because i’m really tired of rhetoric regarding egypt on this website, and because i’m tired of repeating the same things over and over, here’s a post of things every person who posts something about egypt should be aware of before opening their big fat mouths:
egyptians do not ascribe to western racial constructs. repeat this several times. egyptians aren’t white, or black, or white-passing, or brown until they’re forced to identify under these by westerners. like “poc” these terms are meaningless without something to compare it to. when you call people living in their own country “poc,” you sound like an idiot.
before mouthing off about “ancient/real egyptians” and “modern coloniser egyptians,” this is what egyptians look like:
but they also look like this:
and this:
none of these are considered “more egyptian” than the other, and if we don’t do it, frankly you shouldn’t.
(i had to take some of these off a government propaganda video, i hope you’re happy. also watch it, it’s pretty catchy.)
here is egypt on a map:
(x) as you can see, egypt is located in northern africa. this makes egypt an african country. it is also usually included in the politically vague “middle east,” or more accurately the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. egypt is a culturally arab country. this makes it african and arab. egyptians identify as both without issue. it is not a big deal, nor is it up to you to tell us what to identify as.
egypt has also had the same borders for around 5000 years, give or take, due to the nile being a major factor in where the concentration of populations are. therefore ancient egyptians were also north african, with close interactions with the kushite kingdom in the south, where Sudan is now. got it? ancient egypt, geographically = egypt + sudan. we know exactly where ancient egypt was located. they were nice enough to write everything down.
egyptians were never enslaved by americans or taken to america. while the egyptian diaspora is large, most egyptian immigrants are recent first or second generation. this means that egyptians have no claim to african american history, and vice versa.
nubian egyptians still exist. they are a minority in upper (southern) egypt that faces erasure, oppression and discrimination.
the Egyptians have been in place since back in the Pleistocene and have been largely unaffected by either invasions or migrations. As others have noted, Egyptians are Egyptians, and they were so in the past as well. (x)
for reference, this is what egyptian traditional dress looks like:
(not super accurate because it differs in different parts of egypt, but you get the idea. surprise, it’s not cleopatra outfits after all!)
here is a list of the absolute stupidest (and most popular) posts regarding egypt i’ve seen on my dash that you should absolutely 100% not reblog ever:
and my personal favorite:
(please do not reblog any of these they have caused more pain and grief to egyptians on this website than exodus ever will.)
so to sum up: don’t tell egyptians what to identify as, don’t tell egyptians what they’re supposed to look like, don’t force egyptians into stupid western racial classifications and don’t talk about egypt unless you have basic knowledge of egypt.
* links with (*) on them lead to posts on my own blog that clarify each point or explain it further, not outside sources. i only have basic knowledge of most issues from an egyptian point of view, but that’s still more than 99% of the people on this website so you might as well listen to me instead of giving the fucking indo-aryan post 75k notes.
If you have ever reblogged anything about Egypt you better read this so help me
yooooooo this is the most accurate thing about Egyptian racial identity that I have ever read on this website
just once i wanna put the blade of my sword under a pretty boy’s chin and tilt their head up so i can see both fear and arousal in their eyes is that too much to ask
Being a Kemetic is weird because sometimes people slash through words so that their posts don’t show up in searches for that word (I mostly see vulture culture stuff like this), and I spend a solid minute confused, like:
“What are they trying to destroy/erase/curse x thing?”
DO U EVER HAVE THIS CELEBRITY THAT EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SEE THEM YOUR HEART FEELS LIKE ITS GOING TO RIP OUT OF UR CHEST AND YOU GET BUTTERFLIES IN UR STOMACH AND U START SMILING REALLY BIG
daydreaming is often a coping mechanism for people who are often lonely or don’t receive a good amount of love in their life, so they make people inside their heads that will love them so they can feel the right amount of love.
ERASE the idea that America saved lives by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan from your minds. ERASE the idea that it was anything more than a political move to scare Russia and also to satiate US curiosity as to the true ability of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military bases. They were heavily populated civilian cities chosen precisely bc the U.S. wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go. Japan was on the verge of surrendering, the U.S. literally wanted to test out their nuclear weapons on people that they deemed disposable. That is it. If those bombs were dropped by any nation other than the US veryone involved would have been tried as war criminals.
Also erase the idea that America was the hero of WWII and got into the war because they wanted so save people. They couldn’t have cared less about the victims of the Holocaust, proven by the fact that they turned away so many shiploads of refugees that went on to die at the hands of Nazis.
“the us wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go” oh really? Source your bullshit, asshole
i left out sources bc i figured most tumblr users know how to use google but ok
“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” – page 52-56
– Dwight Eisenhower future president and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces also said:
“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [the then Secretary of War] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” – page 380
– Admiral William Leahy, one of the highest ranking officials in the US army during WW2 wrote of the usage of the bombs:
“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. […] My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” – page 441
– General Douglas McArthur, another high ranking US official in the war:
“[When asked about his opinion on bombing Japan] He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” – page 70-71
– On September 9, 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey commander of the Third Fleet publicly quoted as saying:
“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… . It was a mistake to ever drop it… . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it… . It killed a lot of Japs.” – online source
– The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, speaking to President Truman:
“I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength.” – diary of Henry Stimson which can be found online here
– Even those deploying the bombs questioned the decision to drop them on civilian cities:
“I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts–say in Tokyo Bay–so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.” – online source
– Lewis Strauss Assistant to the Navy Secretary James Forrestal on the locations of the bombings:
“I remember suggesting […] a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. […] Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation.” – page 145
So to recap:
A lot of American generals were against using the bomb as they felt it served an empty purpose.
Those who agreed with its usage completely disagreed with dropping them on cities.
Truman went ahead and had them detonated in two highly populated civilian cities anyway. Two cities that had remained mostly untouched by regular bombings throughout the war precisely bc of their lack of value to the Japanese war effort.
Draw your own conclusions.
I hope y’all know that this is common knowledge to everyone of every other country
Goldnwulf 