4 ms·

"Be, be-fore we came to this country We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys There was empires in Africa called Kush Timbuktu, where every race came to

"Be, be-fore we came to this country We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys There was empires in Africa called Kush Timbuktu, where every race came to get books To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans Asian Arabs and gave them gold, when Gold was converted to money it all changed Money then became empowerment for Europeans The Persian military invaded They heard about the gold, the teachings, and everything sacred Africa was almost robbed naked Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces Shot up they nose to impose what basically Still goes on today, you see?" - From I Can by Nas https://genius.com/Nas-i-can-lyrics https://genius.com/Nas-i-can-lyrics

karlp 6y ago
It sounds really deep, but there doesn't seem to be any truth to it? Wikipedia mentions internal problems and conquest by a neighboring kingdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush I don't understand why make up stories when there are more than enough material with the colonial history.
- elefanten 6y ago
  One of the most frustrating aspects of these liberationist counter-narratives is the pretense that whoever conquered or succeeded certain civilizations/cultures, did so by a unique application of force. Roughly: 'our people were good and peaceful until evil warlike invaders with wholly-different human motivations wiped us out.' We should aim to fix injustices in the world. But building false narratives of differential demonization will only recreate problems in the long run.
  - haltingproblem 6y ago
    How does an invasionary force conquer a foreign land where they are outnumbered other than by being warlike? Lets define warlike as those who have achieved a high degree of skill at warfare. The Mongols who conquered cities and states were famously warlike. So were the Macedonians/Greeks under Alexander.
- philwelch 6y ago
  People spin history to try and enhance the prestige of groups they identify with. Even when their group identities don’t really make sense in contexts that existed thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away. For instance, “were the ancient Egyptians black?” is a deep rabbit hole.
haltingproblem 6y ago
Nas was ahead of the times. I can't believe that these lyrics are from 2003. Always inspiring to hear them. These lyrics bring home the point that so much of culture is historical narrative. I was reading Scale by Geoffrey West who is a particle physicist. Every 5-10 pages West brings up Plato/Aristotle. This was baffling to me till it dawned on that Greek history is the author's historical narrative, his cultural identity. Erase someone's history, erase their identity and you crush their progress. Give them a glorious past and they feel predestined to greatness. I believe good things will come from resurrecting the history of African Civilizations. "Where is your history? How did the man wipe out your history?" - Malcolm X [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6CA9VX4XY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6CA9VX4XY
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  Plato isn't the best philosopher of all time because he is white and male. The Enlightenment is open and inclusive. Plato used to be a slave and elevated a woman to the highest philosophical position in the Symposium.
  - bitdizzy 6y ago
    I don't think the quote in the OP is talking about Plato's works or conduct, but how Plato figures into a modern person's, Geoffrey West's, relationship to history. In that context, I don't understand the relevance of your comment.
sevensor 6y ago
I'd be really interested to hear more about the literature of ancient Kush or Timbuktu -- what language it was written in, what kind of scholarly tradition it had. My education covered (at least superficially) Europe, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, and East Asia, but Africa south of the Sahara is a big blank spot... So I went and looked it up on Wikipedia, and it turns out that Kush had an alphabetic script. Many inscriptions remain but little of the language (Meroitic) has been decoded. Although they would have had access to paper as a result of contact with Egypt and the Hellenistic world, there's no indication that any books written in Meroitic have survived.
- TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
  Here is a great podcast about ancient west Africa that you might enjoy: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfUT6LhBBYs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfUT6LhBBYs
biztos 6y ago
"Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces Shot up they nose to impose..." Is that a reference to the Great Sphinx of Giza? If so... it doesn't appear that Alexander the Great had anything to do with it. Am I missing something? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_nose_and_beard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_n... Edit: attempting to format the quote

karlp 6y ago

It sounds really deep, but there doesn't seem to be any truth to it? Wikipedia mentions internal problems and conquest by a neighboring kingdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush I don't understand why make up stories when there are more than enough material with the colonial history.

elefanten 6y ago
One of the most frustrating aspects of these liberationist counter-narratives is the pretense that whoever conquered or succeeded certain civilizations/cultures, did so by a unique application of force. Roughly: 'our people were good and peaceful until evil warlike invaders with wholly-different human motivations wiped us out.' We should aim to fix injustices in the world. But building false narratives of differential demonization will only recreate problems in the long run.
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  How does an invasionary force conquer a foreign land where they are outnumbered other than by being warlike? Lets define warlike as those who have achieved a high degree of skill at warfare. The Mongols who conquered cities and states were famously warlike. So were the Macedonians/Greeks under Alexander.
philwelch 6y ago
People spin history to try and enhance the prestige of groups they identify with. Even when their group identities don’t really make sense in contexts that existed thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away. For instance, “were the ancient Egyptians black?” is a deep rabbit hole.

haltingproblem 6y ago

Nas was ahead of the times. I can't believe that these lyrics are from 2003. Always inspiring to hear them. These lyrics bring home the point that so much of culture is historical narrative. I was reading Scale by Geoffrey West who is a particle physicist. Every 5-10 pages West brings up Plato/Aristotle. This was baffling to me till it dawned on that Greek history is the author's historical narrative, his cultural identity. Erase someone's history, erase their identity and you crush their progress. Give them a glorious past and they feel predestined to greatness. I believe good things will come from resurrecting the history of African Civilizations. "Where is your history? How did the man wipe out your history?" - Malcolm X [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6CA9VX4XY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6CA9VX4XY

dr_dshiv 6y ago
Plato isn't the best philosopher of all time because he is white and male. The Enlightenment is open and inclusive. Plato used to be a slave and elevated a woman to the highest philosophical position in the Symposium.
- bitdizzy 6y ago
  I don't think the quote in the OP is talking about Plato's works or conduct, but how Plato figures into a modern person's, Geoffrey West's, relationship to history. In that context, I don't understand the relevance of your comment.

sevensor 6y ago

I'd be really interested to hear more about the literature of ancient Kush or Timbuktu -- what language it was written in, what kind of scholarly tradition it had. My education covered (at least superficially) Europe, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, and East Asia, but Africa south of the Sahara is a big blank spot... So I went and looked it up on Wikipedia, and it turns out that Kush had an alphabetic script. Many inscriptions remain but little of the language (Meroitic) has been decoded. Although they would have had access to paper as a result of contact with Egypt and the Hellenistic world, there's no indication that any books written in Meroitic have survived.

TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
Here is a great podcast about ancient west Africa that you might enjoy: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfUT6LhBBYs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfUT6LhBBYs

biztos 6y ago

"Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces Shot up they nose to impose..." Is that a reference to the Great Sphinx of Giza? If so... it doesn't appear that Alexander the Great had anything to do with it. Am I missing something? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_nose_and_beard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_n... Edit: attempting to format the quote