What's the obsession with inter-racial relationships?

[Al B. Sure!]

and yet, spiffor, according to an article by National Geographic Magazine about the Moors, they were described as an Arab and Berber population...

and berber contact with west africa was largely one-sided (ie- the berber destruction of Songhai)... are you saying that the entire Moor population of several million that lived in spain and north africa was from west africa? and that somehow this entire population vanished without a trace after the 16th and 17th centuries?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
If I am not mistaken is a little similar in France, where the traditional "French" ethnic groups such as Bretons, Auverenge, etc. meld into a "French identity" where as the Arabs are not assimilating as well?

Indeed. Besides, the traditional white immigrants (Italians, Poles) became assimilated in a few decades as well. The Arabs and Blacks seem to have worst trouble being assimilated; I guess daily racism keeps them at bay...

[Dinner]

To my understanding berbers invaded Spain not Moors. I'm sure moors were always a minority group but never the less Moors are traditionally distinctly black compared to Berbers or Arabs.

[Al B. Sure!]

Buck:

Where are all the great white Hip-Hop producers?

if all you listen to is Timbaland, i wouldn't blame you for not knowing about them but white people (the stereotype being jewish people) have produced for rappers since the 80's... even today, white producers like Alchemist and Joe Kuleszynski have produced plenty of hit singles... if you're at all familiar with rapper Joe Budden, just about all the songs on his recent album were produced by Kuleszynski.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and berber contact with west africa was largely one-sided (ie- the berber destruction of Songhai)... are you saying that the entire Moor population of several million that lived in spain and north africa was from west africa?

Uh no. There may be a language problem. I thought you were mentioning what in French is called the "Maures", who are currently living in Mauritania. These people are blacks, depite not being ebony blacks, and some of them participated in the mediterranean businesses.

Maybe those who lived in Spain are called "Moors" because some European has seen a bucnh of Moors first and assumed the whole rest of the population was like that ? A bit like Colombus' "Indians" or the French "Iroquois" ?

[Al B. Sure!]

Oerdin:

no... look it up anywhere... the Moors invaded in 711... Berber militant religious revivals (with strange names that i cant quite remember like Almohads or something) resulted in massive berber invasions of spain in El Cid's time...

[Al B. Sure!]

Spiffor:

do you know if these Maures are known as Taureg in English?

[C0ckney]

much as i really hate to do this . i agree with AS about the moors. however the term is used today, in shakespeare's time the word moor could be used to describe any muslim, whether a berber, arab or black. portuguese records talk about moroccan 'moors' with blonde hair and blue eyes, hardly likely to be black are they! so he could have been talking about an arab, a berber, a negro or any other muslim, we don't know. probably because it's besides the point in othello.

[Dinner]

Hmm, is anyone a historian that can solve this? The blonde haired "moors" were no doubt disendents of visagoths (a germanic tribe which invaded Spain and north Africa during the last part of the Roman period).

[Al B. Sure!]

exactly, Cockney... all through the middle ages and rennaisance, in writings, northern europeans described Arabs, Turks, and all other muslims as black.

and also, like you said, Othello's ethnicity was of no concern to shakespeare. it was mentioned barely once or twice... today, though, everyone seems to think inter-racial relationship is the whole point of Othello.

[C0ckney]

oerdin, or they could have been berbers, some of whom (according to roman records) also had blonde hair and blue eyes. but again i'm not on about technical definitions. in shakespeare's time in most of europe all muslims apart from turks could be and were described as moors, in the same way muslims often called europeans 'franks'. so you can't tell anything definate about race from the use of the word 'moor' in a 16th century work.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Spiffor:

do you know if these Maures are known as Taureg in English?

I'd guess your Tuaregs are our Touaregs I don't think it is the same population. Yet, I don't know much about North-African ethinicites during the middle ages. And since we use names that have been given by Europeans, there may be some inherited confusion...

[Al B. Sure!]

Tauregs live roughly in Mauritania and have black skin but more caucasion facial features so your Maures seems to equate to them. though another thing is the issue of migrations that probably meant population locations in shakespeare's time were different than today.

nevertheless, history books i've read consistantly describe the moors as a mixed population of arabs and berbers... and logically, no significant numbers of negros would have gotten to spain let alone conquer all of spain and be the main population in spain and north africa for centuries... the idea of moors as blacks stems from their darkness as compared to northern europeans as well as the added confusion of some black muslims calling themselves moors since the 1960's.

[Ramo]

Speer's right. Moors = Mix of Arabs and Berbers (hence the name "Morocco", etc.).

[Al B. Sure!]

and in case people forgot, what race Othello is wasn't the point of this thread... even if he was Chinese, Shakespeare never intended Othello to be a race play yet it is now portrayed as such...

and why did I Love Lucy get little attention for its inter-racial relationship back in the 50's but now i think we can all agree it would be blown up ridiculously