A paler shade of black - Arab racism (rooted in Islamic heritage)

guardian ^ | March, 2008

[Righting]

Arabs.. racism.. it exists...

word 'abd - Arabic for "slave" - often used in our household... so common ..its negative connotations.. to anyone darker skin than themselves - from southern Sudanese house servants to migrants from Darfur- clear intent to demean.. addressing a particularly dark-skinned or thick-lipped child.

was a kind of racism that no one challenged, addressed,..through a child's eyes.. on a scale of colour, lighter was good, darker was bad. The word 'abd, although strictly meaning "slave" or "servant", became synonymous with negritude. my Islamic heritage reinforced this with quotes from Muhammad such as "You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian [ie black] slave whose head looks like a raisin" (Sahih Bukhari).

When we moved to E. Africa.. 'abd was seamlessly transferred to the locals whom we interacted only in their capacity as domestic staff , grounds-keepers at international schools. While I myself was "black" of North African descent, my family believed its Arab roots were somehow genetically dominant, giving us smaller features and a marginally lighter skin tone - deeming ourselves to be an entirely a different race from "pure" Africans.

Our next move was to Saudi Arabia, where the Arab ethnicity with which I identified so strongly was suddenly cast into doubt: now it was my turn to be the "slave". My belief that I was an Arab, racially superior to non-Arab Africans, became laughable in the heartland of Arabia - a place where "Arabness" was not only determined by skin colour but by whether you could uninterruptedly trace your lineage back to the founding father of your clan. In fact, ancestry is so important in Saudi Arabia that courts have the power to annul a marriage if gaps are later discovered in a person's lineage.. blood line pollution.

[2banana]

Alot of American blacks think that islam is their lost “mother” religion when, in fact, arabs have made more slaves out of black than the west ever did through out history AND this slavery still goes on to this DAY (where the west pretty much banned it by 1865)...

[Ouderkirk]

What I want to say will get me banned.

[Albion Wilde]

Alot of American blacks think that islam is their lost “mother” religion when, in fact, arabs have made more slaves out of black than the west ever did through out history AND this slavery still goes on to this DAY (where the west pretty much banned it by 1865)...

Don't confuse democrats/journalists/victimologists with the facts.

[darth]

When I was in North Africa in 1974 there were still slave markets where black Africans were sold to Arabs.

[Calpernia]

ping

[Biggirl]

Yet the Arabs for some reason have no problem accepting a certain Sen. Barak Obama during his recent tour of the ME and Europe.

[DTA]

>>>>When I was in North Africa in 1974 there were still slave markets where black Africans were sold to Arabs.<<<<

They still exist, albeit less openly.

[Righting]

Yes, tell it to Sharpton or to Obama...

[Righting]

>>>>When I was in North Africa in 1974 there were still slave markets where black Africans were sold to Arabs.<<<<

They still exist, albeit less openly.

Yes they do, in Sudan, Mauritanian, Saudi Arabia...

[DTA]

>>>>>>>>Alot of American blacks think that islam is their lost “mother” religion when, in fact, arabs have made more slaves out of black than the west ever did through out history AND this slavery still goes on to this DAY (where the west pretty much banned it by 1865)...<<<<<<

Worse than that. Approximatelly the same number of Black Africans was sold as slaves and transported to the Americas and to the Muslim world.

The slaves transported to the Americas left more than hundred million descendants.

The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.

This genocide of Black Africans in the hands of Muslims is comparable to to the Muslim genocide of Hindus.

I can understand why the WASP Liberals overlook it and why they hide it. They make travesty of the fact that Muslim world was OPPRESSOR FOR 500 years, and oppressed by the West for less than 100.

The fact that many African Americans are also willing accomplice in this travesty of truth is beyond me.

Why some embrace the cult that murdered hundreds of millions of their ancestors escapes logic and sense of dignity.

[Spunky]

"Yet the Arabs for some reason have no problem accepting a certain Sen. Barak Obama during his recent tour of the ME and Europe."

That's because Barack Hussien Obama on his trip said; "I want, I want, everyone to like me."

This is a comment he made when he said someone else was going to pick out who got to ask him the questions. He didn't want to look like he was playing favorites.

[Jeff Chandler]

"negritude"

Is that anything like "caucatude"?

[denydenydeny]

Bookmarked.

[Jeff Chandler]

The fact that many African Americans are also willing accomplice in this travesty of truth is beyond me.

Because their "us against them" worldview leaves little room for logic and reason.

[Sundog]

negritude ; (also Negritude)
noun
the quality or fact of being of black African origin.
• the affirmation or consciousness of the value of black or African culture, heritage, and identity : Negritude helped to guide Senegal into independence with pride.
ORIGIN 1950s: from French négritude ‘blackness.’

Learn something every day, don’t you?

[forkinsocket]

Middle Easterners have no sense of political correctness. If someone thinks that dark skin is unattractive or if someone dislikes blacks, they have no problem expressing themselves. That said, it’s not hard to see Saudi, Yemeni, Omani, & Gulf Arabs who clearly have black African blood from some ancestor. The least black Arabs are from Sham.

In Arabia, there are two channels devoted to marriage advertisements 24/7. One of the most common criteria that men wanted in a wife was light skin (most common criteria was to be tribal). For women looking for a husband, it was money.

[DTA]

"negritude" was a Trojan horse planted in the 1930s to the African elites in Paris (the same time when Communism was planted to European elites). Negritude elebrated "blackess" in the terms of white aestetics and was engineered to fail, not to liberate Black people and Black art.

The miserable results of post-colonial Africa can be directly traced to the Negritude movement.

[Jeff Chandler]

Learn something every day, don’t you?

It's true; it's actual; everything is satisfactual!

[browardchad]

An excellent video on this subject:

The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

[Will88]

“The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.”

And the Arabs preferred that their male slaves be eunuchs. Any descendants of African slaves came mainly from harems and house servants, whom the master was legally entitled to use for sex.

And interesting link:

http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa040201a.htm

Google “Islam Slavery” and you can learn all sorts of things from many links.

[twigs]

They may be racist but they’re not stupid. Obama represents their best chance of gaining control over our country and culture. They’re playing with him.

[arthurus]

the cult that murdered hundreds of millions of their ancestors

and will treat their descendants no better.

[hellbender]

Black Catholic reporter Gregory Kaine from Baltimore was so disgusted with Louis Farrakhan’s denial that Muslims still enslaved blacks that he went to Sudan and bought a slave or two, just to prove the point. This was in the 1980’s or ‘90s.

[Paleo Conservative]

The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.

Also, they were ususally castrated. This practice was explained in the book linked below.

http://www.amazon.com/Jihad-West-Muslim-Conquests-Centuries/dp/1573922471

[slowhandluke]

Historically, the lack of a modern institutionalised slavery system in the Arab world ...

I would think that a 'slave market' would meet the definition of an 'institution', and they were around in modern times.

Somehow, the fact that Arabs weren't picky about who they enslaved doesn't make it better in my eyes. Especially since they didn't stop, just stopped talking about it.

[CHEE]

word ‘abd - Arabic for “slave”
******************************************************************************************************************************************************

I was introduced to this while in Saudi Arabia in the early 80’s, I lived in Iran in the mid 70’s and did not notice any major racial problems. Religion and big noses (from an area near the Caspian sea) were problems. I admit that I obtained near zero proficiency in Arabic or Farsi (check out what the farsi word "kos" means.

[Cronos]

really?

[Cronos]

They make travesty of the fact that Muslim world was OPPRESSOR FOR 500 years, and oppressed by the West for less than 100.

you're wrong. The Moo's were oppressors of the Syrian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Irani, Chaldean, Anatolian, Armenian, Georgian, Indian, Turkic, Berber, Ethiopian, Balkan, Russian, ARab, people right from the 7th century until Europeans and Russians came back in the 1800s. I.e. they were oppressors for 1100 years of non-Africans and are still oppressing Africans now. In contrast, the West was the oppressor from the 1700s to the 1900s, 200~300 years on and off and that was as the oppressor of Africans and ruled the Arabs from the late 1800s to the 1940s~1960s

[Cronos]

Both those terms show how silly it is to think in terms of race as opposed to culture. If you meet Dominicans or Jamaican or Brazilians who have African blood, each of them will say they are culturally Domincan or Jamaican or Brazilian not by their skin color. And I’d agree with them. Among “whites”, there are cultural differences between Italians and Spanish, forget about Italians and Swedes. Even in the US, there is a cultural difference between Montana and Rhode Island

[Cronos]

The least black Arabs are from Sham

Sham???

[DTA]

Thanks for clarification.

[forkinsocket]

Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan.

[darth]

Yes, of course, there REALLY WERE SLAVE MARKETS openly operating in 1974.

[hershey]

Me, too.

[Cronos]

No worries mate — you were underplaying the guilt of the slamic world and overplaying that of the West. unintentionally of course, but we all should know the extent to which they did stuff

[Cronos]

thanks — it’s really hard to believe, eh? Then what is the Nation of Is going on about?? daft I call it

[Cronos]

The least black Arabs are from Sham : Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan.

Well, those aren't really Arabs at all. Arabs are Bedouins from what is now Saudi Arabia. Syrians are descendents of primarily Arameans (Ben-Hadad), mixed with Assyrians, Canaanites(aka Phoenicians) blood with traces of GReek, Persian, Turkic and Frank/Germanic blood. While Lebanese are Phoenicians (i.e. Canaanites) with some Greek and French/Frank blood. Jordanians are Moabites, Ammonites, other Canaanites and will have Israelite blood mixed with pure Arab blood. Palestinians are a mixture from a number of countries in the M-E

[forkinsocket]

If Arabic is your native language, you’re an Arab. The distiction between Arabs & Arabized are used by anthropologists & historians & almost all Sham Arabs refer to themselves as Arabs except for Maronites, Syriacs, & Assyrians. One exception is one Palestinian I met who did not wish to be called an Arab.

[Cronos]

Well, yes, by your definition of what a person calls themselves, you are correct. However, historically, genetically, these people originate from the peoples I indicated hence they have a lighter skin color. The force of Arabization we can see even now in Sudan as the article indicates where blacks are encouraged to think of themselves as Arabs (because Arabs are the Holy people and to make yourselves holy you need to be like them and even better be like Mo and grow your beard long -- as the Taliban forced young men in Afghanistan to do).

You're right about the Christian Middle-Easterners preferring to call themselves by their own names instead of being assimilated ("Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated")

however, the other people from the ME who are Moos and don't call themselves Arabs are the Berbers from north Africa -- many are now throughing that yoke off.

Ditto for Iran: I'm waiting for the native Iranis to realise the inherent dichtomy of being inheritors of a proud civilisation and living under a Bedo's religion.

[forkinsocket]

Seems to me that people least likely to become Arabized, Muslim or not, are people who keep their own language even if they also learn Arabic. Berbers, Kurds, Assyrians, Persians.

Bedouin get a bad name, but I find they are on the whole better people than settled Arabs. Much less religious too.

[forkinsocket]

Is kus also some kind of racial slur in Persian? I assumed it meant the same thing as it does it Arabic.

[Cacique]

btt

[infowarrior]

The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.

Added to the fact that it was common for the male slaves to be castrated, it's a wonder there were any at all...

the infowarrior

[Fred Nerks]

While I myself was "black" of North African descent, my family believed its Arab roots were somehow genetically dominant, giving us smaller features and a marginally lighter skin tone - deeming ourselves to be an entirely a different race from "pure" Africans.

Barack (Baraka) Hussein Obama Snr may have had the same idea. A little bit of arab goes a very long way...did he describe himself as Arab-African on the obama birth certificate?

New campaign slogan for the messiah: -

My name is Barack Hussein Obama - vote for me, the first muslim Arab-American candidate for President of the United States of America!

Obama: Arab American?.LINK.

Hey, if I were him, the first thing I would do is 'tweak' my father's race on any document, wouldn't you?

[RichInOC]

I think we finally figured out Barry’s ancestral religion...

...AME Church of the Sub-Genius.

[Calpernia]

I just had a sick thought. What if Barack is hiding his birth certificate because it contains Muhammad in it?

He is of the Omani lineage. That was the Prophet Muhammad’s lineage. Is Barack trying to insinuate he is the Mahdi?

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2049970/posts?page=47#47

[Calpernia]

OMG, they are setting up Barack to be the Mahdi:

http://www.hyahya.org/new_releases/news/070806_interview_aljazeera.php

Adnan Oktar: The Mahdi should already have appeared according to the writings of Said Nursi, and according to the accounts in reliable hadith and signs have already taken place. For example, we are told that Afghanistan will be occupied at the time of the appearance of the Mahdi. That has happened. There is also the fact that Iraq will be occupied, which has also taken place. An attack on the Kaaba was predicted, and that has happened as well. The waters of the Euphrates would be cut off. And the dam has done so. We are told that during the month of Ramadhan in the year of his appearance both the Sun and Moon will be eclipsed in a space of 15 days, and that has happened as well. Approximately a hundred portents like this have already taken place. For that reason, I am convinced that the Mahdi has appeared.

[Cindy]

http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html

#

OPINION:

Well, let’s go off topic a minute...

Ahmadinejad — does he think he is the great mahdi?

http://off-topic.internet-haganah.com/archives/000164.html

Hmmm...Probably not, but he’s ready for the mahdi.

http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/8052.htm

...and he’s sure...the mahidi is coming soon.

http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/8286.htm

Those in doubt, need to know that Ahmadinejad believes deeply
in his buddy the “hidden imam.”

http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/4780.htm

#

Just in case the little twerp wants to chime in, we’ll add his website here:

www.ahmadinejad.ir