#Cleopatra African

[tonyrossmcmahon]

Cleopatra - the fury over her ethnicity

Queen Cleopatra - the new Netflix series - has some in a lather over her ethnicity. The critics need to take a chill pill and calm down.

Nothing divides an online and TV audience more these days than the ethnicity of actors playing certain roles. Netflix now finds itself in hot water over a new drama-documentary series of the life of Cleopatra with black British actress Adele James in the lead role. Much of the fury has emanated from Egypt. But racist trolls have also been busy on social media. So, what exactly is the perceived…

[thetemplarknight]

Queen Cleopatra - Netflix provokes a storm!

The Netflix series Queen Cleopatra has provoked a heated debate on whether this Egyptian ruler was African or Greek as Tony McMahon discovers

Gosh, Netflix is in hot water over its new drama-documentary series Queen Cleopatra. Thousands of social media trolls are suddenly self-appointed experts on the ethnicity of Cleopatra, taking Netflix to task for casting the black actor, Adele James. As I’ve discovered on my YouTube channel, there is an army of blowhards out there convinced they know every detail of Cleopatra’s ancestry and the…

[bookishfeylin]

I know you don't usually do these kinds of posts, but you're probably one of the most implicated in black history month people that I follow so I wanted to ask you, as I already value your opinions in Acotar, what do you think of the documentary where actual historians claim Cleopatra was a black woman? Lately, this has been a pretty active topic on my fyp on TikTok, and I wanted to know a black woman's perspective on this.

Thank you in advance, and if you usually don't answer these questions or don't want to answer this one, I'll totally understand, and there's no problem at all.

I didn’t know there was a new documentary out, but when I saw the name Cleopatra I automatically sighed because I knew what was coming. This is a subject a know a little 🤏🏾 about, actually, because I researched it a bit myself in my last year of high school (and stopped because of the uh. NASTINESS associated with this particular subject) and though it’s been a few years I remembered some main, basic things, and I wanted to check a few things first.

At best, in the most CHARITABLE interpretation as far as I in my limited knowledge can tell, it would be correct to say that’s it’s POSSIBLE that she MAY have been mixed Black because, though she was part of the GREEK Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt (Ptolemy being one of Alexander the Great’s generals who got the Egyptian portion of his empire after Alexander died), that’s on her fathers side; her mother’s exact ethnicity isn’t known. Not that this won’t stop the hoteps from running off and claiming her and all of ancient Egypt as Black though So some have ***speculated*** that her mother—and thus Cleopatra—may have potentially been part Egyptian (and that goes into the issue of deciding that the “Egyptian” in this instance had to have been Black rather than MENA but that’s again a whole other can of worms). BUT it’s more likely that her mother was Greek due to the uh, PRACTICE™️ of inbreeding and it not being common for the dynasty to marry Egyptians. So it’s more probable that she was fully Greek/Macedonian and not part Egyptian, much less part Black. (Also some historians speculate she may have had Persian blood? I guess? Again it’s a can of worms, not something i’m digging deep into because of the nastiness that you often stumble across) Unless there’s a new study confirming her mother’s identity or something that I missed, it’s simply incorrect to claim that Cleopatra was undeniably Black, because though it is ***possible*** she most likely ***wasn’t.***

But this topic really upsets me, because there are LEGITIMATE Black kingdoms and empires who were mighty and well developed and powerful like the Aksumite empire and kingdoms of Kongo and Loango and the Great Zimbabwe empire and the empires of Ghana and Mali and Songhay and the Ashanti kingdom and the WHOLE SWAHILI COAST THAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE INDIAN OCEAN TRADE ROUTE and they had their own great rulers, their own kings and queens and emperors and empresses, their palaces and castles, their own cities and towns, their own complex civilizations and dynastic royal families that deserve the attention Cleopatra and ancient Egypt get. They were erased—and Egypt was not—by white people to prop themselves up as the only race capable of forming civilizations and advanced societies as a means of justifying colonization and imperialism to “civilize” the rest of the world and as a result many of those other empires have been erased from our education system here in the states and many people cling to ancient Egypt as proof that we’re not inferior and aren’t savages like white people claim due to believing that since Egypt’s in Africa it had to have been mostly Black when Egypt, and the Ptolemaic dynasty and Cleopatra in PARTICULAR, are literally the worst example that could’ve been chosen and were the only African kingdom spared erasure FOR A REASON.

Anyway, I don’t like it, it’s disingenuous and does US wrong because we need to give that energy to other African kingdoms that need and could use the fame Egypt + Cleopatra get, and we deserve a better education system to teach us this stuff. I hope this answers your question? And I don’t mind any kinds of asks 🥰

[mizz-sea-nymph]

New Isis desginnn

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Do not steal/trace/remove signature/copy/remove source/ repost and claim as your own/sell/etc

~~~~~

During ragnarok

https://www.tumblr.com/mizz-sea-nymph/751915124222312448/isis-during-ragnarok

Personality

https://www.tumblr.com/mizz-sea-nymph/751915173692030976/isis-personality

Accessories

https://www.tumblr.com/mizz-sea-nymph/751915273143173120/isis-weapons-and-accessories

English voice

https://www.tumblr.com/mizz-sea-nymph/751914516379500544/forgot-to-post-isis-voice

Jp voice

https://www.tumblr.com/mizz-sea-nymph/751914609062166528/her-jp-voice

[yourdailyqueer]

Cleopatra Kambugu Kentaro

Gender: Transgender woman

Sexuality: N/A

DOB: Born 1984

Ethnicity: Ugandan

Occupation: Activist

Note: In October 2021, she became the first Ugandan to have a change of gender legally recognized.

[tyrannoninja]

Cleopatra & Amanirenas versus the Romans

The Nile Valley queens Cleopatra of Egypt and Amanirenas of Kush are up against the wrath of the Roman legions! Can our heroines fight their way out of this predicament and defeat one the mightiest armies in the first century BC?

This is of course a fictional “alternate history” scenario I did for the sheer fun of it, but I really like the idea of Cleo and Amani teaming up against Rome. One wonders whether Cleopatra’s Egypt might have held up a little longer with more Kushite support…

[wenellyb]

What if I told you that it's possible to call out something without being racist about it🤔?

My problem with the whole Queen Cleopatra controversy isn’t the controversy in itself, but how people are reacting to it and it's very disturbing to say the least.

It seems that some people aren’t able to make a point without resorting to racism.

Let me explain. 95% of the long posts I’ve seen on the topic go like this: Long text explaining Cleopatra’s history and giving context about her origins, (which is always interesting to read) and then bam!: Anti-Blackness. 

Why not stop at the points you were making about Cleopatra not being Black? Why not stop the historical facts you were talking about?

I'm not an historian so I have absolutely no statement to make about what was the exact skin tone of Cleopatra, but I would love to read about it and learn more. But every time, I try to read some opinions on here, I'm met with either racist or xenophobic tags, even when the post itself wasn't being racist.

I even took some screenshots of some of the posts I’ve seen on Tumblr. It’s even worse on Twitter:

______________Screenshots_____________

____________End of screenshots___________

I really don’t understand why it’s so difficult to make arguments without resorting to racism and in some cases xenophobia.

Yes, Cleopatra may not have been Black, and I’m so eager to hear from historians on the topic  because it’s such an interesting one, but why do I have to read claims about how "Egyptians aren’t Black!”???

Egypt is a culturally diverse country and so are the rest of the African countries. There are also Black people in Egypt, there are also Black Egyptians so I don’t get the need to hide or ignore that fact. I don't understand the need to insinuate that there are no Black Egyptians when you know full well that's not true, even though that wasn't even the topic at hand. You were just talking about Cleopatra.

By dropping racist statements here and there in your posts, you’re shutting down any conversation before it even starts because how do you want me to trust anything written before or after that, if the post ends with some racist stuff, that has no business being there.

I can never agree with/ or reblog a post that is wrapped around a racist statement, no matter how right the premise was, it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

There's a huge difference between saying "a majority of Egyptians aren't Black" and "Egyptians aren't Black".

*Disclaimer: There has been a couple of posts/thread I've read that have been able to raise the issue without being racist or anti-Black, I'm not trying to generalize here. But unfortunately, the majority of posts I have seen had a racist statement at one point or the other.

[captainpissofff]

Since everyone's talking about the Netflix new black-washed afrocentric Cleopatra documentary,

Let me talk to you about what's been described as "Most historically accurate media production so far", that even Egyptologists use it as a reference for scholars,

The one and only

I give you ...

*drum roll*

ASSASSIN'S CREED: ORIGINS

Surprisingly, the game's timeline goes back to 49 BC.

Whose rulling era?

Yes, Cleopatra's reign.

Ubisoft, the game production company BRAGS about the AC series saying they proudly cooperate with specialists to create their games as historically accurate as possible, specifically Assassin's Creed Origins, it got to the point where they created a "Discovery mode" that allows you to just roam around the ancient cities of Egypt, no killing nor fighting just discovering!

There's this podcast called History Respawned where they hosted an Egyptologist from Harvard university to analyze the game and test it's historical accuracy, he simply said and I quote " Too damn accurate..!"

You can listen to the whole podcast here

A very interesting podcast that addresses many cases such as white-washing and black-washing of ancient Egypt.

Of course, NOTHING is 100% accurate, still has some flaws but it was accurate enough that even they took care of the cloth used by ancient Egyptians to make clothes!

The dyes, colours such as blue,yellow and red, the tools used in agriculture, in battles, the jewelries wore by NPCs everything was presice and accurate.

The game brilliantly succeeded in recreating the daily life in ancient Egypt during the Ptolemy periods, even the geographical features and places was perfectly designed that you may never see it in another western media production.

[blackinperiodfilms]

Queen Cleopatra | Official Trailer | Netflix

Season two of docuseries African Queens will feature Cleopatra, the world’s most famous, powerful, and misunderstood woman -- a daring queen whose beauty and romances came to overshadow her real asset: her intellect. Cleopatra’s heritage has been the subject of much academic debate, which has often been ignored by Hollywood. Now our series re-assesses this fascinating part of her story.  Jada Pinkett Smith as executive producer. 

The Queen Cleopatra documentary series premiere on May 10, 2023.

[spectralinvestigator]

Hot take but this Cleopatra Netflix 'Documentary' is basically that person who 'fixes' art of an original source bc they don't like it and thinks their version is the legit one.

[tonyrossmcmahon]

Queen Cleopatra - Netflix provokes a storm!

The Netflix series Queen Cleopatra has provoked a heated debate on whether this Egyptian ruler was African or Greek as Tony McMahon discovers

Gosh, Netflix is in hot water over its new drama-documentary series Queen Cleopatra. Thousands of social media trolls are suddenly self-appointed experts on the ethnicity of Cleopatra, taking Netflix to task for casting the black actor, Adele James. As I’ve discovered on my YouTube channel, there is an army of blowhards out there convinced they know every detail of Cleopatra’s ancestry and the…

[thetemplarknight]

Cleopatra - the fury over her ethnicity

Queen Cleopatra - the new Netflix series - has some in a lather over her ethnicity. The critics need to take a chill pill and calm down.

Nothing divides an online and TV audience more these days than the ethnicity of actors playing certain roles. Netflix now finds itself in hot water over a new drama-documentary series of the life of Cleopatra with black British actress Adele James in the lead role. Much of the fury has emanated from Egypt. But racist trolls have also been busy on social media. So, what exactly is the perceived…

[trekkele]

i saw someone complain about ‘queen charlotte’ in the same breath as the new cleopatra ‘documentary’ because “now people think queen charlotte the real person was black the way they think cleopatra was” and babes. A regency romance taking the chance to cast diversely and people being idiots is not the same thing as a documentary lying about someones race

[annachum]

We've gotten to a point where Asterix, Prince of Egypt, Jodha Akbar, Empress of China series and several other great historical fiction franchises are more ' historically accurate ' than Cleopatra Netflix Docuseries

How sad.

My deep condolences to Egyptians and Greeks all over by the way.

I hope you all are okay.

[possumteeths]

I literally never give a shit about movies casting non poc characters as poc like who gives a shit. But the new netflix doccuseries about like “powerful women in history” is a fkn joke. If theyre presenting something as a “documentary” and its about history something feels fkn malicious about race changing someone like cleopatra.

Presenting something completely changed to suit the current attitude of the general populace is big big yikes. Rewriting history has always been an agent of cultural erasure and the complete decimation of TONS of things that shouldve been remembered. Rewriting history is just about reaching toward fascist territory.

If you are presenting something that is meant to be somewhat “factual” and you completely change the race of who the person fkn is…? Is that not insane? Where is the line where it becomes not ok? Can people just start claiming that all influential people of history were some kind of POC as if to say “look the atrocities committed weren’t all that bad because they’re a poc.” “They were protecting their race! their people!” by doing these awful things? Like so were the fkn nazis??? This little thing is indicative of such dangerous fallout and misinformation that can spiral down into bullshit real fast and I fkn hate it.

[tyrannoninja]

Tarzan and the Queens of the Nile

It is 30 BC in an alternate timeline, and the Romans have used a sorcerous rite powered by the time god Saturn to pluck Tarzan of the Apes out of the early 20th century into their own time. They tell the poor ape-man that they will let him return home only on the condition that he assassinate those two troublesome Queens of the Nile, Cleopatra of Egypt and Amanirenas of Kush. Can our two heroines fend off Tarzan’s attacks and then offer him an alternate path to his native time period?

This version of Tarzan, by the way, is my interpretation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s original character.