Why are Northern Africans not considered black, but Southern Europeans considered white?

Question

The African continent is the most centered on the equator and so almost all of their populations have some variation of dark skin.

This pattern is observed in all continents where skin color is determined by the indigenous population's distance from the equator, such that Northern Europeans, considerably lighter than Southern Europeans, Northern and Southern Middle Easterners and people North and South of Latin America.

All these populations are still considered "white", and "brown" and each part of the same ethnic group. Though they vary in hair color, facial features, skin color and skull variation.

I have noticed a difference when it comes to Africa, for some odd reason, people divide the North and other Africans into two distinct groups, thus indigenous Northern Africans are not black, they would rather say they are "something else" but anything besides "black" even though African's indigenous populations have the same skin color variation of any other continent. Why is this?

Answer 1

Coordinates and cultural standards

Answer 2

It is awfully funny that everyone who 'answered' this question so far managed todo it without facts and also BLATANT lies. I can't see their comments right now so i can't go all over their errors but i will correct most. first of all there is and never was a barrier from 'subsaharan' Africa to north Africa. in fact the term 'subsaharan' its self is based on false context(as the land was once a forestland) and was made up for the purpose of separating other Africans from their north African history. north African culture is NOT different from other African cultures like some poor misguided people have been stating.

To really answer the question on topic though i believe that it is a clear bias as to how 'Europeans' can lay claim to 'north Africa' with no facts what so ever but if a black person was to bring forth facts of a cultural history in Europe before white people  'accepted science' wouldn't give those theories the time of day and certainly wouldn't fund fake anthropology groups who's soul purpose is to suppress the truth.

Answer 3

Well, for one thing, the Sahara Desert is a huge natural barrier, which divides Africa culturally, liguistically and otherwise!

Until the melting of the last Ice Age (ca.10,000 BCE), Spain was connected to Morocco, and Sicily was connected to Tunisia, so there was more exchange of these peoples, back & forth, with Europe, than there was with Sub-Saharan African...

Answer 4

The North African populations are much more closely related to Europe than Africa, as until a few hundred years ago the Sahara was a huge impassable barrier to genes, with just a thin trickle passing along the Nile and along the South of the Arabian peninsula. A lot of North Africans, like the Berbers, are light eyed with blond and red hair, and the original inhabitants of North Africa were Caucasians from the Black sea area that moved West along the coast.

Sub Saharan Africans are the most genetically isolated people in the world. The Sahara really cuts them off.

UVE, go study genetics.

Also, sub Saharan only means 'that bit of Africa South of the Sahara'. It in no other way describes Africa, and I don't know why you think it does.

The North Africans are technically Caucasian, there's a d**n high frequency of blond hair there and it's not from recent European colonisation, as the ancient inhabitants of the Canaries (off North Africa) were described by the invading Spanish as blond and handsome. DNA tests of the mummies showed them to be the same haplotypes as the Berbers, and they'd been there since pre-history. The Berbers got there first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_peop...

http://www.workmall.com/wfb2001/algeria/...

Miyamoto..,

http://www.upf.edu/cexs/recerca/bioevo/2...

http://class.csuhayward.edu/faculty/gmil...

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/dis...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa...

My assertions are from population genetics studies. About 26% of the Mt DNA is sub Saharan, 68% European, the majority of the rest  North African specific and Asiatic. Hence the more closely related to Europe. The stats vary from country, that's pretty average though. the prescence of the M1 and U in the North African study indicate a Westward population wave, dated to the Neolithic at some time. The second link's numbers are a little different as they include more Southerly countries, not just those on the Med. I couldn't put my sources up before this point because the links weren't working yesterday.

The Sahara is mostly a big dry barrier, it opens up only intermittently, the last time about 12-8000 years ago. It's commonly referred to as the Saharan Gateway when it does that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_pump...

If you look at this map of world Y chromosome distribution you'll see the difference between North and sub Saharan Africa.

http://www.geocities.com/littlednaprojec...

There were humans in Morocco about 162k years ago, but I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what they looked like. But the only known  population we can place first are the Berbers (20k years ish). There's no evidence of black Africans being there first, so I didn't say they were there first. There may have been. We know the Neanderthals were there for a while, so anything is possible.

I know this subject well enough that I forget most other people don't know anything other than they learned in high school. Next time I'll remember to put in numbers and sources and not just write an easy to understand summary from memory .

Answer 5

Off topic at the posters:

Firstly, I have to say that many of the persons who answered the question are subconsciously exuding slight  racism and do not realize it, in fact they are not answering the question at all. I would not call it Ethnocentrism, I would call it not reading between the lines or not "digging".

For example

1. They have all vouched for the reason why North Africans are closer to Europeans, but without any scientific proof, and have also not provided any source as to why in one of their cases they believed the Berbers were white or that the first inhabitants of African were white.

One of the poster stated "the mummies" when no one had even mentioned Egypt or North African civilization, so must have  an agenda. She also claims that the DNA testing of the mummies shows they were closer to Europeans without citing sources and with no overall haplogroup chart on ancient Egyptian mummies ever being made public.

She also uses "original inhabitants" in the same post with "invading Spanish describing blonds" way after the time of "original inhabitants" occupancy and way after the Ptolemaic period of Egypt.

Ten claims they were "probably" there since pre history, claims others should study genetics but still has no proof to back her assumptions.

2.More racism comes out, when NEITHER of the posters I am referring to have explained why Southern Europeans are considered white, and have only tried to explain why Africans are not considered black.

There also seems to be a misconception and misconstruing of facts, two things I have noticed that has been mimicked throughout the thread which are incorrect, and leads me to believe that neither of the posters have any knowledge about these areas of Africa beyond "standard" knowledge, the type you would be told by tour guides, history teachers in high school or reading the headlines on discovery once in a while.

1.The Sahara was never a natural boundary between the South Sahara that prevented inhabitants from moving North and South of the continent, especially along the Nile river  which is a source of water that leads directly to the Mediteranean sea and could thus be followed by Nomadic tribes.

2. The Sahara as we know it today did not exist, most of North Africa was a lush landscape, and an extension of the tropics, this is confirmed by signs of erosion, plant seeds and animal bones.

To elaborate: We know that blacks, or at least tribes that used bows and dressed similarly to many Sub Saharan tribes of today were in North Africa before 4000 B.C by the artwork depictions on walls of caves in the region.

We can assume the inhabitants were dark skinned because of the "black mummy" that was DELIBERATELY mummified, at Uan Muhuggia, that dates to 5500 B.C.

In close proximity to the mummy, arrow heads, pottery and other items, animal and human bones were found. No doubt the very items depicted in the cave drawings.

All of these are facts that cannot simply be swept under the carpet, they cannot be ignored without explanation, and simply saying that Berbers popped up into the area, and were there first and WHITE while ignoring a 7500 year old mummy and tribal artwork is simply unacceptable.

On Topic: To answer your question, I believe it may be a subtle means of westernized racist agenda that lies in the brain of many, while Africans themselves are seen as hardly fighting over the black and white of things they do. Most of this bickering among Africans is culturally related, for instance the Somali and the Bantu, the Zulu and the Khoisan, all blacks all in Africa but all culturally clashing.

Europeans, though you might not expect it tend to fight among themselves about racial differences as well, in terms of skin color are also guilty of this.



While North Africans have European admixture and Southern Europeans have African admixture, Northern Africans predominately have admixture from the Sub Saharan groups, there must be a means of elimination, in order to add to a gene pool, an original gene pool must have been there.

This is where the problem arises with the North African region, who was there first?

Though North African overall phenotypes are not largely European, nor their skull types contrary to popular belief, they are still regarded as closer to Europeans, because of people that assume that the ORIGINAL were European, by process of elimination which I earlier mentioned.

Of course this is only based on hearsay and outdated concepts and not on actual scientific evidence. This is why North Africans are classed as whites.

Southern Europeans are classed as whites, because their phenotype appears indigenously European, unlike their North African neighbors, their skin is also closer to the Nordic, their continent is Europe, where it is thought that whites developed and the ORIGINAL are thought to be European, therefore they are classed as whites.

To put it bluntly however, the only reason North Africans are claimed as whites is because of the glory of Egypt. It is the father of civilization as we know it, and therefore, using the embedded racist programming many will not admit they have, it must therefore be a white nation.

Since it seems that DNA no longer confirms whiteness, nor phenotype, nor culture, nor skull type when it comes to North Africa, we have no choice but to notice the hypocrisy when it comes to Iran,  who though not separated by an ocean, but a meer "border" are CLOSER in phenotype AND skull type but NOT considered white because they have done nothing "worthwhile" by elitist standard and are of slightly darker skin color.

Mediterranean whites, must kiss the floor every day as they are accepted into white hood because of their ancestors' feats, while the dark skinned Iranians have been regarded as "brown" Caucasians even though Northern Iranians fall into the same geographic location, skin color and skull type as Spaniards, Greeks and Italians.

(List of sources below )