Common misconceptions of Africans

[Kame]

Alot of people, especially here, fall in with the notion that black people, especially africans, have a "set" appearance. That unlike all the various european ethnicities and varieties, Africans vary little, they are all "negroes"(a highly offensive term) in the truest sense (heavy prognagthisism, dark-brown to bluesh-black skin, wide nostrils, curliest of hair etc.), in Africa and any variation or difference noted amongst african people is attributed to "admixture" ususually with arabs or other caucasian-looking people or europeans. While oftentimes this is the case, it is not always so, and Africa, like other areas of the world, has a great many environment types, and henceforth, also has a great many variants of phenotype.

Let me break it down by region, and further by type:

one West African type (sierra leone):


West African (ghana):

East Africa (ethiopia):

Southern Africa (South Africa or zululand):

Central southern Africa (botswana):

Africans vary to the point where it is clear we need a re-definiton of who is "black". Clearly some of my examples were not "black" in the classical sense of the word, one for instance, is a light-skinned as medium-hued arab or mediteranean and she comes from the southernmost part of africa. You can probably attribute some of the east africans looks to caucaucions, but not to southern africa where the caucasian influence was fairly recent and small.

The truth of the matter is, "black" people come in many shades and hues, they have lots of differing facial features between groups and they can be attributed mostly to simple evolution like everyone else. Africans are'nt lost-in-time, monolithic super-group, they are subject to change and variation like everyone else.

[human2]

No one said there wasn't variation in Africa. What is your point exactly?

The southern African woman in the picture looks like a Bushmen and Bantu admixture. Yes, we know about them. I can even tell the difference between a Nilotic and a Bantu. There are also pygmies. And the Masai type. And the East African type and types nest to the Sahara who have Semitic admixture.

Next.

Just stop posting people who are most surely mixed and then pass it off as "just another neibor or mine".

[Kame]

Surprise Surprise! the bushmen are another indigenous african group, and they are assurely more phenotypically and genotypically related to the bantu (for lack of a better word) then they are europeans or asians, which proves my point, you always attribute "different" looks to caucasians, and they may be mixed, but with another african group, like mixing italians with irish is to european groups.

and about east africans being mixed with "semitic" as you call it (you must appropriately mean west asian). Consider that and entire language family (Afro-asiatic) which is spoken in east africa and parts of the middle east, is derived from ethiopia not arabia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_languages

It does'nt seem as if anything was imposed upon them (except maybe islam), but rather the other ray around, if you understand clines and the the out-of-africa theory, you will not only understand the key to human variation, but more specifically the source of east-african features.

No one debates that europeans aquired their features and traits through environmental adaptation, why not so with blacks, who presumably have been a discernable group much longer than "whites"? Hmmmm, i don't know, yet people seem to have trouble with it. Black people are not susceptible to the laws of natural selection I suppose, and therefore, do not change.

[human2]

Kame said:

Surprise Surprise! the bushmen are another indigenous african group, and they are assurely more phenotypically and genotypically related to the bantu (for lack of a better word) then they are eurpeans or asians, which proves my point, you always attribute "dfiferent" looks to caucasians, and they may be mixed, but with another african group, like mixing italians with irish is to european groups.

no shyt the Bushmen/Khoisan/Hottentot are not European. I still don't know what your point is. And when did I do any of the things you accused me of? I'm not even anywhere near European.

Your own source proves you wrong:

The Semitic languages are the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily based outside of Africa; however, in historical or near-historical times, some Semitic speakers crossed from South Arabia back into Ethiopia, so some modern Ethiopian languages (such as Amharic) are Semitic rather than belonging to the substrate Cushitic or Omotic groups. (A minority of academics, e.g. A. Murtonen (1967), dispute this view, suggesting that Semitic may have originated in Ethiopia.)

In fact, all of the Afro-Asiatic speakers in Africa look somewhat mixed, so I definitely it expanded either from North Africa or the Middle East into deeper parts of Africa.

[Kame]

And when did I do any of the things you accused me of?

I don"t think it was aimed at you specifically, just at alot of people who think the only reason africans vary is because of european influence, genetically or otherwise.

[Anima Eternae]

Either way, they're not easy on the eyes.

[Soomaal]

Kame said:

Surprise Surprise! the bushmen are another indigenous african group, and they are assurely more phenotypically and genotypically related to the bantu (for lack of a better word) then they are europeans or asians, which proves my point, you always attribute "different" looks to caucasians, and they may be mixed, but with another african group, like mixing italians with irish is to european groups.

and about east africans being mixed with "semitic" as you call it (you must appropriately mean west asian). Consider that and entire language family (Afro-asiatic) which is spoken in east africa and parts of the middle east, is derived from ethiopia not arabia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_languages

It does'nt seem as if anything was imposed upon them (except maybe islam), but rather the other ray around, if you understand clines and the the out-of-africa theory, you will not only understand the key to human variation, but more specifically the source of east-african features.

No one debates that europeans aquired their features and traits through environmental adaptation, why not so with blacks, who presumably have been a discernable group much longer than "whites"? Hmmmm, i don't know, yet people seem to have trouble with it. Black people are not susceptible to the laws of natural selection I suppose, and therefore, do not change.

Nothing was forced down on east africans, I let you know that some of the first Muslims were from the Horn of Africa, if you look in history you will see that people from the horn never lost their culture or language and didn't face the same conditions as other Africans.

Either way, they're not easy on the eyes.

Everybody has their image of beauty.

[jay (mulatto)]

Anima said:

Either way, they're not easy on the eyes.

neither are pure mongoloid women. what's your point? can i see a picture of you ;D

[human2]

jay said:

neither are pure mongoloid women. what's your point? can i see a picture of you ;D

I'm afraid that's not true by a long shot.

[mike2]

No one is claiming there is no diversity among black Africans. There are many varieties of Congoid and the black African language families parallel and complement the racial varieties quite nicely:

1.) Negrid (in a nutshell, the Niger-Kordofanian peoples, the classic West African Negro type)
2.) Sudanid (basically make up the Saharans of the Nilo-Saharan speakers)
3.) Nilotid (basically make up the Nilotes of the Nilo-Saharan speakers)
4.) Bantid (associated with Bantu peoples, probably just an offshoot of Negrid, perhaps mixed with a little Hamitic or Capoid blood)
5.) Bambutid (Pygmies)

All of these people have their own peculiarities that distinguish them from each other but their skull form and physical features are basically the same and genetics link them all together. They all share an obvious ancestry.

It is my opinion that the East African type of the Ethiopians and Somalis is an intermediate Congoid-Caucasoid type, with the Congoid element being primarily Nilotic and the Caucasoid element being Hamitic/Cushitic/Afro-Asiatic/Atlanto-Med in origin. The Semitic ancestry is more recent and not as important. The partly Caucasoid element among the Ethiopians and Somalis is not only supported by genetics, but also by a skull form that serves to separate these black folk from their sub-Saharan neighbors. The Aethiopids, as they are commonly called, are thus a hybridized race.

The East African or Aethiopid Type: