Michael Jackson famously bleached his skin in an all out effort to become white; had plastic surgery to replace his God-given looks with features that esthetically would be deemed white; and had his hair straightened in an attempt to undo nature, replicating the same techniques that millions of other Black people employ.
Though he ran away from his Black roots his entire life (attempting to have the outward appearance of a white person in the process), Jackson found a precious moment to acknowledge them with the 1992 music video to his song Remember the Time:
The video was set in ancient Egypt, and featured groundbreaking visual effects and appearances by Eddie Murphy, Iman, The Pharcyde, Magic Johnson, Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr. and Wylie Draper.
Black people have long found Ancient Egypt a fascinating subject and source of pride, because Egypt is in Africa and logically must be an African nation. Just like the Black people populating Michael Jackson’s music video (an interview from Jet magazine with Michael Jackson about the music video can be found here), the Ancient Egyptians were Black people, and the intriguing erections that jettison into the barren desert are a constant reminder of the past glories of a people long since gone.
Those who believe some long dead ancient race built the pyramids are mistaken, as the long-standing monuments that still deliver awe-inspired looks of astonishment upon the faces who them in person were built by Black people.
Aliens had nothing to do with assembling and constructing the stones that comprise the pyramids or any of the trappings that make Ancient Egypt so intriguing and exotic. It was Black people.
Now, the question of where these intellectually-gifted and architecturally-minded geniuses drifted to is a question most Black people never pose nor consider answering: only the celebration of a long-dead civilization that has the geographic advantage of being on the African continent – thus making it Black in origin – is allowed.
Though scant evidence for inventions, metallurgy or descendants of this long dead Black civilization possessing similar intellect required for the creation of such an impressive civilization exist today, Black people still celebrate Ancient Egypt as their own.
In the seminal book, Not Out of Africa, the author provides mountains of evidence – all sourced – that helps to dynamite intellectually bankrupt ideas regarding Ancient Egypt that have spread throughout intellectual circles and infested the Ivory Halls of academia like Credit Default Swaps did in the 2008 financial markets:
Although I had been completely unaware of it, there was in existence a whole literature that denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy, and science. There were books in circulation that claimed that Socrates and Cleopatra were of African descent, and that Greek philosophy had actually been stolen from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely distributed; some of these ideas were being taught in schools and even in universities.
Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves a radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend his position by providing evidence in its support. But no one seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for evidence from the instructors who claimed that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt.
Normally, if one has a question about a text that another instructor is using, one simply asks why he or she is using that book. But since this conventional line of inquiry was closed to me, I had to wait till I could raise my questions in a more public context. That opportunity came in February 1993, when Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan was invited to give Wellesley's Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial lecture. Posters described Dr. ben-Jochannan as a "distinguished Egyptologist," and indeed that is how he was introduced by the then President of Wellesley College. But I knew from my research in Afrocentric literature that he was not what scholars would ordinarily describe as an Egyptologist, that is a scholar of Egyptian language and civilization. Rather, he was an extreme Afrocentrist, author of many books describing how Greek civilization was stolen from Africa, how Aristotle robbed the library of Alexandria, and how the true Jews are Africans like himself.
After Dr. ben-Jochannan made these same assertions once again in his lecture, I asked him during the question period why he said that Aristotle had come to Egypt with Alexander, and had stolen his philosophy from the Library at Alexandria, when that Library had only been built after his death. Dr. ben-Jochannan was unable to answer the question, and said that he resented the tone of the inquiry. Several students came up to me after the lecture and accused me of racism, suggesting that I had been brainwashed by white historians. But others stayed to hear me out, and I assured Dr. ben-Jochannan that I simply wanted to know what his evidence was: so far as I knew, and I had studied the subject, Aristotle never went to Egypt, and while the date of the Library of Alexandria is not known precisely, it was certainly only built some years after the city was founded, which was after both Aristotle's and Alexander's deaths.
Black people profess a belief in Afrocentrism, the belief that all that is good and great in the world comes from the supple and capable hands of Black people and that all evil and maliciousness is the hallmark of white hands only. The existence of Ancient Egypt as a Black civilization rests at the pinnacle of the theory of Afrocentrism, and no matter what scientific discoveries might uncover, Black people cling to the idyllic and romantic notion of a long-lost advanced society that was distinctly Black.
Michael Jackson’s music video provided all the evidence Black people needed to support the supposition that Ancient Egypt was Black, and should have closed the lid on such a superfluous argument once and for all.
It has not as contrary to the claims of Black people everywhere, Hollywood is prepared to make yet another film without a Black leading actress. However, the affront this time is too great as Angelina Jolie has been cast as Cleopatra:
Angelina Jolie is one of the most beautiful women in the world, but her "perfect" looks have some critics complaining she's all wrong for her latest role.
Earlier this month producer Scott Rudin got the Internet buzzing with his announcement that he was developing a Cleopatra biopic "for and with Jolie" based on Stacy Schiff's book "Cleopatra: A Life."
Schiff raved about the choice, telling USA Today, "Physically, she's the perfect look."
But some members of the African American community beg to differ -- they are outraged by the casting decision and say Jolie is "too white" to play the Egyptian Queen.
"I don't care how full Angelina Jolie's lips are, how many African children she adopts, or how bronzed her skin will become for the film," Shirea Carroll wrote in an editorial for Essence.com.
"I firmly believe this role should have gone to a Black woman...What's next? A biopic on Sojourner Truth played by Betty White?"
This isn't the first time Jolie has found herself at the center of a debate about race in Hollywood.
In 2007, she sparked serious controversy when she wore tinted make-up to play the role of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's wife Marian, who is partly of African descent. Pearl herself took to the press to defend Jolie, telling Time Magazine, "It is not about the color of your skin. It is about who you are."
While experts can't say with certainty what Cleopatra looked like, physically speaking, Jolie is probably not the most historically accurate choice. For starters, she's probably too tall, beautiful and skinny, according to what historians now know.
"Sadly for those who seek the secret of her personal allure, the more we study Cleopatra's surviving images, the less certain we may be of her [allegedly gorgeous] looks," Susan Walker, a senior curator at the British Museum, told the British Sunday Times.
In fact, according to ABC News, Egyptologists insist that the legendary temptress, known for having used her beauty to seduce Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and general Mark Anthony, was actually "short, fat and plain."
Black people being forced to suffer the indignity of watching a film that contradicts the Michael Jackson music video Remember the Time and the learned teachings of Afrocentrism is a horrendous offense that no amount of Black actors being cast as Nordic Gods can bring atonement too.
A land of eternal mystery, Ancient Egypt is a Black civilization that has been lost to the sands of time and the memory of this Nubian land is corrupted by nefarious white people bent on removing any shred of evidence that connects Black people to their rightful heritage:
This "celebration" marked the high-water mark of Afrocentrism, a movement that had begun in the academy in the 1980s and gained astonishing momentum with the publication of Martin Bernal's "Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization" (1989). According to various Afrocentric books and popular assertions, ancient Egypt invaded ancient Greece, Plato and Herodotus somehow picked up their ideas in travels along the Nile, and Aristotle stole his philosophy from the library at Alexandria. Though the arguments were contradictory and scattered, the point was that Western civilization had been founded on materials and discoveries borrowed or stolen from black Egyptians.
During this whirlwind of dubious scholarship, the academic world mostly remained mum, hiding behind the curtain of academic freedom and withholding its criticism lest a statement of simple truth be branded "racist." For a 1991 column in U.S. News & World Report, I phoned seven Egyptologists and asked whether the ancient Egyptian population had been "black." Of course not, they all responded, but not for attribution, since, as one said, "this subject is just too hot."
Truth is no ally of those who desire to win a debate with one who promotes theories populated with Afrocentrism.
Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes Angelina Jolie portraying Cleopatra, a casting move that contradicts the historical reality of Ancient Egypt and dares to question the validity of Michael Jackson’s most important contribution to contemporary Black history.
Remember the Time? Attempts to Black-wash Egyptian history fail historical reality, as the attempts to white-wash Michael Jackson’s body in life finally helped bring about his untimely demise.
