Template talk:Black Canadians

Edits

Point-of-view edits deny the right of Ethiopian, Djiboutian, Somali, Sudanese peoples to be included in the Template:Black Canadians. Ethnic groups in the Horn of Africaare widely referred as a part of the black race. Closely related to other ehtnic groups of cushitic origin such as the Maasai and the Watusi. This dates back to a migration from West Africa's Berber people.When these people migrated, they intermarried a lot of people along the migration. Some of them settled in the Nile Valley. These people came to be known as the modern Nilotic people of present day South Sudan. The other group continued into what is now present day Lake Turkana in Kenya. This is why in Somalia, you'll find a person who is really light skinned and a really dark skinned person living in the same house and are cousins! The reason you'l not find this in South Sudan is because they intermarried other Bantu and Nubian peoples. As a result, they are some of the darkest people on Earth. People often confuse most Horn Africans with the Semitic Habesha peoples of Ethiopia who are relatively distinct from other Cushitic and Nilotic groups. But Habesha people possess an Arab origin and intermarried with other Ethiopians. As a result, you'll have some that look really really light skinn and aren't dark. In conclusion, among ethnic groups that posess cushitic originsuch as Maasai, Somali, Oromo and Afar, you'll find a lot that look like Nubian or nilotic, you'll find some that look berber, you'll sometimes even find some that look bantu. Heck you'l find some that look like all 3 combined. That's why most are really dark skinned(nilotic) but have really soft hair(berber), or you'd find people that are really light skinned(berber), but have realy kinky hair and have bantu appearance. That is why me as a Somali, people confse me for being Ethiopian, Sudaneese and sometimes West African(fulani people). I could get my extreme height form (south sudaneese), my soft brown skin tone from fulani or berbers? I don't really know! But I know it is a result of migration and intermarriage.

Thanks for your input AcidSnow. (What about Djiboutians and their identity? Do you have sources for them?) I was really curious to read this. All my encounters with people from Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan confirmed the Black African identity. All the above mentioned were seen and identified as such. (e.g. Most of the Somalis I encountered argued that they are Somalis first because their mother tongue is Somali language and therefore they are Black Africans and only have knowledge of Arabic language but not Arab ethnicity. Same situation encountered with Djiboutians who speak Afar or Somali and identified as Black Africans. Even people from Sudan identified as Black Africans speaking Arabic as their mother tongue). "Somalia is an Arab nation and its inhabitance, ethnic Somalis, are Arabs" - here I see some contradiction, from one hand ethnic Somalis but from the other hand ethnic Arabs. May be the new tendency in Djibouti and Somalia for "Afro-Arab" (not "Black African" identity) is the result of the Pan-Arabism and the new notion that Arab League membership is a disqualifier of blackness. Nevertheless, it means only people like me from South Sudan identify as Black Africans. I think that I am, and all South Sudanese people, in need to also change our Black African identity to only African. And let's discuss the exclusion of South Sudan from Black Africans. :) Routs verdi (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

The Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations in the Horn and Nile Valley generally do not identify as "Black African" and never have. Problems if any arise when folks wrongly equate this assertion of ancestral difference with claims to superiority. It isn't, though. This belief is not rooted in prejudice, fear or anything of that kind since most Horn folks actually have no particular animus toward peoples from other parts of the continent. It instead comes from a knowledge that they have separate ancestral origins. This is evident from ancient epigraphs that indicate as much [1], as well as genealogical traditions (dating from centuries before the Arab League was established) [2] [3], language family, and biology [4]. The traditional cosmogonies are also different [5] [6]. The Sudan area is even more complicated because it was home to a greater number of different ancestral populations. This is why, for example, it is the only place in Africa where haplogroup F paternal lineages (which are typical of Central Asia) have been found in ancient human fossils [7]. Clearly, very unusual. Soupforone (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

My sincere apologies, didn't intend to offend anyone with the quote. The statement from the book is within the context of the colonial period. As Soupforone has already pointed out this belief by the Somalis and other people from the Horn isn't rooted in racism and its history is much older. In addition to that, Somali genealogical traditions assert decent from Arab patriarchs. This is quiet interesting since Somalis appear to be more genetically similar to other Arabs than to other Africans, see here: [8]. AcidSnow (talk) 01:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, AcidSnow. Soupforone (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Apologies accepted. Do not worry we are just discussing the edits.Routs verdi (talk) 23:38, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Somalis are black. I am Somali and I consider myself black. I identify with black. Please include Somalis in this template as black. When Somalis are applying a job they identify as black. Somalis have black skin so it is common sense that they are black people. We Somalis are not Arabs. Somalia Business Law Handbook: Strategic Information and Laws. International Business Publications, USA. Aug 1, 2013. p. 48. ISBN 1-4387-7104-5. Guled2016 (talk) 07:38, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

According to CIA FactBook Somalia has 10 million people and there are only 30,000 Arabs in Somalia. "People and Society Somalia -". CIA Factbook.

Somalis are black. I am somali and I identify as black. When somalis are applying a job they identify as black. Somali skin is black so it is also common sense that they are black people. We somalis are not Arabs. Somalia Business Law Handbook: Strategic Information and Laws. International Business Publications, USA. Aug 1, 2013. p. 48. ISBN 1-4387-7104-5. Guled2016 (talk) 07:36, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, ethnic Somalis are Hamitic, not Arab or "black" [9]. They may, however, have such admixtures, and thus vary in physical type depending on family, clan and region [10]. Soupforone (talk) 15:44, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Let's focus on content and policy

This discussion really needs to focus on the content of the article and not the motives of the other editors, so I'm resetting the discussion.

Prior to Tuesday of this week, the article included Somali Canadians and Ethiopian Canadians in the classification of Black Canadians. Routs verdi added Djiboutian Canadians and Sudanese Canadians to the list. Soupforone removed all four from the list. I note that South Sudanese Canadians remain in the list because the partition of South Sudan is relatively recent.

To Routs verdi, I ask this question: on what sources or precedents do you base the addition of Djiboutians and Sudanese? Are they described as Black Canadians in reliable sources or consistently described as such elsewhere on Wikipedia? Please base your answer on sources and other Wikipedia pages but not the actions of other editors.

To Soupforone, I ask these questions: on what sources or precedents do you base the removal of Somalis and Ethiopians? Are they clearly described as not Black Canadians in reliable sources or elsewhere on Wikipedia? Is the Arab League definition widely accepted as a, for lack of a better term, disqualifier of blackness? Also, how do you explain the inclusion of South Sudan and exclusion of Sudan? Please base your answer on sources and other Wikipedia pages but not the actions of other editors.

Please note that I have no opinion on the matter myself. I am acting in the capacity of an administrator in this matter, trying to broker a discussion about the merits of the material. If necessary, I will take the administrative action of rolling back to the last stable version (as the article appeared on 1 Oct 2015 before this week's edits). —C.Fred (talk) 18:39, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

The links were apparently appended by an ip a while earlier. I removed them for the reasons explained above: all of those countries are multiracial and demographically distinct from the other territories in this template. All but one of them are also Arab states. Although some individuals may identify in this way, "Black African" is likewise certainly not the traditional self-designation in any of these areas, including Ethiopia (see shanqella). This isn't anything new either since there are ancient inscriptions in the region that explicitly indicate the existence of separate "red", "black" and "Sabaean" ancestral populations [11]. Anyway, this discussion isn't really about this designation, but rather about the Arab world. It began when the Routs verdi account began removing Djiboutians and Somalis from the Arab templates but keeping the Sudanese, although they also hail from Arab states and have genealogical traditions asserting descent from Arabian patriarchs [12]. AcidSnow explained this to him on those templates too. Soupforone (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2016 (UTC)