The History Scrutineer

Dear Readers of The History Scrutineer, it was the final straw for me on being notified of a recent video uploaded (sadly) by a historian and anthropologist whom I’ve admired very much – concerning an issue that I’ve been clearly seeing over the last few years, which seems to have gained more ground now and is being shown with less and less subtlety. That issue should only be labelled as clear-cut, shameless white supremacism amongst certain historians.

This is the absurd video is question:

There is an unacceptable spelling mistake from a native speaker of English (‘indiginous’ – indigenous) on the video’s cover photo which ironically (in an American take on the word) ties perfectly well with the sort of ‘tone’ and level of intellect possessed by the most enthusiastic and eager viewers. I shall share some of the comments from this video of purposefully Afro-rage-baiting, fallacious nonsense:

As the viewer can see it’s mostly middle-school-level, pitifully moronic racist jokes centering on what I suppose these cretins would term ‘black ghetto speech’ or ‘black hood speech’ etc. A shining example and bold indicator of the ‘quantum physicists’, ‘Oxford Dons’, ‘nuclear-theorists’ and ‘Cambridge scholars’ these sorts of shameful videos attract instead of well-raised, un-biased, decent and humane historians of all levels and ethnicities, backgrounds etc.

I see that my comment has still received not a single ‘like’. How odd.

I joked with someone a couple of years ago that if Sepehr ever ran out of ideas for his videos he’d just launch some half-assed campaign into convincing us that Martin Luther King Jr. was a blue-eyed, Norwegian-descended, blonde and full-blown Aryan fellow and not African-American at all. Well, he’s managed to both correct and even out-do me ladies and gentlemen.

“Mansa Musa was white…“

Robert should be put under house arrest.

What’s next? ‘Why Shaka Zulu was a redhead from Grimsby, North-West England’?

I will not waste our time in producing a decidedly unnecessary in-depth essay proving why King Mansa Musa of The Malian Empire was not caucasian – instead, I’ll just make two simple points.

1. The name ‘Mansa Musa’ is not at all ‘caucasian’ by any remote stretch – needless to say! Mansa (N’Ko: ߡߊ߲߬ߛߊ; pl. mansaw) is a Maninka and Mandinka word for a hereditary ruler, commonly translated as “king”. It is particularly known as the title of the rulers of the Mali Empire, such as Mansa Musa, and in this context is sometimes translated as “emperor”.
2. Robert Sepehr begins the video by sharing his amusing facts and figures dug up from who knows where online – “this 2015 DNA study published in the European journal of human genetics found 10 to 15% North African or Eurasian admixture into West African populations including the Mandinka 2-3000 years ago”. That’s 10-15% Rob, buddy. Leaving a population in West Africa of 90 – 85% black African. Oh, but you Mr. White Supremacy are certain that one of the most revered and celebrated black historical figures was not a part of that massive black majority yet in fact of the 10% Aryan community… Sure, and I’ve got Queen Cleopatra on speed-dial.

Here is another of his recent videos. This one is just pure Neo-Nazism and interestingly he features a video of one of his critiques who featured on a Joe Rogan podcast and correctly called Mr. Sepehr out for being clearly an Aryan supremacist.

I consider this to be a major problem within the worldwide community of historians -as it would be in any community – of any sort. The ‘attacking’ of historical figures who are celebrated by people of a certain shared ethnicity or ‘race’ and trying to strip them of their true characteristics is just stupidity. There are certain individuals who are discussed at times such as General Hannibal of Carthage who was most likely not black African yet very possibly more ‘Mediterranean/North African’ in physical appearance. Yet trying to persuade us of the same thing with King Mansa Musa is going far too far and when coupled with the rest of the material/support for these videos that we can see – it’s obvious white supremacism.

I do enjoy Sepehr’s videos and there are also some historians who are black-supremacists with some questionable and unhealthy stances – either way – and from whatever side it’s coming from, it is not to be taken neither seriously nor encouraged by sane, clear-minded and non-racist historians who seek to engage in an un-biased and wholesome pursuit of history’s truths!