Whitewashing Egypt - An Essay through Photos

Whitewashing Egypt - An Essay through Photos


by Kola Boof

About a year ago, one of my uncles wrote to me from Egypt, quite bitterly. He said: "People are so busy discussing and fighting over whether or not the ancient Egyptians were "black", that they forgot we're still here. We still exist. The Arabs who claim to be Egyptians have not exterminated ALL of us yet. Kola, you live in America, you're somebody over there. Why don't you say something? You're only claiming SUDAN. But that's not right. Your father was an Egyptian."

And he's right. Because of my own bitterness...my hatred and loathing for my father's country...I have been remiss to mention anything about the country.

My only real memory is a very painful one...the memory of my White Arab grandmother going to the Mullahs after my birth parents had been executed in SUDAN for speaking out against slavery to get PERMISSION to put me up for adoption (as adoption is primarily illegal in EGYPT)...because of course, my black skin would have exposed her - Miss Najet Kolbookek- as having BLACK African blood in her family's veins. A fact that she, unlike my Uncle, has spent her whole life trying to hide from the Arab Muslim social set.


BUT my uncle is right.The true Egyptians -the Black Egyptians do still exist, and instead of debating about the "ancient" people....why do we never force the WHITE MEDIA to show images of the black ones?

Why is it that in America, only the WHITE ARAB INVADER groups, the BEJA and the Noor are ever shown on television or in magazines?

Why do they insist on painting EGYPT as a WHITE nation with no connection to Africa?

Clearly..these photos of EGYPTIAN Black people, photos that are NOW TODAY demonstrate that Egypt is not a White nation. There are millions of BLACK EGYPTIANS who still exist.

If I had not been put up for adoption by my colorstruck Egyptian grandmother, I would never have been adopted by the most wonderful people in the world - my Black American
family...the JOHNSONS of Washington D.C.

And I would be somewhere on the Nile River, and like all other BLACK people ofEgyptian blood... I would be INVISIBLE.

But because I am a BLACK WOMAN who is now an American citizen....I am able to bring some clarity through my work and activism.... and this has been extremely painful

....because as my good friend,Derrick Bell pointed out to me - AMERICA doesn't want any image that is black to represent the Nile River Valley....and Derrick told me that this is one of the reasons that AMERICAN media has been so hostile towards me - because I am too black and my hair is NAPPY as the Black Americans say. I am not the right "image" ....and just like they WHITENED the recent exhibition of KING TUT when it toured California (and for those of us who are North African,we know full well that the CHARCOAL Nubian Queen Tiye was TUT's mother and just like they fought against the Scientists who reconstructed the face of NEFERTITI only to discover that she was a dark brown black woman....

The Americans are very racist against the idea of EGYPT being represented by those of us who are BLACK.

For those Egyptians reading this post, I, Kola Boof, can promise you that I have been treated like trash by the American media - and because of the controversies surrounding my life, they even tried to pretend that I do not exist. That I was made up and not a real person. And they have slandered my name with every chance they could slander it.

I tell you all....as AFRICANS...that we must begin to recognize that there is a hideous racism in these WHITE American people -far worse than the African immigrants have wanted to believe. They are not honest people....and as they have falsely branded me a LIAR...I know their real face now.

ANWAR SADAT

Like me, our late Black Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was half Sudanese, half Egyptian.

Unlike me, Anwar Sadat did everything he could to distance himself from the title of "black man".

He insisted that he was NOT BLACK, that he was an Arab.

His Sudanese mother was never seen and in every political decision, every legal law
-he was the HARDEST on the blacks. He married a White Arab woman. He despised
his African heritage and was basically put in office by the SAUDI ARABIANS and the Arab League....because they wanted to entice the Black Americans after the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement to support all things MUSLIM, all things ARAB ....and especially to support PALESTINE.

Many of you in Egypt and in London write to me---imploring me to speak up for the Black Egyptians.

You do not realize that I am not popular with Black Americans in the way that
Anwar Sadat was popular. I am a WOMAN and I am compelled to fight for women's rights...as well as Black people's rights.I am also the wrong "image" to represent Egypt -I am Black with African hair.

I have also had a very unusual life and have been sinful....I am portrayed here as a "crazy woman" and my intelligence is not respected.

When I try to speak with Black Americans about our lives as Black people on the Nile River ....they are arrogant with their own notions, many of which come from Islamic leaders like Louis Farrkhan.

The Black Americans run around
saying, "HOTEP".

Can you believe that? We never speak this way, but they want the fantasy grandeur of ancient Kings and Queens and they crave the past. Many of them "talk, talk, talk" about Africa and being BLACK....but their wives and children are white. It's all a farce, because they don't know who they are.

When I try to explain to them that as a "BLACK" North African woman...I cannot support PALESTINE, even though I am well aware that ISRAEL has done horrendous things to the Palestinians....they simply cannot comprehend it.

Even after I told them about the Sudanese slave women in Palestine and the "sterilizing" of Black women by Palestinians, because the Palestinians are so colorstruck -they still bedamned me for getting weapons to defend myself from ISRAEL and not supporting Palestine.

But my brothers and sisters...I am STILL Naima Bint Harith.

Although the Sahara desert sun no longer blackens me, I am still dark and beautiful.

I am here. And although there has been great bitterness against EGYPT on my part, I have not forgotten your beauty or your worth, nor have I forgotten our solidarity as BLACK people. And I promise you...that in my Autobiography,I have done all that I can to tell our experience, our truth...and to make us less invisble.

Long live the BLACK Egyptians!!!!!

tima usrah (through fire comes the family)

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