[pjc50]

Ongoing arguments about representation. Some people want to maintain the lie that there were no black people in the UK before the Empire Windrush. Some people want to insist that fantasy novels of pseudo-medieval settings should not have black people in as it's not "realistic", which is also silly.

[aminok]

It should be noted that North African is generally not black and in fact genetic testing of remains of some individuals living in the region of Carthage at the height of its power show them to possess a European haplolyte that has since mostly disappeared, and survives predominantly on the Iberian peninsula.

[dghf]

> It should be noted that North African is generally not black

It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.

[aminok]

>It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.

I didn't put it in overly simplistic terms. I said it "is generally not black", not "it is not black" or "it is never black". I was referring to the majority, rather making a blanket characterization about all North Africans.

[berntb]

Considering the large slave trade that filled the harems etc with black female slaves, there should be quite a lot of black ancestry in the Arab world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl...

But the Tuaregs were isolated from that type of immigration?

[douche]

Similarly, North Africans of the late/post-Roman period could actually be Vandals or Alans, ethnically. There's a huge amount of flux in populations in the ancient period.

[mc32]

I dunno. I don't feel slighted because no Europeans or middle easterners are represented in Chinese operas just because the silk road.

[cmrdporcupine]

It's worth noting that 'blackness' is a kind of modern era invention -- the Romans were deep into north Africa, it was entirely integrated into the empire, more so than much of Europe, and in their texts the colour of Africans skin is not really even mentioned. They are just referred to as Africans, which means Romans who live in North Africa. That's it.

[pjc50]

You're absolutely right, and that's another reason why this is considered important: race is a modern way of viewing the world. The Romans were colonialists, but their kind of supremacy was based on culture and civic behaviour rather than skin colour. You could become civis romanus, and be accepted.

[acjohnson55]

Not to mention that along particular corridors, there was contact with sub-Saharan Africans. Especially down the Nile, but also via routes through the desert.

[Torgo]

By the 1300s Arab slave traders had a concept of blackness, it's older than whiteness as far as I can tell but I'm no expert.

[convexfunction]

Ah, so that's why people find this so interesting. Thank you.