ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
African-American community raises issue of color at King Tut protest
FORT LAUDERDALE -- A "King Tut is back and he's still black" placard drew the gaze of visitors making their way to view the acclaimed exhibit at the Museum of Art on Saturday.
Across from the entrance on Las Olas Boulevard, about 25 demonstrators in T-shirts marked with various slogans held up the placards. Waving the red, black and green Pan African flag, at times moving to the beat of djembe drums on the sidewalk, they asked drivers in passing cars to honk in support of their goal: reminding people not to take the lighter-skinned portrait of King Tutankhamun on display as an accurate depiction.
"We're visual people, so whatever they throw at us, we're going to take it as a fact, when in reality it's just a theory," said demonstrator Asante Waa. "We're afraid of the implications that this re-creation is going to have on kids, especially on black kids."
Particularly controversial in the exhibit "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" are computer-generated busts of Tut with a skin tone that critics say make him look Caucasian.
"For the Image of the Living God [as Tutankhamun represents] to be replaced with anything else but a black man's is a slap in the face," said Alicia Milligen, a Lauderhill nurse.
Demonstrators, who passed out fliers with information about the Boy King who reigned over Egypt more than 2,000 years ago, hope to educate others about King Tut by visiting schools, churches and libraries, said Evie Iles of Tamarac.
"It's our history," said Iles, who viewed the exhibit and thinks the lighter skin tone may be a marketing strategy. "We encourage people to go and see the authentic artifacts and to challenge what's inauthentic."
Mary Lefkowitz, a retired classics professor and author of Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History, said Saturday that the demonstrators had a point.
"Ancient Egyptians from Memphis [Egypt] would have had to go to the back of the bus in Memphis, Tennessee during the days of segregation," the Wellesley, Mass.-based author said in a telephone interview. "The Egyptians were kind of copper-colored."
Museum officials say they are talking to historians with different viewpoints about planning a forum on the topic, but no date has been. "It's an interesting conversation that needs to be held," said Lynn Mandeville, the museum's director of community affairs.
Visitors to the exhibit said they know ancient Egyptians were not white, but the demonstration put the race question at the forefront.
Danielle Dyer, a West Palm Beach mother who brought her two biracial daughters along, said she found herself looking more at the shape of the eyes, nose and other features.
"You have to be reaching pretty far to find anything racial about it," Dyer said.
Macollvie Jean-François may be reached at mjfrancois@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4694. _________________ "tout nèg a nèg
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
"Jesus is white," my 5-year-old daughter blurted out matter-of-factly.
No hint of a question in her voice. Not an iota of doubt.
I asked her how she reached that conclusion, and she looked at me as if I was the one born yesterday.
"Everybody knows that," she said. "That's how he looks in the pictures."
I tried explaining that no one really knows what Jesus looked like, and the images she had seen on TV, in books and at church were just figments of people's imaginations.
I even made a strong argument for a black Christ, referring to Biblical references to his woolly hair.
"Woolly means just like yours," I told her.
But my daughter wouldn't budge. And I could tell it would take years of reconditioning before she would even consider anything but a white Jesus. So I ended the conversation with: "If we believe he's God, doesn't matter what color he is, does it?"
Now here we go again. Not only is Jesus white, but so is King Tut.
Researchers hired by the National Geographic Society, one of the sponsors of the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit opening Thursday, used forensic data and CAT scans that made computer generated portraits of the boy king look more European, according to some black scholars.
The new images show him with a straighter nose and lighter skin than earlier renderings, some of which will also be on exhibit, the scholars say. He looks like a white Egyptian, not a black one, despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa.
As a consumer of history, I really don't care what the pictures of King Tut look like, so long as they tell the truth. But with all of this controversy I don't know what to believe. And I have reason to be suspicious.
We already have a school system that tells a side of history that eliminates many of the accomplishments of non-European people, which is why we had to create Black History and Hispanic Heritage months. And now we have historians possibly tampering with historical African images.
If I leave it up to scholars and the media, my children will soon conclude that the only black people to leave marks on the annals of time were O.J. Simpson and other crime suspects who got darker, not lighter, when they appeared in news magazines.
As a parent, I've tried to do my part. When my children were born, I vowed that I would saturate them with Afro-centric images -- not to make them racist, just proud of their race.
So today they have black Barbies in their toy box and black princesses on their birthday cakes. They're exposed to black art, literature and heroes.
But it's not always easy finding a black everything, like a black Jesus. And if I exclude every book and magazine that promotes a white image, my children's library would diminish significantly, not to mention their appreciation for diversity.
I would much rather live in a world that teaches a broader view of history so I wouldn't have to go to such lengths for balance.
But I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. The only people making a fuss about the alleged changes to King Tut are black, and until the larger society sees a problem we can expect the lopsided version of history to continue.
Meanwhile, there are people trying to make a difference. One group, called the Ujima Enterprises, held a town hall meeting Saturday at the African American Research Library to address the King Tut controversy. They want to educate parents and develop an action plan to protect black children from a predominantly Euro-centric point of view.
"Our position is not to focus on his [King Tut's] skin color, as it is indisputable that he is black," organizers said in a written statement.
"What we are concerned about are the implications of this distortion, especially the impact on our children, as it seems time and time again Africans are being whited out of history."
As a mother, I'm all for anything that will set the record straight. The more light shed on the issue, the better.
ki nèg nwè ki nèg klè
ki nèg klè ki nèg nwè
tout nèg a nèg
nèg klè pè nèg nwè
nèg nwè pa lè wè nèg klè
nèg nwè ké wéy klè
senti i sa roune nèg klè
mè nèg klè ké wéy klè a toujou nèg
sa ki fèt pou nèg vin' blang?
blang té gen chivé pli long?
pou senblé yé nou trapé chivé plat kon fil mang!!!
mandé to fanm...!
mè pou kisa blang lé vin' nwè?
ha... savé ki avan vin' blan yé té ja nèg!
a nou mèm ké nou mèm dépi nânni nânnan...
chinwa soti, kouli soti, indyen soti, blang soti
mèm koté nèg soti
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