options available today (like "23andMe", etc.) there is the potential for a great deal of genetic data comparisons between people with similar last names, but I don't know how much of that has actually been done.
Has anyone in this thread done one of these DNA tests? Does your last name happen to be some variation of Moor? Just curious.
I am a black American (I don't call myself an African American because I am not an African).
White people are not "white" either, they are various shades and some are also brown. All people IMO are varying shades of beige to dark brown; however, due to silly classifications based on "race" (which doesn't exist in the context of humans IMO as we are all of the human race) there is a such thing as a "black" person such as myself.
The terms "caucasoid," "negroid," and "mongloid," were all based on stereotypical views of various persons in the world and those views came from the prejudicial minds of Europeans/caucasoids who placed themselves on top of that hierachy.
There is no such thing as a caucasoid or a negroid. They are no longer scientific terms and are vestiges from a racist past used to substantiate the superiority of the caucasoid "white race" which doesn't exist.
There are many subsaharan Africans who do not have the classic nappy hair and wide noses and big lips but they are very dark skinned, like the Tutsi's of Rwanda. The genocide there partially occurred as an indirect classification of the former colonial rulers placing the Tutsi's above the Hutu's based on them being less "negoid" yet both tribes are subsaharan African.
There is no such thing as those classifications. The Moors had dark brown skin for the most part, which is how white/Europeans depicted them. Again, it is silly and odd that you or Krokodil would attempt to insinuate that they were not "black" since their name, given to them by Europeans means "black."
Race was not a social construct centuries ago like it is today. However, there was still a lot of diversity in the world in regards to our skin hues.
IMO attempting to say that the Moors were not black is a way for people to further attempt to spread the idea that only the white/Caucasoid (which doesn't exist) is superior in war and intelligence. By ascribing to this belief, and using those retired racist terms, you are aligning yourselves with a racists past.
The Moors being black just was. It doesn't add to nor negate their positives or negatives on Europe, Norther Africa, or Asia (i.e. "the Middle East"). There have been very interesting and beautiful and powerful cultures all over the world with members of various skin colors, mostly brown since a majority of the world's population has always been brown and not "white."
You've clearly been fed Afrocentric lies. This goes along the same propaganda about Egyptians being black based on depictions ignoring that there were also wall paintings depicting themselves anywhere from white, brown, blue and red. These are not based on historical facts.
Race is more than skin deep. A good portion of India's people are dark brown/black skinned and they are the furthest thing from sub saharan Africans. Again the Moors ranged from pale to olive, up to brown skinned just like the North African Berbers that live there today. The likes of you should travel these parts of the world and see for yourself instead of listening to afrocentric sites.
They were blacker than me and im 32 percent black.
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