It may be unwise for us to venture into the current controversy about the race and color of ancient Egyptians—we leave that matter to trained historians and anthropologists—but we do have the responsibility to sound the alarm.
Okay, here’s the gist of it: Beginning in May, Dr. Zahi Hawass, whose expertise on ancient Egypt is often promoted in various ads in the American press, will conduct a 23-city Grand Lecture Tour in the U.S., espousing the idea that the “origin of Ancient Egyptians was purely Egyptian…and that Egyptian civilization did not occur in Africa, it occurred only here,” Hawass, the former minister of state for antiquities affairs, told the press.
First of all, the last time we checked, Egypt was in Africa. Even so, this fact means nothing to Hawass and his contention that Black Africans were not seminal in the evolution of the Egyptian dynasties.
Such a conclusion flies in the face of the lessons we derived from the scholarly lectures and research of Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, and Cheikh Anta Diop. Let us turn to Diop and a quote from his book “Civilization of Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology.” “The new Egyptological ideology, born at the opportune moment,” Diop stated, referring then to a development more than a century ago but useful today, “reinforced the theoretical bases of imperialist ideology.”
That is why, Diop continued, “…it easily drowned out the voice of science, by throwing a veil of falsification over historical truth. The ideology was spread with considerable publicity and taught the world over, because it alone had the material and financial means for its propagation.” By taking skin samples from mummies, Diop was able to determine their color by the amount of preserved melanin, thereby allowing the Black mummies to speak.
What Hawass plans to do is to provide those who attend his costly lectures with a fresh iteration of the falsification. Perhaps in the coming days, through an article from one of our more informed scholars, we can properly and adequately deal with Hawass’s negations, which in several respects have a correlation with the attempt to nullify the agency of Critical Race Theory.
Hawass is slated to appear here in New York on June 9—and let us hope this notice about his appearance reaches some of our Kemetic teachers and scholars who are better prepared to challenge his contentions. And a shout-out to Dennis Boatwright II, who alerted us.