[okal]

Hey. Just a point of correction - East Africans are just as black as people from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. You may find communities along the coasts, such as the Swahili, with significant Arab ancestry but most inland tribes are not different from their Western or Southern African counterparts. The greatest differences occur between language groups. Take the Nilotes for instance - the linguistic group which my tribe, the Luo, belongs to - we tend to be relatively tall and thin, with very dark skin, as compared to the more stout, lighter skinned Bantu groups. These distinctions also exist between the Western African branches of Nilo-Saharan (the Nilotic parent group) and the Bantu communities in the region. Southern African communities are largely Bantu though. In short, the vast majority of East Africans are what you'd call black, no different from any other black populations.

PS: "Sub Saharan" is rather long. We really don't mind "Black" Africa.

[wearefriends]

Thank you, that's very interesting. I was more referring to Horners. Ethiopians, Somalians, Eritreans. But that brings up another interesting question for me. How would you consider them? I know outside of Africa they are considered caucasians and have significant caucasian influence ( we're talking at least or over the 50% range.)

Pictures results after googling around a bit:

http://i.imgur.com/sgCSr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Xt8pQ.jpg

In my opinion, this just shows that humanity is a gradient. Overlapping. It's rather fascinating.

[okal]

Yeah, it really is fascinating. Sorry, my previous comment didn't talk much about the Cushites. We have a large Kenyan Somali population - close to a million - and an even larger diaspora from Somalia with residency or refugee status, because of the civil war in their country. The Somali myth of origin, if I remember my high school history, goes something like this. A Yemeni man marries the daughter of a man - ethnicity not specified - called Darrod. Assuming Darrod was black in the typical sense, this story might point to a "biracial" origin of the Somali. The Ethiopians on the other hand, have a story about a creator making humans out of clay. Those who stayed too long in the kiln became black and were placed south, those who didn't stay in long enough became white and were placed to the north and the Ethiopians who stayed in for just the right amount of time were placed somewhere in the middle. I read it when I was a kid, so I don't quite remember if it placed any distinctions between the Tigre and Amhara, the most dominant tribes in Ethiopia. I assume it's the same for the Erritreans, as they were essentially a single nation at some point.

Cushites - are "Black" in a political sense, maybe less so in a cultural sense as I've been made to understand that Ethiopians generally don't see themselves as lowercase "b" black.

About the gradient thing, black people have a huge spectrum of different skin colors, even within the same family. My Mum for instance, is light skinned. My sister and I are quite dark. The funny thing is we started out really light skinned as children, perhaps till we each turned three. I've heard some kids start out blonde and end up with dark hair? I find it all quite interesting.

[wearefriends]

I agree! I have a somali friend. The general somali myth is that they all, the tribes, came from one Somali man and his wife. I think the Somalis generally realize they're not from arabs. And abhor even the suggestion! haha.

But he said that you are correct, if you go in the north of Somalia, where currently, Somaliland is. You will find that many Isaacs ( clan name) think they are descendants of the arab tribe of Mohammed. My friend tells me these people are just confused. And I think we can agree that DNA analyses seem to suggest he's correct.hehe. DNA and linguistic research seems to suggest the Earlier Egyptian,Somali, Amhara and Eritrean populations to be close relatives. With the Somalis having the least influence of surrounding nations ( Arabs, west-africans etc.) Funny how the ones that don't think they're purely Africans, are the ones that in fact, are!