Talk:Negroid

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Contents

[edit] New image

Image:Congoid.GIF
Carleton S. Coon's example of a "Congoid", a Shilluk woman from Sudan. From "The Origin of Races", 1962.

This image was used by anthropologist Carleton S. Coon as an example of the "Congoid" type, which is synonymous with Negroid. The photo was taken in Sudan, and is now in the public domain according to Sudanese laws. Funkynusayri 13:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

OR. Muntuwandi 21:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • It is in the book, "Origin of Races" by Coon according to this[1]. Check the book out or assume some good faith. Funkynusayri 22:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I have seen this image before, this article is not about congoid according to the discredited anthropologist Carleton Coon. Muntuwandi 22:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Congoid is synonymous with Negroid. It even redirects here. Funkynusayri 22:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • No it is not synonymous with negroid. It is construction of Coon, he is the only scientist who uses the term. It redirects here out of convenience. Muntuwandi 22:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Explain why it is not synonymous with Negroid. Coon used it as a synonym. Funkynusayri 22:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Historical_definitions_of_race#Carleton_Coon.27s_Racial_Definitions. I can see you have reenergized yourself for this senseless and racist campaign. Muntuwandi 22:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what your point with that link is. And I would prefer that you didn't attack me by calling me a "racist". This article is about a historical term. No one "re-energized", I simply discovered that this image was in the public domain, and that it would be perfect for this article, as it can be verified that it was used as an example for the metrical type this article is about. From the original "Congoid" article: Congoid was used instead of Negroid by controversial anthropologist Carleton Coon in some versions of his classification of humanity into five races, the other four being Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Australoid, and Capoid. Funkynusayri 22:38, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
this article is not about Coon, We know that his theories were racist. Why should we want to propagate them. WP:DUCK If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.Muntuwandi 22:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • This article is about a term, which you might claim to be racist (POV), but anyhow, the picture illustrates the term, and Wikipedia isn't censored, so I don't see the problem. Funkynusayri 22:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
    • WP:SYN Coon et. al, re: Congoloid = Negroid, and WP:OR. I can't believe you're back again with this bollocks. ~Jeeny (talk) 22:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Heh, I see you didn't resign after all, Jeeny. Welcome back.

Please explain what Congoid means in itself, if it isn't simply synonymous with "Negroid". It is to Negroid what "Europoid" is to Caucasoid, simply an alternate term which means the same. Funkynusayri 02:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what it means, but I assume it is some classification of peoples originating from the Congo region. Just because the Congo region is in Sub-Sahara Africa does not mean an image of a woman from that area should represent the term "Negroid". Negroid is an outdated term. Using an image of a real person, dead or alive, is OR, therefore, not appropriate to this article. As I've said before, and many others have too.... use a skull or some illistration, if an image is needed. One person does not repressent the outdated classification of Negroid. Having the image of a person, especially one who resembles many people alive and well today is not appropriate nor accurate. Oh, I'm still "resigned", but there is more than one meaning to that word. Take your pick. :) Get it? ~Jeeny (talk) 02:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see some sources for this statement, so it can be integrated into this article. The "historical use" section is a horrible stub at the moment. --Haemo 02:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Haemo, which statement, mine or Funkynusayri's? (The indent, or lack thereof, makes it difficult to determine what you are asking for.) Thanks :) ~Jeeny (talk) 02:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The ident, or lack thereof, is supposed to imply I'm asking Funkynusayri. Sorry for any confusion. --Haemo 06:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Nope, "Congoid" doesn't strictly mean someone from the Congo region, just as "Caucasoid" doesn't strictly mean something from the Caucasus. It's just an alternate name Carleton Coon used instead of Negroid in his later works, thus including the image is hardly "original research", as a well known anthropologist used that exact image as an example of the term in question in a book. Congoid and Negroid are synonyms, I don't have the book, but anyone with even slight knowledge about physical anthropology knows the terms are synonyms. Therefore, we probably need someone to look at the book, or find a source that states they were used as synonyms. I don't live in America, so I would be unable to get that book from a library.

But I noticed, if someone could access these pages, it could be confirmed: "divides the world's human population into five ethnic groups: Caucasoid, Congoid (Negroid), Mongoloid,. Australoid and Capoid. In his Manual of Dermatology for ..."[2]"groups: Caucasoid, Congoid (Negroid), Mongoloid, Australoid and Capoid. He also finds it convenient to. use the term 'tropical races' when referring to ..."[3]

Maybe even more useful: "In a sense, things were largely static until 1962, the year Carleton Coon published The Origin of Races. Here Coon, a physical anthropologist, divided mankind into five races (or subspecies): Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Congoid (Negroid), and Capoid."[4]

As for your arguments about "living people", that's hardly policy, Wikipedia isn't censored.

I just found this scan of a page in "Origin of Races" by Coon which makes it very clear that Negroid and Congoid are synonyms: [5] Funkynusayri 11:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I actually do have access to that journal. However, the sources aren't really "articles", but replies and book reviews. As such, I've done some digging, using them as a jumping off point. It seems that there is genuine academic asymmetry over the terminology used. Here's what my study of the literature has found:
  • The term "Negroid", as a typological moniker predates Coon, and his "5 races" classification; in fact, Coon discusses this in his 1962 book; the "three race" classification comes from Weidenreich's work, which Coon expanded on.[1][2]
  • But, you're generally right — for most purposes, the term "Negro/Negroid" are identified with the term "Congoid". This is because in Coon's classification, the term "Congoid" referred to "African Negroes". See [3] Since African Negroes are what Weidenreich chiefly meant by "Negroids", and what the general use of the term is, the two are usually confounded.
  • It does not appear that "Negroid" and "Congoid" are simply alternative terms; Coon's early work, such as his 1950 publications were cowritten, and predate his classification scheme; the 1963 response to Coon's "Origin of Races" exclusively uses the term "Congoid" when discussing his work.
  • The reason for the classification change in Coon's work is that the morphological theory was being stretched; a "Negroid" race, the "Oceanic Negro" was commonly located in the Pacific.[4]
In short, to put it simply the two are not the same term; instead, Congoid is a specific classification which is a sub-set of the general "Negroid" classification. I'm going to write up some of this in the article. I think we can settle on a picture to accompany this summary afterwards. --Haemo 21:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Carleton S. Coon theories are fringe. Most scientists use his studies as examples of scientific racism. How racial bias has interfered with objective science. Recent scientific findings have rendered him a laughing stock in the scientific community. He was a proponent of polygenism that posited that the different races evolved from separate lineages. That modern human races evolved 5 times indepedently from homo erectus to become homo sapiens . He is a discredited scientist so this article should not entertain his theories. [6]. Some people may be obsessed or have a fetish of seeing the term Negroid next to human face, but this is pointless. Wikipedia has plenty of pictures of people who are black or of sub-saharan african descent. We all know what they look like. We also know that they all don't look the same. Muntuwandi 21:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I know they're fringe scientifically, but they're important for the etymology and history of the term. In fact, as early as 1963 people were basically point out that the "five races" theory was laughable and that it was bunkum. By 1970, it was a laughingstock academically as well as socially. However, we can't ignore the fact that they're important for a historical overview of the term, and its use. I think my revision explains them, without entertaining any illusions that they might be correct or accurate. I would definitely like some maps as images; they definitely play a good role in illustrating how the term was carved up, without trying to parse a given person.--Haemo 22:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
When coon published his work in the 1960s the term Negroid had already been in use for 100 years. Shortly afterwards during the civil rights era, people discontinued using the term negro and negroid. Thus Carleton Coon's influence on the usage of the term Negroid was marginal if indeed he had any influence. While people are still interested in his racial theories, they are not directly related to the term Negroid. 22:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC) Muntuwandi 22:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, much of what you say is true; however, the exact time-frame is not the key here. Rather, it is; but mainly because Coon's work occurred just prior to the heyday of the US civil rights movement. As you can read in the reference cited, it was actually one of the chief racialist academic arguments seized upon by segregationalists in the American south. The wide debate that it sparked has lead to much of a conflation between his 5 race classification, and the term Negroid — as we can see. The articles cited above also point out that even as late as 1980 people used the terms as identical, or more accurately without a clear distinction. Coon's late attempt to remedy the morphological distinction problem informed much of the later classification use, even after the theory was totally discredited anthropologically. You can say it's a kind of "last man out shuts the door" syndrome; while Coon's use was not the longest, it was the latest that generated serious academic interest, and his text was used for decades afterwards as an example of racialist bias, or morphological classification problems. --Haemo 22:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • You're completely missing the point, Muntuwandi, this is not about having an old image up for fun, the image is usable because 1: it is in the public domain, and 2: we have sources that state the person on the image exhibits "Congoid" features. Coon himself points out that this person is a Negroid of the "Congoid" variety. Last point is the most important one, especially in the light of our previous discussions where the verifiability of the classifications were questioned. This new image is pretty solid, and whether it is synonymous with Negroid or simply a sub-set is quite irrelevant when it comes to including it into the article, as Haemo stated, it is supposed to be a sub-class of Negroid, thus it fits the section that deals with this in the article well. Funkynusayri 23:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
    Not exactly; Brittanica 1974 calls Capoid and Congoid divisions of "Negroid", but it's not clear than Coon ever made the distinction; rather, Negroid was a pre-existing racial identifier that Coon parsed to make his classification scheme. That is to say, he avoided the term, because it was too generalized from earlier work — his "True Negroes" are Congoids, but the "Negroid" archetype is more general. This is the problem he wanted to avoid; the "3 races" classification broke down because you have things like so-called "Oceanic Negroes" with no possible connection to "African Negroes"; he rectified this by tossing out the "Negroid" moniker entirely and instead making up his own classifications. --Haemo 00:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm quite sure Jeeny and Muntuwandi would object to including any image of any person into the article, so I'm probably wasting my time discussing microscopic details that they don't really give a damn about, no matter how obvious, any image would be turned down. Strange that this Negroid article should be unique, as images have been added to the article about Caucasoid and sub-types. Funkynusayri 00:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking over this all I have to imagine they may be right about the photo, in any case. I see why any single person being held up as an example of a certain ethnicity is highly problematic due to all the historical problems of classification that have been mentioned above. Wikipedia is not censored, so I do understand your point, however... I don't really think that the photo adds enough to justify its inclusion and ignore the inherent difficulties of classification. Epthorn (talk) 07:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly! It's not only an "ethicity" but a whole complicated "racial" classification. - Jeeny (talk) 23:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, what makes it different from the images on the Caucasoid page and the pages of the sub-varieties thereof? Funkynusayri (talk) 15:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
therein thereof. Muntuwandi (talk) 22:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

?

[edit] Section break

I'm talking about pages like "Mediterranean race" and similar. Funkynusayri (talk) 22:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Because there are many people who do not consider themselves Negroid. Using one image for such a broad and complicated term is misleading. You saw the Black people article when Indians, and Tamils were included. Many didn't like being included. But, many people don't mind being under the term Caucasoid. - Jeeny (talk) 23:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Nope, I'm not familiar with the history of the Black people article. I'm not familiar with the White people article either for that matter, I've added images to articles about the biological aspects of race, that's it, social race doesn't really concern me, I just like adding free images when I find them. Funkynusayri (talk) 23:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Well there really isn't much difference between biological aspects of race and social aspects. The terms white and black are in essence no different than caucasoid or negroid. Except the latter is used in science and the former in everyday language. The justification for pictures in the caucasoid article is also suspect. I don't think those people are representative of the presumed "caucasian race". Muntuwandi (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Hmmm, by pretty much all definitions I've seen, Europeans, Middle Easterners and North Africans are defined as "Caucasians/Caucasoids" (when they fit the criteria of course), so I'm not sure what you mean. As for Caucasoid/Negroid and black/white, you could say they're the same for a layperson, but not for a scientist. Black is far more inclusive than "Negroid", and white is far more exclusive than "Caucasoid", for example. Funkynusayri (talk) 02:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Its never been that simple. In history Indians, East Africans and some Native Americans have all been described as having caucasian affinities. See Kennewick Man. Muntuwandi (talk) 03:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I know, but neither of those are included on the image on the Caucasoid page, and the populations of the regions I did mention seem to have been universally classified as "Caucasoid". Funkynusayri (talk) 03:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Its not that simple, Is Anwar Sadat caucasoid. He comes from the regions you mention. The whole debate about the Race of the Ancient Egyptians has not been concluded because many of the people exhibit affinities to sub-saharan africa, the middle east and even India. Muntuwandi (talk) 03:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, as you noted yourself on his page as far as I recall, his mother was a black Sudanese, making him a rather bad example, but as I said, when a region is labeled "Caucasoid", it simply means that the majority of the population in this region is considered as such. I'm sure you can find a black Swede, but I doubt anyone would assume most Swedes are black, or even mixed, due to that. Funkynusayri (talk) 03:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
this isn't unusual, 35% of Yemenites have sub-saharan african ancestry. Demographics of Yemen Muntuwandi (talk) 03:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, at those amounts it is, Yemenis had the far highest proportion, and the samples were taken from Yemeni populations that were known to be mixed. That's like taking samples from African Americans and saying they represent samples of American whites just because they're from the same country, the area hasn't been studied enough, but generally it has been estimated that 10% of Middle Easterners have Sub Saharan ancestry, with far more being present in the South than in the North. That hardly even means that these individuals would have to be mixed, as relatively unmixed black populations do indeed still live in these areas, descendants of slaves from the Islamic slave trade period (Iraq is a good example, check this:[7] and for Palestinians check this:[8]). Anyhow, another prominent recently mixed Mid Easterner could be prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, whose mother was apparently an African concubine. Funkynusayri (talk) 06:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I am just amused by the terms "therein" and "thereof" that you choose to use ever so often. Muntuwandi (talk) 22:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Anything wrong with that? English isn't my first language, you know. Funkynusayri (talk) 22:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Nothing wrong, just amusing. Muntuwandi (talk) 22:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Heh, awright, I thought for a minute that I had made a grammatical error or something. Funkynusayri (talk) 22:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Check your history. Black Yemenis are indigenous. Sheba's kingdom was in Yemen. There's this myth that Blacks in what is today the Arab world are there only as a result of the Arab slave trade, and this is false. Arabs are Eurasians who migrated west. They aren't indigenous to Africa -- and certainly not to Egypt, an African nation, which they conquered in 700 A.D. That's thousands of years after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Egyptians wore Afro wigs, for chrissakes (Egyptologists refer to them as "enveloping" wigs), with the seeds of Egyptian civilization starting in Nubia, in the south -- Sudan, where the oldest pyramids on earth are being flooded by Bashir. Blacks peopled the Levant even before the Arabs came. deeceevoice (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Well there really isn't much differ

Well, there's a difference between describing someone's ethnicity and using someone to describe an ethnicity. The former is illustrating a part of someone's identity, whether self-declared or imposed. The latter is trying to describe an ethnicity by using a SINGLE (presumed) example. Now, both of these methods have problems. I looked at the page Caucasian_race and I see that there are some more effective photos (in my opinion). The photos there describe the way that the 'race' has been described and do not really attempt to assert what the race is as much, for one. There have been discussions on the talk page their over the appropriateness of different photos, actually, and some were deleted because there was no consensus that they helped the article. Epthorn (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, I know, I provided the photos there, or cropped them from another file, but the thing about these pages is that the examples are not supposed to represent ethnic groups, but metrical types. Negroid is not an ethnic group, but a craniometrically defined type, making classification pretty precise, as you either live up to the metrical criteria or you don't, just like a circle can only be a circle if it lives up to the criteria for being such. Social race and ethnicity is much harder to define. Funkynusayri (talk) 15:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not all that opposed to the photo or a photo, personally. I just see how it can cause a problem and question if it adds enough to be worth it. I have seen other articles on races based in part on craiometrics that use diagrams of skulls as opposed to a living human photo which, of course, brings a lot of other issues in. Would something like that be a better choice? My memory of the word negroid usually pertains to forensics- i.e. a hair is classified as negroid via traits or DNA, so I am not as familiar with the topic.Epthorn (talk) 00:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
the so called Negroid is not a pretty precise type. In fact it is variation in cranial dimensions is greatest in sub-saharan africa[9]. what enables forensic scientists to identify skull types is just a handful of common features such as the nasal opening or the eye sockets. Other than that there is considerable diversity. In fact forensic scientists use a lot of non-metric traits in race determination. Muntuwandi (talk) 01:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A thought

Why don't we go with one of these Olmec heads. It's easy to find reliable sources which state they are stereotypically "negroid" in appearance, and they seem to neatly illustrate how Negroid is both (1) a stereotypical means of typographical identification and (2) loosely connected to to any actual "race". Since it's a sculpture, it also ensure that we don't run the risk of "type-casing" a particular person as representative of the term. --Haemo (talk) 23:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  • That would be POV, as the race of the Olmec heads is disputed at best (they are well within South American Indian variation, and the most common modern theories are that they depict babies), and they are not Negroid in the commonly accepted sense (that Negroids are Africans). The Negroid theory isn't even mentioned on the Olmec page itself, as far as I see. Anyhow, this guy is about as Negroid as those Olmec heads: [10] 83.72.194.208 (talk) 04:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
No, the point that it's not the race of the Olmecs which is at issue, but the fact that these sculptures display "stereotypically negroid" features. There are lots of reliable sources which can attest to this — the point that the article, and indeed the heads, make is that Negroid is a typographical identification, and is meaningless as a racial identifier. The idea would be to include them to illustrate what "stereotypically negroid" features are — not to argue that the Olmecs were a negroid race. Indeed, if anything, this points out how worthless the racial classification is — since there is a rather large body of water seperating the Olmecs and what "racial science" believes were the "Negroid" races. --Haemo (talk) 08:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • That would be kind of a red herring, don't you think? We can cut to the bone and show an actual picture of what everyone agrees on is Negroid, but that is offensive to some people, which is really irrelevant. Anyhow, what sources do you propose? Funkynusayri (talk) 04:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we should even remove the photos from the caucasoid page as well. Muntuwandi (talk) 16:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The point is that every agrees that these heads are negroid. --Haemo (talk) 22:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think using one of the Olmec heads is a great idea. IMO, it's just another bit of evidence to demonstrate that there was a pre-Colombian African presence in the New World. I mean has anybody been reading anything in the mainstream media on this subject over the last 25 years? The mainstream conclusion is that there was a distinctly Africoid (Negroid/Australoid) presence in the New World for millennia, that predated the presence of the Asiatic peoples, now commonly referred to as "Native Americans," the latter group having arrived approximately only 7,000 years ago. And -- incidentally -- no one is claiming how preposterous it is to call Native Americans "Asians," despite oceans and several thousands of miles separating the Asian continent from North and South America. Anyone sense a double standard here?  ;) deeceevoice (talk) 04:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • You won't find any credible sources supporting that. Funkynusayri (talk) 11:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
    Yeah, the academic consensus is that they're stylized representations of infants. --Haemo (talk) 22:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, yeah? The academic consensus is that there is no consensus. There is growing evidence of a "Negroid" (sub-Saharan African)/"Australoid" presence in the Americas thousands of years before the Native Americans arrived there. And that's from mainstream, non-Black archaeologists and forensic experts. deeceevoice (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
And to what end? If I can dig up something, will you agree to inclusion of an image of an Olmec head as an example of what some have called "Negroid" physical characteristics? deeceevoice (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I can find reliable sources that state that these heads have negroid features, so that's not the issue. However, the presence of people who display negroid features in early South America is a remarkable claim, and one which would be good to add into this article — however, I don't believe sources exist to support it. --Haemo (talk) 00:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

How's the BBC, Scientific American and National Geographic? Here's something I wrote a while back. I'll put it in the relevant article when I have a moment. Click the links and check the sources. Can't get much more mainstream than this.

In 1999, Sao Paolo archaeologist Walter Neves said of "Lucia," the earliest human skull unearthed at Serra di Capivara in northeast Brazil, that it "was anything but mongoloid." A forensic artist from the University of Manchester, UK, used the skull to reconstruct Lucia's face and reported "the result was surprising: 'It ha[d] all the features of a negroid face'....""First Americans were Australian

In 2005, archaeologists at the University of Sao Paolo announced that the first people of the Americas "were not Asiatic phenotypically,"[11] "but instead shared physical characteristics with appear much more similar to modern Australians, Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans."[12] Their findings were based upon an examination of skulls found in the Lagoa Santa region of Brazil. The paleoamerican human remains discovered at Serra di Capavera and elsewhere in South America are similar to the Lagoa Santa skulls,[5] thus adding to speculation that the earliest Americans were not Asiatic, but African.

Archaeologists estimate that these original, Australoid/Negroid human populations were supplanted by Asiatic peoples between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago.

And then there's Thor Heyerdahl's Ra expedition in the 1970s, in which a high-pronged boat built on models of vessels utilized in ancient Egypt sailed from Morocco to the Americas, thus proving that seamen could have reached the Americas from Africa by navigating the Canary Current. And, as one of the articles cited above notes, some fisherman from Africa ended up -- alive -- in South America a few years back when their boat went off course and got caught in, presumably, the Canary Current. Consider this: Africans are the oldest people on the planet with the oldest civilizations. It's not too much of a stretch to believe that some of them ended up in the Americas, perhaps, not by design, but by accident, several times over the centuries, established settlements, then civilizations, then later co-existing with Asiatics who arrived later; but, due to their relative paucity in numbers, either were overcome militarily or simply were assimilated into the Asiatic population over the millennnia. Keep in mind that Van Sertima claims that the Olmecs were a hybrid civilization comprised of Africans and Native Americans. I mean just take a look at this iamge (scroll down the page a bit)[13]. "Stylized representations of infants" my butt! lol In helmets? If that ain't a Blackman, then I'm a freakin' Martian.

Ask any forensic anthropologist or even a forensic criminologist, and they will tell you that lots of Latinos exhibit prognathism. And I'm not talking about Afro-Latinos; I'm talking Indios. If they're Asians, then where did that come from? A facile response would be from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but the fact of the matter is there are Indios who exhibit prognathism in areas not directly affected by the Maafa. So, what's the explanation? The only plausible one is a more ancient presence that predates the slave trade.

There are other accounts as well of blacks in the Americas before Columbus. In 1970, I took a course in Latin American Studies at Howard from an Italian-American professor Vincent Peloso. He told us about the Popol Vuh, an ancient mesoamerican religious text in which Black people are physically described so amazingly accurately, there was no way the authors could have done so without having seen Black people -- and that they were considered gods. Also, consider the legend of California, supposedly a land where Black Amazons dwelled. And it goes on and on and on.

Just consider the last paragraph of the BBC article cited above and open your mind:

The identity of the first Americans is an emotive and controversial question. But the evidence from Brazil, and a handful of people who still live at the very tip of South America, suggests that the Americas have been home to a greater diversity of humans than previously thought - and for much longer.[14] deeceevoice (talk) 00:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

  • It is far more likely that these "Negroids" would be of Asian or Australian extraction than African, people similar to the Onges, as far as I recall. These people do have a history of such long sea-journeys. Funkynusayri (talk) 00:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Australoids are indigenous to not only Australia. People often mistakenly conflate the two as one of the writers did in proclaiming "The first Americans were Australian" (or something to that effect). There are indigenous populations of Australoids in Yemen. They are simply another exmaple of the natural biodiversity among black peoples -- as Spencer Wells so amply demonstrated in his DNA studies tracing the DNA of the San/Khoisan to the Australoid Tamils in southern India to the Aborigines of Australia. Again, the skulls repeatedly have been characterized as "Negroid," "sub-Saharan African" and "Australoid." Compare this photo of a Khoisan/San tribesman[15] with the image of "Lucia" here.[16] They look like twins to me. Australoids, are Black Africans. deeceevoice (talk) 01:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Genetics do not seem to support that. "Black people" are not defined by genetics, but mere physical features, and it is not synonymous with either African or Negroid. Funkynusayri (talk) 01:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Sh*t. I just typed a long response and got "Database locked." Well, duh. Of course genetics don't define black people. And I didn't say otherwise. But did you read what I wrote? Wells' genetic findings most definitely support the close interrelatedness of Africans, Australoid Tamils and the Aboriginals of Australia and Southeast Asia. Many of the Blacks of Southeast Asia are, in fact, Australoid. Too, the Andaman website clearly draws linkages to populations in the Indian subcontinent and even the Middle East, calling them all "Australoid." And all of these peoples are Black peoples, and have been considered Black peoples, for centuries. It is only with genetics that some have tried to stress the ties with other Southeast Asians rather than with Africans. However, it is quite clear that the genetic affinities between the two groups came about as the populations developed and interbred in relative isolation of many millennia. If you look at the earliest photographs of Southeast Asians, you will see people with sloe eyes and commonly Asian features, but with dark skin and often nappy hair, and people round eyes and otherwise African features and straight hair or any combination of characteristics thereof -- all in the same family, village or clan grouping.
  • Furthermore, many Southeast Asian "Asiatics" cluster more closely with Australoids (Blacks) than with other Asian populations for the same reason Australoid blacks do. Isolation. There are, after all, tremendous differences between a fair-skinned, sinodont Asian living in Tokyo or Beijing and a dark-skinned, sundadont Cambodian, Burmese, or Malaysian. deeceevoice (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
And one more thing. Black people are defined by many factors: lineage, phenotype, geographic origin -- and also by law and historical and social tradition. deeceevoice (talk) 05:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, of course these people can be traced back to Africa, so can everyone in the world, but that doesn't mean that they are closely related to present day Africans, which is what is important. Australians might be considered socially black, but this page is not about a social, but merely metrical definition. As you mention, these people have their own "race", "Australoid", therefore the people mentioned as ending up in America would be Australoids, not Negroids.
By the way, what do you think about the inclusion of the proposed picture of the Shilluk woman above? (Funkynusayri (talk) 05:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It seems you didn't even bother to read the links. The archaeological evidence says otherwise: "Australoid," "sub-Saharan African" and "Negroid" are their terms -- not mine. I'm out. I've got deadlines. deeceevoice (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • What are we actually disagreeing about? Funkynusayri (talk) 05:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm goldbricking. ;p Australoid isn't a separate "racial" group any more than are Jews. The terms "Capoid," "Australoid," "Congoid," "Negroid," sometimes the mis-applied "Caucasoid" in the case of some East African Blacks -- are all terms for Africoid -- Black African -- peoples. These are descriptive, phenotypical subgroups. Nothing more. deeceevoice (talk) 07:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I know that can be said about Negroid, Congoid, Capoid, and some "Caucaosids", but do you have any citations for it applying to Australoid? From the page on Africoid: "Africoid as a term incorporating Oceanic, Dravidian and Australoid peoples
Some Afrocentrists argue for the primacy of phenotypes in describing a broad cultural-genetic set of black peoples stretching from Africa to Australia to Asia.[21] Other DNA data however, which details the genetic complexity of peoples, calls into question conceptions of a single, rigid black or "Africoid" type that cuts across broad areas including Asia and Australia. Physically there may be similarities (dark skin or curlier hair for example) but genetically the data are much more complex. Indeed some supporters of the term Africoid (see Scholarly use section below) note that DNA and serological (blood)analysis for example, places populations like Australian Aborigines, Dravidians of India and dark-skinned Pacific/Indian Ocean peoples closer to the populations of mainland East Asia than the stereotypical sub-Saharan Negroid phenotype." Funkynusayri (talk) 07:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Uh, yeah. What I said. But, then, as we both know, DNA doesn't define Black people. ;) West Papuans involved in a liberation struggle against Indonesia consider themselves black. Politicized Tamils also consider themselves black -- and not only that, they identify with the struggle of African-Americans in this country. I've dated an East Indian who considers himself black. There's an East Indian brother writing at Runoko Rashidi's website who clearly considers himself black and claims there's ancient lore that states that the Dravidian peoples migrated to India from the African Horn up through the Levant and then southward. Some tie the dreadlocks of ancient Egypt and the dreadlocks of India to migration and trade links between Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
Funny how white, majority culture can glibly lump all Asians/Asiatics together and call them Asians -- including the Tlinglit, Native Americans, Indio Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, some peoples of the Russian steppes, Southeast Asians, etc., etc. -- despite their phenotypical biodiversity, including the Sherpa, whose distinct physical and physiological adaptations to high altitudes set them apart from any other group of humans. White folks lump Nordics, the WASPy Brits, the Irish (with their frizzy, red hair), swarthy Italians (who didn't use to be "white" and Jews, too -- who aren't "white" either), Russians, Portuguese, Slavs, etc. -- they're all lumped together, despite their disparate physical attributes. But when it comes to black folks, we see this purely modern-day attempt to divide us into all sorts of "oids" to suit a Eurocentrist political and cultural agenda. It just doesn't wash. "Africoid" is as legitimate a term to describe all Black, African peoples, wherever we may be, on the continent and in the diaspora. as are the other "racial" identifiers.
But this is off the point. "Negroid" is what it is -- a phenotypical term, and the Olmec heads definitely fit, as to the skulls referred to in the articles cited above. Frankly, I couldn't care less whether the Olmec head image is used. I never did. But I saw some ignorance and misinformation being bandied about on this page and sought to address it. I've done so. Now I'm done. I've got deadlines. Peace.deeceevoice (talk) 09:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • What was ignorant? You don't think the image of the Shilluk a little further up would be a better example? Statues don't have skin colour. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Negroid and Negrito in the Philippines

Negroid is also a term used in the Philippines to refer to the various Negrito populations. I have added a brief sentence about this but maybe those who have spent more time on this article can integrate it more into the article. Racial classification is not just a European project and does not just involve Africans and Europeans. There are also uses of such terms in other contexts and that should be mentioned somewhere, I think. --Bruce Hall (talk) 04:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Hmmm, Negroid has almost exclusively referred to various black Africans, and sometimes it has been applied to Australian and Negrito groups by some scientists. It is already mentioned that the term is mostly' used for Sub Saharans, but to mention what other groups it has referred to would need some sources.

As for this "Racial classification is not just a European project and does not just involve Africans and Europeans", I'm not sure what you mean by that in this context. Negroid is a term invented by Europeans, and Negritos were labeled as such by Europeans. Funkynusayri (talk) 06:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)