NOTE: The difficulty with referring to the language of our ancestors in kemet is that there were no vowels because they were implied eg. the actual spelling of Kemet is Kmt.

Black has never been an means of identifying Africans. When Africans learned to speak English, Black became an identifyer and not before.

Whilst Kmt means through TRANSLATION black land, you would not go around seriously saying that the land our ancestors came from was the black land, you would refer to it as Kmt.

The word our ancestors used to refer to us as individuals was Kamu (if I remember correctly) This translates to black but has further meaning. It directly referred to our being born with a great gift from the life giving sun witch was our dark skin. To a person living there Kamu held this connotation, of holiness born from the skin we wear as Africans.

I have a problem with being called black because it does not hold this connotation. In fact you should take a look at a dictionary and see just how negative the connotations associated with it are.

Our people need to learn that we have our own languages and our own associated connotations with words. We need not use theirs. If a person wants to call me Kamu, I would gladly accept because this means my skin is of the creator and is thus the skin of a diety. Tell me, what does black say about you or me as Africans and I'm sure you will then know why me and people like me do not want to be referred to using such derogatory terminology.

Hotep

First and foremost...there has never been an African people who called themselves "black" absent of psychopathic white aggression. All Africans have called themselves by their ancestral, family, or tribal/klan name, and never by the color of their skin. African people, including migrant Africans (Sumer, ancient China, ancient India, etc.), only resorted to being "black" after being invaded by Indo-European/Semitic people; and that includes Egypt. Most people don't realize that Sumer means "the land of the Black-headed ones". However, the land had a name before it was invaded by the nomadic "whites" out of the Caucasus mountains.

Likewise, with what we call ancient Kemet, it means "the land of the Blacks". However, the name only came into existence because a particular Pharaoh renamed the country to differentiate between the Indo-European/Semitic/Asiatic invaders into the Nile Valley. Before then, the name of ancient Egypt/Kemet was Ta-Mery which means "the beloved land".

So again, I reiterate (as Dr. Clarke said), there is no such thing as a "Black Africa". If you are not indigenous to Africa (eg Arab, Coptic, etc.) then you are an invader. Calling one part of Africa "black" presupposes that a "white Africa" actually exists when it doesn't.

Africans have called themselves black. In their own languages, that is. The ancient Egyptians called themselves Kememu, which means black people. Khemet means Land of the Blacks, literally. So you are wrong, Shemsi.

You're both thinking in caucasian terms, assuming their ascribed meaning to the word/shade, ''black''. They are genetically deficient in that they lack melanin and, as per Cress Welsing, have over the years written against being melaninated and, as a result ascribed everything negative to the term... this is seen in the Rig Vedas and their society in general, an admiration of the shade alongside a certain abbroance and fear of it. Not everything black is negative in their interpretation as you would expect from a peoples who are genetically deficient and recognize being melinated as being natural and benificial, in finance being, ''in the black'' is to be in profit and its also seen as shade of luxury... by that I mean in fashion and other such things, deep black is often used to make an item luxurious, women have, ''little black dresses'' etc etc it is generally seen as an executive, expensive shade something that is desired after as you would expect per Cress theory... they were even advertising plasma screen Tv's recently promoting the fact that they can now, ''produce deep blacks'' as its needed to add depth to colour (as pigment that contains the full color spectrum, Tv's charge electrons to create images).

Many of the negative attributes ascribed to it can be regarded as a denial of their need for melanin and respect for the shade in general. Its said that the ancients used to exult darkskinned people over light skinned ones perhaps as a result of the Indo European attacks on their civilizations but it is seen in certain religions as well, the Goddess Nuit was a purposely portrayed as a black woman dotted with constellations, a depiction of the universe.


In a land where the majority/all of peoples were/are a certain hue I seriously doubt that the use of it as a term would be strictly negative as it is made out to be in a land where people lack in skin coloration and exult pale skinned peoples over darkskinned peoples.

I for one don't care anything about your retarded post. The ancient Egyptians did call themselves black people. Kememu. Can't you understand that? And another thing in your fallacious post: The Dravids in India were not black Africans and there weren't any blacks of African descent in China either.

I don't even know why I'm wasting my time with you. I hope all Alabamians aren't as slow as you are. What don't you understand about the fact that the name of the country before it was Kemet was Ta-Mery? A Pharaoh only named it Kemet after being successively invaded by "whites".

The oldest manuscripts don't even refer to a Kemet, they refer to "Ta-Mery" which means "the beloved land".

I'm going to bring this into the modern context briefly working but would be back on this....Black in itself when used in the Western context is used negatively theres no doubt about it in their history and lexicon the WORD black was associated with everything BAD when confronted by masses of Brown people they stuck the label on them and i don't know why we fighting so hard to keep and maintain it like the word N**ger ....
I notice people of African descent in the West have an issue identifying with Africa as if its a thing of shame but would rather stick to Massas definition and label BLACK!!...as if to say it ties them in with European ideals oh! we Black but not Africans thats bulllsh*t and this is a demon those of African descent have to confront you keep running but it wouldn't go away apart from maybe if you water yourself down by racial mixing some are already doing that silly me...wouldn't it be nice to be descibed in terms of origin???...instead we get lumped with Blackness..a good example the recent attack on the Stephen Lawrence centre here we have possibly a mixed raced kid in the group who possibly has no association to Africa culturally yet hes descibed as Black and then some of us get embarrased i'm not cos i see myself as African FIRST...everything else second
Another thing in Africa no one says BLACK this or BLACK that as someone mentioned people are descibed by clan-family-ethnicities and country...a Nigerian would call out a Somalian or whatever but in Europe or America all you hear is Black this Black that its just NONSENSE...so we identified by colour?? never heard them Indians and Chinese described by colour do you???

Ras Ruben and Shemsi en Tehuti gave perfect explanations more or less, so I don't think there's a need to expand on that.

But even if you don't understand in an historical African context, look at it from a common sense point of view: Nobody with a sense of pride in their people defines themselves as a colour. When I was speaking to a few of my nephew's friends who are around 8 or 9 years of age the other day about this issue I mentioned Bruce Lee and asked if any of them would ever call him a 'yellow' as opposed to Chinese. They all started laughing and then I asked them why doesn't it sound just as strange when someone refers to them as 'black'. Instantly they at least got the point. Funny how when I've used the same logic with adults they still talk in circles and come up with any lame justification they can muster.

I have yet to come across any 'black' people. One of my tropical fish is a jet black mollie where you can't even see it's features up close, it would be physically impossible for a human being to be that colour and even if it was possible, how could that possibly tell you about that person's origin and where they come from?

And I don't wanna hear none of this tripe about how life was spawned from the darkness of the universe and the woman's womb etc and that's why 'black' is beautiful, because that's a redundant argument we used to use back in the 90s!