Diop made a fool out of at the UNESCO's Symposium 1974

[Deleted]

The "Black Egyptian hypothesis" of Afrocentrist C. A. Diop was criticized and rejected at UNESCO's Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script in Cairo in 1974 (proceedings published 1978).

Mr. Diop attended this symposium and when asked "what proportion of melanin was sufficient for a man to be classified as belonging to the black race" failed to provide an answer.

[anansi]

TO all of ESR and especially to David and all other participants. my sincerest Apologies for mistakenly deleting this informative thread in a botched attempt to move it the Egyptology forum, the information cannot be recovered..again the mistake was all mine .

[samuel]

Nooooooo. Lol I wrote some good stuff on there about the shades of those kids.

[anansi]

Feb 7, 2016 23:42:19 GMT -5 samuel said:

Nooooooo. Lol I wrote some good stuff on there about the shades of those kids.

Yeah man sorry Im bumed out too I invested much time on thread as did all the participants including the thread's creator.

[samuel]

Its all good. He posted a picture with 12 kids from white to black I said 7 8 10 and 12 were black 9 and 11 were Indian or black Caucasian.

[zarahan]

"David" is full of BS. While there was debate at the UNESCO forum, mainstream scholars actually noted that Diop was, to the contrary EXTREMELY WELL PREPARED, so much so that he overshadowed some other scholars there. QUOTE:

"not all participants had prepared communications comparable with the painstakingly researched controbutions of Professors CHeikh Anta Diop and Obenga.."
--(UNESCO 1974)


And far from being "debunked", the UNESCO organizers were clearly impressed by Diop and commissioned him to write the entry on the origins of the pharaohs in their General History of Africa a few years later in 1981. Hardly the picture of any "discredited" man- to the contrary. he got greater opportunities to present his work.



Indeed, mainstream white Egyptologists at the conference like Professors Jean Verncoutter and Jean Leclant who SOMETIMES disagreed with Diop, were impressed with Diop's professional presentation and say so in conference documents. Said Verncoutter- Prof. Jean Vercoutter (France) -quote: “Egypt was African in its way of writing, in its culture, and in its way of thinking.”

Diop 1974 to be sure is dated, and the field has moved on, which all credible people recognize, but subsequent data and evidence on Kemet confirms much of what Diop said. Even critic Mary Lefkowitz has to admit the truth of some of his points, and in fact she references scholar Nancy Lovell who categorizes the ancient Egyptians as part of an African lineage.




As for Diop not "having any answer" re the melanin - this too is just more rubbish. To the contrary he spoke at length on his proofs- (a) the prevalence of dark skin in tropical zones (a significant slice of southern Egypt in fact lies within the tropical zone by the way) and (reference to his melanin dosage work with skin cells in his lab, making rough comparisons to the low incidence of melanin found in white populations. He notes that he did not have a huge sample of Egyptian mummies to work with and requests more such from participants in the future. He did not have to come up with any "melanin percentage" to make his point. Indeed, would be questioners had little in the way of a detailed response to his arguents, as the final report notes above. SO where is this "no answer"? Puhleeze..

The only "debunking" of any note here is David's line of BS.

[zarahan]

Diop was not afraid to put good, detailed evidence on the table and urged others to do likewise,
including the formation and use of study groups to counteract the distortion, propaganda and hypocrisy of
the opponents of African diversity, and secure a more balanced and accurate picture of African peoples.
The field has moved on since 1974, and new info has obsoleted some of Diop's data, but several of Diop's
points have been validated by later scholarship, and his call for study teams is still a valid one today.
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"I would like to see above all a greater number of researchers — Afro-Americans — young Americans — even whites. Why not? Because it’s the young who are least prejudiced. As a consequence, they are the most capable of making triumph ideas which frighten the older generation.

Also, I think that it will be necessary to put together polyvalent scientific teams, capable of doing in-depth studies, for sure, and that’s what’s important. It bothers me when someone takes me on my word without developing a means of verifying what I say ... We must form a scientific spirit capable of seeing even the weaknesses of our own proofs, of seeing the unfinished side of our work and committing ourselves to completing it. You understand? Therefore we should then have a work which could honestly stand criticism, because what we’ve done would have been placed on a scientific plane."

—Cheikh Anta Diop, Interview with Harun Kofi Wangara (Harold G. Lawrence), 1974

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