Talk:Africans

Definition

"African people" is not a synonym of "Black people".

Consider on the one hand:

• lighter-skinned North Africans, both Arab and of indigenous African ancestry, such as the Berbers
• Egyptians
• White South Africans and other European-descended Africans

and on the other:

• indigenous peoples of Latin America and their descendants
• Australian aborigines
• lower-caste Indians who identify themselves as "Black" for political reasons

-- The Anome 18:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow you work really fast. I skimmed it but it looks like a great start. I do not know if you have seen it, but there is an Egyptian statue that shows two of the Egyptian elite next to each other, one dark skinned one light skinned. It is a great statue. We have the picture here on Wikipedia. I love it and would love to see it included. I am not sure that you should include the Dalits or darker skinned Indians who are calling themselves black except maybe as a parenthetical remark, since they are not really more African than white Europeans, or the Chinese probably (although they might share the darker skin color of course). --Filll 19:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I should mention that much of this article is adapted from the "Demographics" section of the Africa article; the proportion of this article taken from that source should diminish as more is added on African culture and identity.

The Dalits definitely don't belong in this article, since they self-identify as Black, not as African, and don't live in Africa either; they need a mention at Black people, of course, because of their self-identification as Black people. -- The Anome 19:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The definition of African people shouldn't include citizenship because Africa is not a country and there's no citizenship affiliated with it. African people in fact predate any contemporary country in Africa. This definition from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/African gives a better definition. 1. A native or inhabitant of Africa. 2. A person of African descent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Analyzer99 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The article states that, among others, African people include citizens of African nations. Nowhere does it say anything about "African citizenship," as you claimed in your edit summary. You are correct in your observation that there is no "African citizenship," but that's not what the article states. Acroterion _(talk) 16:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The definition mentions citizenship, it should be excluded since African people predates any state or citizenship in Africa. I will provide sourced definition of African people. I also would like to add later on something about the term African people as the term Asian people referring to both to people of the African race (ethnologically) and people currently living in African, depending on the context. Since those words, refering both a place and to a race named from that place, always got some contextual ambiguity between people of African origin and people currently living in Africa.Analyzer99 (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You might want to look at some of the other discussions on this page, since there is a wide range of opinions on who is actually an "African person." I take no particular stand on the matter, but it's clearly something of a minefield. Acroterion _(talk) 17:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There's no such thing as an "African race", nor do those references claim there is. The term "African", as with the term "Asian", refers to continental derivation/inhabitation, not race. The free dictionary [1] indicates that the noun "African" refers to "a native or inhabitant of Africa" or "a person of African descent" or "a native, inhabitant, or citizen of any of the countries of Africa" or "a member or descendant of any of the peoples of Africa, esp [but not exclusively] a Black." The Oxford dictionaries [2] specifies that the noun "African" refers to "a person from Africa, especially [but again not exclusively] a black person". As for citizenship, it does matter because there are certain emigres in Africa (such as first-generation missionaries from the United States) that have lived there a long time but aren't quite yet African the way, say, an Ashanti or an Afrikaner or a Berber is. Middayexpress (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Lets keep the sourced definition of African people without adding our own words and bias. There's simply no accepted definition of African people which involved citizenship. Nor something about recent ancestors. What about non recent ancestors?Analyzer99 (talk) 18:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Look again at the quotes above; your own source includes citizenship as one of the criteria. As for recent ancestry, it is key because African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and other New World black populations are not "African". That would be their ancestors many centuries ago. The same goes for the descendants of the Pilgrims no longer being British; like African Americans, they are American and actually helped found the United States of America. Middayexpress (talk) 18:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

British is a country. Many Americans are still from European descent. It's pretty obvious African-american consider themselves to be African hence the name African-americans (like Italian-americans) that is African living in America. I want to remove recent ancestors (which is a contradiction by itself) to African descent (as it's mentioned in the sourced definition). Analyzer99 (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Please confine your actions to this page (both of you, as Analyzer99's at 4 reverts and Middayexpress is at 3). Reverts aren't going to solve this issue. You have a discussion going, let's keep it that way. Acroterion _(talk) 19:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I won't revert past edit but want to replace "recent ancestors" to African descent as it's mentioned in the sourced definitions.Analyzer99 (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

No, "British" is not a country. It's both a nationality (a denonym) and a synonym for "Briton", an ethnonym -- both of which the Pilgrims fit into. "African descent" also is not equivalent to "European descent", as you are trying to imply. In the quotes above, it refers to people that are actually descended from individuals from the African continent, irrespective of race; that includes Berbers, who definitely aren't "black". Unlike Africa (where many different races are indigenous to it), the natives of Europe primarily belong to only one race, not several. Back on topic: you appear to be trying to expand the definition of African people to correspond with a niche Pan-Africanist one. That definition is as follows: "the classic Pan-Africanist definition of an African that incorporates Africans and people in diaspora" ([3]). Unfortunately, Pan-Africanism is an ideology, and per both WP:FRINGE and WP:NOTADVOCATE, ideologies have no place on Wikipedia. Middayexpress (talk) 19:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You can have your own personal opinion about it, but the sourced definition mentions "African descent" and it should be included in the definition and I will include it here. It's also the common use of the words. Analyzer99 (talk) 19:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I also would like to revert the order of the listing to list instead: "a native, inhabitant, or citizen of any of the countries of Africa" which is included in the sourced definition too. As African people refer more commonly to native people of Africa, but also include migrants to Africa. I also wonder if the note "especially black" should be included since it's in most dictionary definition of African people (and it's a common use of the words).Analyzer99 (talk) 19:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not an "opinion", unfortunately. It's a fact that the definition of "African people" which includes New World black populations is a Pan-Africanist one: "the classic Pan-Africanist definition of an African that incorporates Africans and people in diaspora" [4]. And the term "African descent" in the quote above refers to people like Nigerian Americans or Egyptian Canadians, not African Americans. African Americans and other New World black populations don't even fit into any of the other criteria, fyi: they aren't natives of Africa, they aren't citizens of Africans countries, nor do they even live there. This too will be made clear in the article. Middayexpress (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Again you stating personal opinion and bias while I quote dictionary sources.

If I go into your line of reasoning I can say, African-americans must consider themselves African a little bit hence the name they have adopted which include their African ancestry (it include the word African). Words like African, Arab and Asian always got different meaning depending on the context they are used. At one time they express ethnicity and origin while on other time they express the current place of living and "citizenship".

I think the definition with the adjustment I mentioned above (including keeping citizenship) encompass all the common use and sourced definition of the words. Don't forget that wikipedia is about verifiable facts (sourced) not personal opinions or bias. Analyzer99 (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is about verifiable facts from reliable sources, not fringe ideologies like that monolithic "African race" you alluded to (and which no one of the references mention) or how African Americans feel or fringe Pan-Africanist ideologies. And as promised, the passage has been improved to reflect this. Middayexpress (talk) 20:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's keep the debate about sourced definition of African people and keep personal opinion or bias away please. Wikipedia is about verifiable fact not personal opinion about African Americans or pan-Africanist. Analyzer99 (talk) 21:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't throw around the "personal bias" charge. Everybody has a bias of some kind. Recognizing that, please keep the discussion on-topic, and remember that consensus is not necessarily what two editors agree upon. If necessary, a request for comment might be in order to solicit additional opinions. Acroterion _(talk) 21:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

He just reverted again despite you warning him not to. He also completely removed all the refs I just added pointing out that mainly Pan-Africanists include New World populations with distant ancestry from Africa (such as African Americans) as actual "Africans". Middayexpress (talk) 21:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Such opinion have simply no place on this wikipedia definition and his very far from common definition like the one you can find in the Oxford reputable dictionary linkedAnalyzer99 (talk) 21:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That's my main point. I want to keep the debate (and the article definition) about sourced definition of African people Analyzer99 (talk) 21:22, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The material was sourced, but you removed [5] those sources because they did not jibe with your stated idea (your post above from 17:05, 10 January 2011) that there is such an ethnological concept as an all-encompassing "African race". You also rather tellingly removed reference to the sourced fact that it's only primarily Pan-Africanists (fringe ideologists) who include New World populations like African Americans in their definition of "Africans". Middayexpress (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The definition I use is the definition used in the Oxford dictionary and the Collins english dictionary. It doesn't have anything to do with any kind of ideology. Please tell us what aspect of the definition is not in the Oxford or Collins dictionary sources. Analyzer99 (talk) 21:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Template

What if we had a template for black and african people articles that looked like [6]? Comments?--Filll 20:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there such thing as a single "African people".

I'm pondering nominating this for deletion as per WP:NOT, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV.

This article seems to bea about an specific POV on what African people(s) are (a unity) and that's not supported by anything except surely some political ideas. It's not encyclopedic by definition. The relevant content should be merged with Africa and Black people (as it seems what is about mostly).

I can see no specific reason to consider all African peoples as a single unity. I think it is clearly the personal POV of the author. --Sugaar 21:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It might be, but we need to make sure it includes the diversity of African people. This is just a start I think and we can build on it. Clearly there is a tremendous diversity of people living in Africa.--Filll 21:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Fill. This article has a large amount of content that has yet to be added to it. There is a lot of diversity in the African ethnic group. Consequently, this article will most likely speak volumes about the diverse cultures of the African ethnic group.--^DarkTea 21:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no intention to present the people of Africa as a single "unity" -- indeed, I agree completely with the earlier poster: the population of Africa is extremely diverse, and this article should reflect Africa's many and varied cultures and ethnic groups. At the moment, there's rather too much about relatively recent settlers, and not enough about the indigenous peoples of Africa. Let's fix it! -- The Anome 01:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Then I strongly suggest it to be renamed/merged to either:

• Demographics of Africa
• Culture of Africa
• Peoples of Africa or African peoples

The use of singular clearly suggest an ethnologic unity that they most probably don't have.

--Sugaar 10:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Logically, the article should be called "Africal peoples" or "Peoples of Africa." Unfortunately the conformity police insist on not having article entitles "Spiders" or "Races." "Demographics" is likely to be misunderstood because that term is generally applied to the current populations of a region. (Or am I wrong?) The article has to be more fundamental than "cultures" (why would you want a singular term here anyway?), and, depending on how we arrange our canopy articles, the culture part should probably fall under an article on the ethnicities present in Africa.

The issue that looms over all these articles, of course, is that we are all humans and all largely the same. We divide ourselves as though we are all born into the world bearing labels that not only declare us, e.g., Ainu, but also grade us ab initio on intelligence, morality, ethical impulses, musical ability, etc., etc. We we try to deconstruct a social construction such as race or ethnicity we need to be fairly clear on the 3% of fact on which the other 97% of the ideological system is built.

I haven't had time to go beyond the basic information on the founding population and the three genetic departures from this origin, L1, L2, and L3. But there is a great deal of information on how the present-day populations relate to these original three lines. The story is bound to be muddied because people tend to marry across group boundaries, so nobody is pure anything, but the fact remains that there are obvious surface differences that differentiate, e.g., the Khoisan from the groups whose members average over 6' tall and are much darker. These kinds of differences in traits are often mirrored by differences in language families and in differences in culture. Both language and culture are highly conservative across time and they both tend to reinforce group boundaries.

If the conformity police will let us have "peoples" I'm all for it. But if the first thing somebody reads about "African people" is that there are three major divisions among them that go back to the earliest days of Homo sapiens sapiens, then I don't think the lack of an "s" in the title will cause any big problems. (If "Race" is acceptable, then anything is acceptable IMHO.) P0M 06:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Race in my opinion is only acceptable in some very specific cases (classical anthropometry and cultural articles on areas where racialism/racism is strong, specially the Americas). Genetics is most interesting (all non-African lineages are L3 "Africans", for instance) but it's not my main concern. I think the cultural diversity is what makes African peoples strongly plural.

The naming convention does suggest that articles should be named when possible in singular but obviously this is not the case when it causes more confusion than anything else. Many ethnicity articles (see Franks, Celts, etc.) are named in plural and the singular is always discouraged in such cases (though "Foo people" is more common). Using "people" is correct when the article refers to a single ethnicity/nationality but it's obviously wrong when it's not the case as here.

WP:TITLE clearly allows it in some cases refering to this archived talk section. When the singular is patently wrong, plural must be used (and don't forget WP:IAR!!)

One good option could be to use Africans but African peoples looks even better to me. --Sugaar 16:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Filll and I have been trying to get some top-down planning involved in all these articles that have grown up and have overlapped each other. The top level would include articles like Race and Social construction. There is no need to hash out all of the issues regarding that rather grungy concept once again. When I started with Wikipedia, there was a pretty strong bias toward saying that "race is real." Since that time many changes have been made, and the last time I looked I got about halfway through without finding anything major to complain about. (I still need time to go back and fix the English here and there.) For the most part we can have a summary on the general topic, direct readers to the main article (Race), and then look at the [races] of Africa, or, more properly, the genetic history of the land.

I haven't studied the Social construction article yet, but that article would also give us the material that we need to summarize before trying to set out what "African people" are.

We also need to summarize Culture (I'm assuming there is such an article.) Cultural differences are some of the most power forces in convince individuals that "Those people are something else!"

Another thing we need to summarize is Music. Music may have been functioning in human societies even before language, and it is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the various peoples of Africa.

After we summarize all of these things we can bring in the specific features of Africa and its populations. I don't know how clear the genetic history of the Africans is after the main L1, L2, L3 differentiations. I do know that there is a long chapter on these differences in Cavalli-Sforza's big book. He also has correlated the genetic groups with the linguistic groups. I don't know about cultural groups. It's easier to learn to use chopsticks rather than to learn to speak Chinese, for instance, so some cultural features, particularly if they really improve the lives of people, may get transferred to other groups.

I think that what we do not want is a long list of randomly arranged groups. (One of the interesting things about news coverage of Afghanistan is that the names of ethnic groups are often listed, but no notice is paid to the fact that one group appears to be the remnants of Mongolian or other invaders from north of China who were left behind. They have a strikingly different appearance, and I wonder whether they are the subject of negative attention from the other groups.) We need to prepare readers to see connections and relationships. P0M 19:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well the Hazara are actually looked upon with some racism by the rest of Afghans (guess I could find something about that if needed). But I really don't understand what all this discourse of you has to do with the conceptualiation of the article and specially its title.

Do you agree that it should be better named African peoples or Peoples of Africa? --Sugaar 22:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

My point that a list of names doesn't tell people much. A list of names with links would be better. A way to see how a group of these names relate to another group of names can be even more valuable.

African peoples would be o.k. with me. P0M 00:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This is made to look that "African" is a synonym for "Negroid". In fact, original usage of "African" meant Berbers and Berber-like people, none of who would be classified as "African", under this article's usage. This article originally was created by someone after a heated discussion on the mulatto talk page, over what the description of a "mulatto" is was. Somebody disputed the "half-European, half-African" tag, since someone who is say half-French, half-Algerian would not fit that description. So this page was created. This whole article is, in my opinion, POV soapboxing. The creator of this article wants "African people" to mean one thing, so he/she creates a wikipedia page to that effect! Is there such a thing as a single "African people" using either of the definitions in the article? Of course not! I was tempted to create an article with the title "Africanism" showing how people attempt to generalise about deny the individuality of different peoples to fit racist political and social agendas, but didn't, as no such term is widely accepted. Same thing with "African people". No such thing exists with regard to the way this article presents it. I strongly feel that this article should be deleted, as it has no place in an encyclopedia. Dr Rgne (talk) 10:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Africans

Why "african peoples" and not "africans" or "peoples of africa"? Mbisanz 03:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Query for moderators

How does one suggest an article be nominated for deletion? This article seems more like the personal viewpoints of a small group of posters, rather than a serious valid article worthy of an encyclopedia. The term "African people" does NOT mean what the article states. It would appear this is an attempt to validate one person's claims by making a wikipedia article. Dr Rgne (talk) 07:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms section required

So apparently this "African people" page survived nfd, and has now only gotten more and more absurdly POV. Do the editors of this particular article not realize that at least 1 in every 3 Africans would not be considered "African" by this page's main (POV) definition? Yes, there is a link to the "Demographics of Africa" article, but the bulk of this article uses the terms "Afri-", "Afro-" and "African" to refer exclusively to those people who would be termed "black" under US racial classifications. What about the hundreds of millions of North Africans? Or the large number of Khoikhoi and San peoples? Are they not "African people"? Also, in the correct usage of the term a great many Europeans and Middle Easterners would have "African ancestry" as there is clear DNA connections between Berbers, Egyptians, Libyans etc and many of the peoples of Western Eurasia, but under this awful article's skewed definition they would not. The basis of this article seems to be that someone created it as POV, and then others have added on to it from there, building the POV more and more. Whenever anyone objects they are immediately shushed. Well, where is the source/link/reference to a respected journal or encyclopedia which states that there is such a thing as an "African(apparently meaning 'black') people) which exlcudes the hundreds of millions of indigenous non-"black" Africans? A few scattered lines here and there in the article refer to how not all Africans are "bruthas", yet the article states that everyone uses the term "African" in this surreal sense! Dr Rgne (talk) 10:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

article

I quote "Zebras are African equids" - taken from the article on Zebras. Though the African article is based around African people and a Zebra is not a citizen, "... to citizens of countries in Africa, or to people with recent ancestors from the continent.". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.11.102 (talk) 18:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Citations list useful for updating this article and related articles

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Anthropology and Human Biology Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human genetics and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library system at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to other academic libraries in the same large metropolitan area) and have been researching these issues sporadically since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human genetics to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 00:30, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

African people → Africans – As per WP:CONCISE and WP:NATURALNESS. "Africans" already redirects here and is a fairly clear term that means the same thing. (First sentence of this article: "African people are natives or inhabitants of Africa and people of African descent." If you replace "African people" with "Africans", does it change anything?) It's a plural title, but WP:PLURAL is alright with it. Obviously it is a far more common title, absolutely thrashing the current title in Google Books. It most importantly satisfies WP:NATURALNESS - what is the most natural way of describing the people who are living in Africa? Who are they? "Africans". Natch. Red Slash 04:09, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support per nom plus the current title implies there is one African people. This is a strange article anyway and I wonder if it shouldn't be merged with Ethnic groups in Africa. There's a lot of overlap or congruence between the two topics and other parts of this article are not directly about Africans as a whole anyway (e.g. this). Note that Asian people (to which Asians directs) is an article but is more about who or what is included in the term "Asian" and various racialist approaches rather than an article about Asians as a whole. European people is a DAB page (which has a link to Ethnic groups in Europe among others) and Europeans directs to Europe. South and North Americans also both direct to the respective continents. —  AjaxSmack  05:00, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support this is becoming the norm as seen with GA level articles like (Canadians) following the same premise. -- Moxy (talk) 16:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Africans Infobox editorial addition

I have inserted Africans informative people infobox and relocated {{ethnolinguistic groups in Africa}} to the people of Africa section and added link. If any fellow Wikipedia editor or Wikipedia user has something to add on this informative addition then please state and comment. Regards -- User:149.254.49.123 (talk) 21:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

As AjaxSmack notes above, what the page needs is to be redirected to Ethnic groups in Africa. This will bring it in line with European people, which redirects to Ethnic groups in Europe. Middayexpress (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Also don't engage in sockpuppetry like you just did. AcidSnow (talk) 00:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I've started a merge proposal here. Middayexpress (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no harm in the minor addition of an informative Africans infobox enhancing and improving the article until the outcome of Middayexpress's proposed merge proposel is resolved or closed, so I will include the article enhancing and informative Africans infobox instead of an double uninformative ethnolinguistic template which only describes the locations of native languages spoken on the African continent and which should be only in the article Languages of Africa. My opinion on the Middayexpress proposed merge proposel is that the article Africans exist as a continental "collective demonym" and should continue existing due to the many phenotypes and ethnicities that exist on the African continent as well as the African continent being the second largest continent in the world as with the phenotype and ethnicity complexity of the largest continent in the world- Asia hence the existing continental "collective demonym" article Asian people. Merging an significant informative "collective demonym" article such as Africans which describes the complexity of the many phenotypes and ethnicities on the second largest continent in the world- Africa which contains more phenotypes and ethnicities than any other continent in the world to the continental native ethnicity based and largely unsouced article Ethnic groups in Africa which solely describes the locations of the native ethnic groups inhabiting the African continent as with the continental native linguistic based article Languages of Africa which solely describes the locations of the native languages spoken on the African continent is slightly absurd and especially when comparing articles as Middayexpress has done with the redirected wikilink European people to the continental native ethnicity based article Ethnic groups in Europe that has no comparison. As to AcidSnow claimant of engagement in sockpuppetry I'am editing from a smartphone's (Samsung Galaxy S II) device 3G network which randomly switches IP addresses so I do not have control on the IP address my edit revisions originate from. Regards -- 149.254.51.83 (talk) 06:22, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Left a reply here. Middayexpress (talk) 00:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)