MovieChat Forums > Queen Cleopatra (2023) Discussion > White actors always played Jesus, hypocr...

White actors always played Jesus, hypocritical?


Now the ''anti-woke'' brigade are crying into their Trump manuals because it's happening in reverse (which I find annoying anyway, btw). Lol

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Do you think all the historians, Egyptians, and professional critics questioning this show's historical accuracy, are 'Trump supporters'? 🤦‍♂️

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Address the hypocrisy! Jesus was NOT a white WASPy European with long blond hair and blue eyes.

Egyptians have also complained about European and Hollywood whitewashing their history with white actors by banning a number of movies.

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I won't address the whataboutery, because NO-ONE here, least of all me, is defending the idea of Jesus as a white WASPy European with long blond hair and blue eyes. I've LONG criticised that practice. But why compare Cleopatra to what is possibly a *fictional* fantasy character? And one, who if he did exist, certainly didn't perform the *literal* miracles attributed to him?

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The topic is about racist hypocrisy among whites.

You defend WASPy Jesus and WASPy Ancient Egyptians when you don't speak up about it. Link to one of your post complaining about Hollywood whitewashing?

Racists have complained about black actors as "fictional" characters like The Little Mermaid and Finn in Star Wars, too.

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"You defend WASPy Jesus and WASPy Ancient Egyptians when you don't speak up about it. Link to one of your post complaining about Hollywood whitewashing?"

Give me a *recent* example, and I'll *gladly* complain about it. Like I say, I find the practice abhorrent.

I did recently call out On the Basis of Sex for casting a gentile English actor as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, instead of a more appropriate Jewish actor.

I've complained about The Impossible, as good a film as it is, focusing on a white couple, in view of how many thousands of Asians were affected by the 2004 tsunami, and to make matters worse, by casting the very WASPy Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor as the real-life Spanish couple at the heart of the story (which is by no means the worst type of whitewashing, but as someone of Iberian ancestry, I do find it annoying when stories invariably focus on English or WASPy American families, when there's a genuine opportunity to show some non-English/American characters for once).

But I see little point about complaining about films made in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, because that was clearly a different era, and I'm more concerned about whitewashing *today*, but I will certainly criticise the casting of Willem Dafoe in the otherwise brilliant The Last Temptation of Christ (as excellent as Dafoe is, in terms of performance/temperment in the role), because ideally that part should have gone to a darker-skinned actor. Likewise, Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ (at least he's a bit darker/more ethnic-looking than blond, blue-eyed Dafoe, but still very very white; maybe Hollywood will *eventually* get it right).

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Unfortunately, you're the exception. I'm going to answer your earlier question. First some context.

Whitewashing serves a purpose. It supports the dominant cultures' bigoted narrative especially around history. Narrative: Only whites have a history and made all contributions while blacks accomplished nothing. Conclusion: Only role for inferior blacks is subservience to the superior white race which justified slavery, Jim Crow and present racism. Without knowledge of black history, the majority believes the lie and a racial hierarchy remains.

I've heard people deny Jesus was Jewish and films with WASPy (and Italian) actors only reinforce it.

The Egyptian government and society are dominated and controlled by Muslim Arabs. They control education, mass media and culture in Egypt since they invaded in the 7th century. Basically, they have been saying that Arabs built the pyramids. ARABS WERE NOT IN ANCIENT EGYPT! Meanwhile, they deny the existence of the descendants of the Ancient Egyptians and persecute them. Anti-black, colorism, anti-Semitism, anti-Christianity bigotry are rampant in Egypt although they deny it.

Egyptians are being miseducated on purpose to support their hierarchy. The native Egyptians who built the pyramids are oppressed and second-class citizens.

All dominant cultures build-up their own accomplishments and history while denying those of the marginalized groups.

Re: the show
Most historians have said Cleo's mother was unknown. The show is only speculating what if she were 1/2 or 1/4 Egyptian. That's all. They were likely inspired by the discovery of Cleo's half sister's tomb and skull which was identified as bi-racial (black mother).

Past white historians were just as racist as everyone else. Many present white historians and Egyptologists are denouncing the past racism and are becoming more honest about Egypt's history. I'm encouraged. Most historians said Cleo was not white and likely tan or mixed. The Cleo actress is a light-skinned black - racially mixed.

The Egyptian government is furious toward black Americans who repeatedly say Arabs had nothing to do with the pyramids and invaded Egypt. They're outing Egyptian lies! LOL!

Critics are idiots who know nothing and base their reviews on societal expectations.

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I see it's part of a series about African queens. The first season covered Queen Nzinga.

"Producers of the series stated that "[Cleopatra's] ethnicity is not the focus of Queen Cleopatra, but we did intentionally decide to depict her of mixed ethnicity to reflect theories about Cleopatra’s possible Egyptian ancestry and the multicultural nature of ancient Egypt." Adele James questioned the validity of the concept of "blackwashing" and expressed her disappointment with racial perceptions "that people are either so self-loathing or so threatened by Blackness that they feel the need to do that, to separate Egypt from the rest of the continent".

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I really thought it was wrong for John Wayne to play Genghis Khan. And Warner Oland to play Charlie Chan. If they were recent examples, I would have complained about them on the internet.

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Whitewashing has never stopped.

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And now they're getting their own back by blackwashing instead, and even blacks don't like it.

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It's flawed logic. The aim should be to end all wrongs. NOT to counterbalance one wrong with *ANOTHER* wrong. Unfortunately, a lot of people think this way (i.e. "well, YOUR people did X to MY people. Time for payback.") When will this bullshit end? The South Africans (i.e. Truth and Reconciliation) and Northern Irish (i.e. the Good Friday Agreement/power-sharing), to their credit, have recognised how stupid this approach is.

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Apples and oranges.

Whites pretend that POC historical people/persons are white which is white supremacy: Jesus, Egyptians, cowboys

Blacks are just doing an acting role.

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[deleted]

Anglo-Saxons weren't around until the 5th century Ina completely unrelated country, an protestants not until the 16th, so it's a bit of a stretch of the imagination to think the ancient Egyptians would aspire to be of a completely different race/religion a century and a half in the future.

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"Hollywood likes to pretend that ancient Egypt was full of white people"
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5955253/Hollywood-egypt-white-people-exodus-gods-and-kings

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The key word here is 'pretend'.

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I don't know why my post was deleted, but I'm still waiting on a response from you about this. Remember don't be a hypocrite.

https://freeimage.host/i/HUQGLRR

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They are all black originally :D

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What, like "humanity ultimately came from the continent of Africa"? That happened so, so long ago, along the lines of at least 100,000 years, that it's pointless to speculate now.

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Do I need to add /s after that grin to be obvious that it’s sarcasm???

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Apples and oranges!

Whitewashing is done to support a racist and white supremacist narrative that only white people have a history and made contributions. The majority of whites (and others) don't know any black history so they believe the racist narrative. History of oppressed people is always denied by the dominant culture to reinforce its hierarchy.

Black actors are only playing a role.

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That dumb. John Wayne was picked to play Khan because he had huge box office draw. No one in 1956 America was worried about maintaining White dominance of America, when whites were over 88% of the population.


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I know, right?

And historical depictions of Jesus as white are not about "white supremacy," they are simply a continuation of a tradition of Jesus being portrayed as European by European artists, because most of them were unfamiliar with non-Europeans, and portrayed people to look like the people they knew, not only geographically, but in time as well. Have a look at this painting of Sabothai bearing a cup to King David:

https://www.alamy.com/sabothai-bearing-water-to-king-david-1440-image184280156.html

Now whatever the real 11th/10th century BC King David looked like, it sure as hell wasn't a 15th century European knight, complete with full plate armor. The artist had no idea what David would have looked like, or what the material culture of the ancient Israelites looked like, so he painted David to look like the kings he knew from his own time.

Or look at this object, which I've seen in person. It's Muiredach's cross, in County Louth. It dates from the 10th century.

http://irisharchaeology.ie/2017/05/muiredachs-high-cross-monasterboice-co-louth/

Scroll down to the third photo, which shows a panel depicting the arrest of Christ by Roman soldiers. The soldiers are basically shown as Vikings, with long mustaches and everything. The 10th century Irish monks had no idea what a 1st century AD Roman legionary looked like, but they did know what the Vikings, who during that very period were raiding and looting their monasteries looked like, so... when they needed to portray soldiers bent on victimizing the Savior, they fell back on villains they knew personally.

These are just two examples; there are thousands from medieval or renaissance art I could cite. This, not racism, is where the tradition of depicting Jesus as white comes from.

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Well, made my point far better than I did, thanks!

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I can't believe they picked a SERIAL KILLER to play Genghis Khan! Oh wait, maybe I CAN believe it...!

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Well, a lot of people have said that 'The Duke' was a clown, so... 🤷‍♂️

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I was only kidding, to be honest. I just realised that John Wayne has the same first two names as Gacy, and thought I'd pretend I'd misread the name before commenting. But since it makes me look poor-sighted, I'll give up on that game right now. I haven't got the stamina for such things, nor does sarcasm travel well in internet posts.

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I know you were kidding.

Why else would I have said The Duke (i.e. John Wayne) was a clown (i.e. John Wayne Gacy)?

I thought your joke was funny, and was simply going along with it.

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You don't know history. The KKK was about maintaining white dominance through terrorism while the thousands of Jim Crow laws and policies were about maintaining it legislatively. The U.S. is a race-based hierarchy from the start with its declaration that blacks are only 3/5 human in the Constitution.

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1. Sure the KKK was about that. John Wayne was a massively successful movie star that was about making movies that people liked. That you conflate the two, is you being weird.

2. That 3/5s bit, was a move by anti-slavers to undermine the political power of slave states. That you attack them for thier actions, is.... terrible. Really the only people today that should be attacking them for that would be the KKK and nazis.

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1. Marion was a draft dodger and racist.

2. Slave states shouldn't have had slavery. The U.S. was founded on racism, classism and misogyny.

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1. Irrelevant. John Wayne was not cast in that role to support w.s. He was cast to make a movie that people would enjoy and pay more for. That is the point. Your claim that it was for another reason was wrong.

2. You attacked people who were fighting against slavery. You stated that their action was about maintaining "white dominance" when it was all about fighting against slavery. The slaver owners wanted to count slaves as full people, so that they could use the existance of those slaves to have MORE POLITICAL POWER, so that they could protect and expand their system of slavery. They wanted to use the exists of slaves to empower slavery though "democracy".

That is a horribly cruel thing to have wanted to do.

It is morally and intellectually bankrupt on a scale of massively evil proportions.

And you are on the side of the slaver owners....

Would you like to discuss why your/their pro-slavery position was horribly immoral and wrong?


I personally thought these issues were settled and clear, but I would be happy to go into detals since you brought it up and took the pro-slaver position.

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U.S. was founded by oligarchs.

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And some of those "oligarchs" were anti-slavery and some where pro-slavery.

You attacked the anti-slavers for their attempt to politically weaken slavery.


That is your world view.

In MY world view, such people should be celebrated and held up as Heroes.


I am anti-slavery and you are PRO-SLAVERY.

(yes, historical discussion, but that is the side you have taken)

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It’s the other way around. Whitewashing back then was done either out of limited actor resources, and/or the actors were box-office draws as another commenter said. Also, as another commenter pointed out, the white actors tried to look the part, so the characters themselves weren’t portrayed as white. Basically, they were just playing a role.

Blackwashing now is done out of revenge-casting and pushing afrocentric black-supremacy, and the characters are portrayed as black.

Neither is ok if we’re being fair, however you’re right about one thing: it is apples and oranges. The former was done out of convenience, the latter is done out of racism.

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Spot on. And isn't it amusing how the same lefty crowd that howls so loudly about cultural appropriation is just fine with trying to appropriate other people's history and write them out of it?

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That's nonsense! The U.S. was always multi-cultural. Maybe your area is lily-white, but the rest of the country isn't.

Whitewashing STILL exists! What's your excuse now?
https://cassavafilms.com/list-of-9/nine-decades-of-asian-whitewashing-in-cinema

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The U.S. has always been overwhelmingly white. There were even less POCs back then than now, and none of them back then were box-office draws, which Hollywood needs to profit from their investments.

That hilariously uninformed article not only proves all of my points, it strengthens them by including comedy and parody films, where "color-face" was the point. As for the 2010s section, a quick searched showed that the only movie with white-washing was Doctor Strange, and that was only done to not offend the Chinese. Kevin Feige later apologized for that (but not for all the blackwashing in the MCU, interestingly enough). Clearly the writer of the article didn't do proper research.

I stand by what I said: whites were just playing a role, while blacks are appropriating culture. What now?

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Not overwhelming. You must live in a homogeneous region which has clouded your perception.

Still happening. Whitewashed Cleo film with Gal Gadot. Now we get to see WASPy Egyptians again for the zillionth time even though they painted themselves with brown and tan skin.

"Gal Gadot's Cleopatra film sparks 'whitewashing' claims"
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54529836

Cultural Appropriation is Europeans stealing Asian, African and American artifacts!

"Five relics Egypt wants back from foreign museums"
https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/egypt-five-relics-want-back-foreign-museums

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lol Gal Gadot isn't even white, she's Israeli. Where I live is irrelevant, just look up the demographics; there's more white people in America than all non-whites combined. Museums don't appropriate anything, they preserve artifacts and help bring awareness and education to the world. Those relics would've been lost to time if they weren't recovered.

Just admit it, kid. You lost this round. With every post you make, even if you’re just trolling, you keep digging a deeper hole for yourself, and keep proving me correct.

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You should stop arguing with this racist troll. He has an agenda and it's failing. He lost every debate he's has on here about whiteashing, and when I show him proof of blackwashing he claims that they are playing roles. He's a hypocrite and and just keeps using race cards for everything, especially when he gets stumped. Move on this bigot feeds on responses.

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"Gal Gadot isn't even white, she's Israeli."

Then, neither is Jesus and he shouldn't be played by white actors.

No matter how you spin it, stealing POC artifacts is still cultural appropriation.

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You know, da Vinchi's The Last Supper was painted around 1495 depicts Jesus (and everyone else) as white, while Michaelangelo's depiction of God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel (1510) as also... white. Who would have thought that 2 of the most famous renaissance artists that ever lived were racist?

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It's apples and oranges, when it has to fit your narrative. The white actors are also playing roles. You're deck of cards must be running our of those race cards because you've been using them alot.

Also how bold of you to say that the majority of whites don't know black history, how do you know this? What's that term called when you group a whole race of people and base all of them on a few?

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"The white actors are also playing roles."

No they're not because they're supporting the lie that the historical people/person they play were white. It maintains the lie of white supremacy. Whites believe the Ancient Egyptians, Vikings, cowboys, Jesus, etc. were all white.

Blacks are just playing a role.

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So, sir lancelot was black? Achilles was black? Joan of Arc was black? Julie Cesar was black? Is that not lying about historical facts? How come that's considered just roles? Your logic is idiotic and you sound lost, just like all of your arguments. Second place ✌🏽

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Ancient Egyptians:
The French historian Count Constantine de Volney travel to Egypt and wrote this during the late 1780's,
“Just think, that this race of Black men, today our slave and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech! Just imagine, finally, that it is in the midst of people who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery, and questioned whether Black men have the same kind of intelligence as whites!”

Vikings:
"A striking feature of the early Vikings’ success was their ability to embrace and adapt from a wide range of cultures, whether that be the Christian Irish in the west or the Muslims of the Abbasid Caliphate in the east. Viking crews would frequently lose members and pick up new recruits as they travelled, combining dissident elements from different backgrounds and cultures. The cultural and ethnic diversity of the Viking Age is highlighted by finds in furnished graves and silver hoards from the ninth and tenth centuries."

Cowboys:
"Classic Westerns have cemented the image of cowboys as white Americans, but the first wave of horse-riding cow wranglers in North America were Indigenous Mexican men. First trained by the Spaniards who arrived in 1519, on land later known as Mexico, the original vaqueros were largely Indigenous American men who were trained to wrangle cattle on horseback...After the Civil War, 20% to 25% of cowboys were Black, Indigenous and Mexican, depending on geography."

Jesus:
"Scholars consider this image—around five feet tall, with darker skin, dark eyes, and shorter, curlier hair—to be more accurate than many artistic depictions of the son of God....Taylor used archaeological remains, historical texts and ancient Egyptian funerary art to conclude that, like most people in Judea and Egypt around the time, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man’s height at the time.... Cargill agrees that these more recent images of Jesus—including darker, perhaps curlier hair, darker skin and dark eyes—probably come closer to the truth."

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HELLO! He was from the Middle East! His complexion was brown!

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Not necessarily it wasn't.

https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-blonde-Arab

There are fair-skinned Middle Easterners, and even blonde and red-headed ones.

A guy I work with and have known for twenty years is Lebanese and blonde.

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Jews in Judea in that era had tan to brown skin, dark curly hair and dark eyes.

There are no pure races. Your work colleague can have European ancestry. You should ask him if he did a DNA test.

"I was born and always have lived in Lebanon, Beirut. I haven't studied history or taken any courses except a brief one back in high school.

During the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon which lasted from 1923 till 1946, thousands of French (even Italian) settlers lived in Lebanon as party of mandate. Even after the Independence of Lebanon in 1943, thousands of these settlers stayed in Lebanon. That is a big starter for me to remember on why there would be an ethnic diversity in Lebanon.

I was only born in 1992, and from what I can personally observe around me, there are people of all “colors” here. Whether they are being treated equality and justly, that’s another question.

A lot of my friends are born to a Lebanese parent and another parent who comes from either France, Germany, Italy, the USA, Philippine, Armenia, Syria, Brazil, Iraq, and a long list of other countries."

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I'm repeating my comment from another poster:

Jesus:
"Scholars consider this image—around five feet tall, with darker skin, dark eyes, and shorter, curlier hair—to be more accurate than many artistic depictions of the son of God....Taylor used archaeological remains, historical texts and ancient Egyptian funerary art to conclude that, like most people in Judea and Egypt around the time, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man’s height at the time.... Cargill agrees that these more recent images of Jesus—including darker, perhaps curlier hair, darker skin and dark eyes—probably come closer to the truth."

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The "woke brigade" blubbers endlessly about things like racewashing, yet doesn't mind when specific races replace others. That's the real hypocrisy. Either you think it's wrong or you don't. If you think it's wrong then apply that principle across the board without exception.

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What on Earth are you babbling about?

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When Caviezel played Jesus he was made to look like a Middle Eastern guy (that's how Jesus would have looked, I hope you don't believe Jesus was ... black!?)

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/2014/06/10/NOKL/ghnewsok-OK-5587213-65158878.jpeg

So at least they tried to be accurate. I don't think it's ok to paint Jesus as being white but as long as the actor have the right look (makeup, etc) that's what matters.

And btw, Jesus is a made up person that have never existed and none of those movies were presented as "documentary".

And if you watch American Gods you will see an interesting idea: that usually gods will take the image of the culture that paints them. And in that show we have Mexican Jezus, black Jesus, Asian Jesus - and nobody gives a shit.

Because Jesus is not the person, is the IDEA. And, again, none of that is supposed to be historically accurate like a documentary.


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I hesitated before competely dismissing the existence of Jesus. I'm an atheist, but there is some historical consensus that such a man may have existed, simply as a preacher, even if he wasn't 'the son of God'.

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"May have existed" - maybe, but was that man Jesus or as you said some regular preacher with more appeal and better ideas?

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I'm guessing he was called 'Jesus'. In any case, it doesn't matter what his given name was. What matters is, was he the 'son of God'/did he perform miracles. Like you, I believe the jury is out on those two questions.

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"When Caviezel played Jesus he was made to look like a Middle Eastern guy"

So we've had whiteface, blackface and now Arabface! What fucking next??

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It’s called “acting” for a reason. I don’t care about “whiteface”,”blackface”, etc. I care about the actor portraying as close as possible the character.

RDJ in Tropic Thunder is great and for me is not a problem. Bleach Rene what’shername for Snow White and I don’t care. Let her be brown and I complain. Not because she is Latino but because the character name is literally Snow White …

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RDJ was playing a white man *playing* a Black man.

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Dude, dude.

And yes, exactly ..

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Racists complaining about a Latina actress? No surprise!

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"Not because she is Latino"

Learn to read you idiot. I specifically said "NOT BECAUSE SHE IS LATNA".

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" Let her be brown and I complain."

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Yes idiot, the character is NOT called BROWN Snow but White Snow, you imbecile. Her skin was supposed to be white as the snow, not brown as the shit …

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There are Latinas named Blanca.

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Haha, idiot, that’s her name given to her due to her WHITE AS SNOW SKIN. It’s in the fucking book.

The royal couple soon gave birth to a beautiful and much longed-for baby girl. Their daughter's hair was black as a raven, her lips were red as blood, and her skin was white as snow. This is why they named her Snow White.

Can you be even more dumb? I swear you racist black supremacists are too much.

Btw, there are Latina that have white skin as well, idiot.

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Gibson is on the record as saying he wanted his Jesus to look like Caravaggio paintings -- an Italian artist whose subjects looked like he'd used Italians in his paintings.

In the Bible, the only description of Jesus is that He wasn't good-looking [Isaiah 53:2-3], and yet He's always depicted in films by a movie star with movie star looks. And if you read the Bible description of Christ's passion, if you go though all four gospels, you're going to notice something startling -- it would fill a half-hour movie, not two hours and 7 minutes, as does TPotC. Gibson made most of it up or took it from non-Biblical sources.

Sadly, Gibson promised it would be "just like standing on Golgotha." It wasn't, of course.

There are historical references to Jesus -- Josephus -- and references in the gospels to historical figures. You don't have to believe that Jesus was the Son of God -- free will and all that -- but there are proofs of His existence. He isn't "made up."

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"Gibson is on the record as saying he wanted his Jesus to look like Caravaggio paintings" yes, and it is a normal thing to represent Jesus as the population that uses that image.

There are representations of black Jesus, East Asian Jesus, etc. Do you see me complain about that??

Josephus was born after Jesus death, I wouldn't call that a primary reference. There are NO records of his existence during his life. Only 60-100 after, which pretty much can be retelling the scriptures story.

BTW: "Almost all modern scholars reject the authenticity of this passage in its present form"

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Golly. Does the Talmud count? Granted, references there aren't flattering, but....

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This Talmud? You tell me.

"Where is the problem, you wonder? As we know, the life and ministry of Jesus occurred during the first century AD, and any historian will agree on this. On the other hand, according to the Talmud’s story, his rabbi was Joshua ben Perahiah, who lived during the Zugot (“pairs”) period, the time of the King Alexander Yannai… which was about 100-200 years before Jesus’ birth. Do you see the contradiction in the Talmud?
In addition, tractate Sota was composed around the fifth century AD, hundreds of years after Jesus’ time. Whoever composed tractate Sota and made up this story about Jesus was clearly not very good at history and confused the dates. Would you be willing to seriously consider a book that claimed that Baruch Spinoza groomed and taught Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef while he wrote the book “Ethica”? With the same seriousness you should also address the Talmud’s claims about Jesus, who, by the way, was never an academy student and never had a rabbi.
To conclude, we see more evidence that the Talmud contradicts itself, that the stories in the Talmud about Jesus are false and were meant to incite hatred against him."

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Jesus would be sad about this thread

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Jesus has been portraited white for many a people's lifes. It's just normal to see him like that in movies.

What is happening with Cleópatra is a deliberated attempt of virtue signaling to the woke mob

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Jesus wasn't a WASP. It's racist and anti-Semitic to see him like that in movies. You want to maintain racism.

Egyptians painted themselves with brown skin, not white. Cleo series is more realistic than WASPy Egyptians.

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About this wasp, what's the deal?

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He is an idiot, and a black supremacist racist. WASP is a meaningless term, specially for the first century.

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White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

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And Egyptians (the ones complaining about Cleopatra) are anything but not WASPy ...

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They're Muslim Arabs - many light-complexioned. Racism, anti-Christian, anti-Semitism, and misogyny are rampant. The ancient Egyptian descendants are persecuted. It's horrible! The Arab government lies by saying they built the pyramids. Their school books lie so many don't know Egypt's true history. They built nothing. They invaded Egypt in the 7th century. Black Americans ruin their lie by saying the truth about their invasion and non-involvement with the pyramids.

Copts are murdered, discriminated and hated because they're Christian:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/egypt-release-nine-coptic-christians-detained-for-attempting-to-rebuild-church/

Many Nubians were forced off their land and ancient treasures threatened because they're black.
https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/10/3182/52-Years-After-Displacement-Scars-Of-Loss-Remain-For-Nubians

They make my blood boil.

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Cleopatra was a MACEDONIAN GREEK, IDIOT!

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Cleopatra was a MACEDONIAN GREEK & possibly EGYPTIAN, IDIOT!

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Egyptian does not necessarily mean black.

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No, it's not. Brown Egyptians are a lot closer to Mediterranean white population than black Sub Saharan population. Plus she was NOT Egyptian you idiot.

So you finally ended the bullshit with "Egyptians are 100% black"??? WTF happened to you? Do you start to understand reality?

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You're an idiot for not knowing that Egypt is in Africa and the indigenous people of Africa including Egypt were black. Asiatic people TRAVELED from ASIA and settled in the Northern region and intermarried with black people in the region.

You don't know African history nor culture. If you did, then you would know the similarities between Egyptian and other African cultures instead of repeating racist tropes.

I doubt if you ever opened a history book to learn about the continent.

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Holly shit, after saying in another post that Egyptians were diverse now you reset to "Egyptians are black because they are in Africa"?

You're a fucking racist!!!

I know a LOT more than you about African/Egyptian history and culture. Remember that Egypt and North Africa was conquered (NOT JUST VISITED) by a lot of Mediterranean kingdoms with caucasian (white) features.

"Asiatic people TRAVELED from ASIA" - you see how IMBECLIE you are? Asians are NOT a monolithic population as you think.

If your mind Africans all BLACK, Asians are ALL CHINESE or whatever while Europeans didn't exist.

You cannot be more racist than that.

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In 1782 a French philosopher and historian named, Count Constantine de Volney, visited Egypt and said this:

“All the Egyptians,” wrote de Volney, “have a bloated face, puffed-up eyes, flat nose, thick lips — in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features.”

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:750/format:webp/1*bNoustrTy1wjAbZ6ctqZ2A.jpeg
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1100/format:webp/1*2NvQq-3FQ8CwEsTL7no14w.jpeg

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Jesus has been portraited white for many a people's lifes. It's just normal to see him like that in movies.


So, going by that logic, if we just portray Cleopatra as African-descended for many a people's lifetime, then everyone bitching and moaning about how she's not racially accurate will get over it? Cool, let's do that and normalize non-white people in movies. Oh wait, that's what they are doing, and everyone is crying over it.

This is why racial inclusion is important, because leaving POC out for so long has cemented white as normal and therefore non-white people as abnormal in the minds of so many people, even people who grew up in culturally diverse reality. Thanks for highlighting this.

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This is picking up fights where they weren't necessary. The fundamentals should be, if you're the best for the job, you get the job, regardless of your colour palette. Making Cleópatra black doesn't trigger people because of historical inaccuracy, it does so because it's a shameless nod and reinforcement of woke culture

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Maybe she got the job because she was the best actor for it.

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I'm not picking a fight, I'm just applying your own logic to the situation. And by your own logic, we can only conclude that the main reason white actors were accepted in the roles of non-white historical figures since the inception of film in the west is because of normalization, so we should try and normalize showing POC to achieve the same thing. And if you're calling that an agenda, then again, by your logic, the over-saturation of white people in films must also be considered an agenda, and who's to say which is bad and which is not? Why should anyone be ashamed of showing a POC in a film?

If you happen to disagree, that's hardly what I'd call picking fights. Disagreements happen in conversation, pretty standard stuff, and we've both been fairly civil, so I wouldn't call this a fight.

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Not Hypocritical at all. Jesus was not Sub-Saharan African. He was Hebrew.

Cleopatra on the other hand is Greek.

Neither Cleopatra, nor Jesus was Black.

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Very hypocritical!

"Sub-Saharan African" is a racist trope. Black people are indigenous to Africa and lived, traded and intermarried with each other. Suggesting blacks limited themselves to one region is complete ignorance of African history and culture.

Jesus was not a white European. He was Jewish from Asia with light brown skin, dark curly hair and dark eyes like other Jews in that area and era.

Nobody knows what Cleo looked like or who her mother was. Most historians said she wasn't white, but likely tan or racially-mixed. The show is only speculating that her mother was Egyptian or partially Egyptian. White as default = racist. Not everything revolves around white people. For instance, Adam and Eve should never be depicted as white since they lived in Africa and whites didn't exist until 8,500 years ago.

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No, sub-Saharan African is not a racist trope. The peoples of north Africa are different, genetically and ethnically, and different in physical appearance than those in sub-Saharan Africa. North Africans look a lot more like, and are more closely related to southern Europeans and Levantines than to black Africans from south of the Sahara. A DNA analysis of mummies revealed a lot.

https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-thought-ancient-egyptian-mummies-didn-t-have-any-dna-left-they-were-wrong

It revealed that genetically, ancient Egyptians had almost no sub-Saharan African DNA, whereas today they have some 15-20% -- in other words, ancient Egyptians would have looked less black than modern ones, not as much or more. Ancient Egyptians would have looked like other peoples from the eastern Mediterranean region: Jordan, Syria, the Levant, Anatolia, etc.

Oh, and the idea that Jesus had dark, curly hair -- I have seen it described lots of times as "woolly" -- comes from the only description of his physical appearance found in the Bible, Revelation 1:14-15. Problem is, most people have never read those actual verses, just read or heard what other people said about them, and the information got distorted, like that telephone game we all played in elementary school. The actual verses are (emphasis added):

14] His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
[15] And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

So wool wasn't used to as a comparison to describe the texture of Jesus' hair, but the color -- garments of bleached, undyed wool would have been ubiquitous in 1st century Judea (and indeed all over the Roman Empire) so everyone would have known what that comparison indicated.

White. Not dark.

But then, you've been wrong on a lot of your facts on this topic, like saying the ancient Egyptians painted Cleopatra as "melanated," when there are no surviving Egyptian paintings of her from when she was alive at all.

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It is a racist trope AND you don't know how to read!

Your link is useless! The author is a literature major - not a scientist! Like you, she has zero ability to comprehend scientific research.

1. The research wasn't about the racial makeup of Ancient Egyptians. It studied FOREIGN population movement and integration in Egypt:

Owing to its rich natural resources and strategic location on the crossroads of continents, the country had intense, historically documented interactions with important cultural areas in Africa, Asia and Europe ranging from international trade to foreign invasion and rule. Especially from the first millennium BCE onwards, Egypt saw a growing number of foreigners living and working within its borders and was subjected to an almost continuous sequence of foreign domination by Libyans, Assyrians, Kushites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks and Brits. The movement of people, goods and ideas throughout Egypt’s long history has given rise to an intricate cultural and genetic exchange and entanglement, involving themes that resonate strongly with contemporary discourse on integration and globalization


They purposely took a few genetic samples in a region populated with foreigners during an era of mass foreign migration into the country. Duh! Of course the DNA is foreign!

The purpose is to study how foreign migration will affect the modern world:

"resonate strongly with contemporary discourse on integration and globalization"
"we seek to determine if the inhabitants of this settlement were affected at the genetic level by foreign conquest"

True Ancient Egyptian DNA can't be tested because of the intense heat and age which rendered samples useless. Furthermore, the scientists already acknowledged they didn't take samples in regions where blacks live which is in the southern regions:

"Clearly, more genetic studies on ancient human remains from southern Egypt and Sudan are needed before apodictic statements can be made."

European artists showed Cleo as European while Egyptians showed her as Egyptian. None accurate. We don't know what she really looked like.

Jesus was long dead when the Bible was written, therefore the description is useless. Current historians knew what Judeans looked like in that era.

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The article's author is a literature major, so that disqualifies him from saying anything credible on the subject eh?

Okay, in the first place, that's an appeal to authority fallacy. In the second place, the author of the article was writing about the work of Johannes Krause, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

You do realize that your logic applies to you too, right? In other words, because you are not a credentialed scientist, nothing you have to say on the matter carries any weight. You've painted yourself into a corner.

They took 90 samples -- that's not just "a few" over a span of time that stretches from 1400BC to 400AD

Here's a different article about the same study

https://www.earth.com/news/first-genome-data-egyptian-mummies/?placement=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlabAleiD_wIVZi6zAB3cXAzWEAAYAiAAEgKwwfD_BwE

"'The genetics of the Abusir el-Meleq community did not undergo any major shifts during the 1,300 year timespan we studied, suggesting that the population remained genetically relatively unaffected by foreign conquest and rule,' said Wolfgang Haak, a co-author of the study."

If they haven't studied the southern regions of Egypt closer to where the Nubians lived, what different does that make for this topic? Cleopatra lived in northern Egypt, where the people had less sub-Saharan DNA (not that we have any evidence her family had intermarried with them anyway), was of Macedonian/Greek ancestry, with some Persian/Sogdian, and she ruled from Alexandria, not one of the ancient centers of power where the native Egyptian pharaohs had ruled.

The new testament of the Bible was written during the lifetime of people who had been alive when Jesus was. Its authorship is, at most, a few decades after his death, and the authors of some of the books were people who had known him personally.

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No it is not a racist trope, asshole.

And yes we do know what she looks like and her lineage.
Most historians DO NOT say she wasn't white. That is an outright lie on your part.

We do have many Black-centric Activists who try to rewrite all of history to claim that African Black created and did everything of note throughout history... as claiming she wasn't white.
These idiots are not "Historians"

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Are you saying she looked exactly like Mark Anthony?
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/194522/tetradrachm-coin-portraying-queen-cleopatra-vii

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No idea

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He's half-human, half deity. What race should he be?

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