It is important to contextualise our relatively modern ideas of race, but I think in so doing, the author avoids the requirement to rebut the explicit claim mad

It is important to contextualise our relatively modern ideas of race, but I think in so doing, the author avoids the requirement to rebut the explicit claim made by Pinkett-Smith that Cleopatra was in fact a black person, as a modern US individual would understand this term. This claim is rooted in an ideology peculiar to the US which claims pristine Africa to be 'black only' and therefore anyone who isn't, must be some kind interloper, transgressor or coloniser. It is is understandable for today's Egyptians to be outraged at this. Ironically, it is Cleopatra herself who could be most appropriately described as a late comer, coming as she does from Ptolemaic dynasty. She was conspicuous at the time by being the first of the Ptolemies to actually try and learn the local language and adopt the customs of the people she ruled. She was neither a Nubian, Arab nor native Egyptian, but a Macedonian Greek, and would be described as a white person today.