{"id":1917192,"date":"2023-04-20T11:27:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/netflix-appropriates-my-egyptian-heritage-to-push-its-racial-narrative-in-queen-cleopatra\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:30:09","slug":"netflix-appropriates-my-egyptian-heritage-to-push-its-racial-narrative-in-queen-cleopatra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/netflix-appropriates-my-egyptian-heritage-to-push-its-racial-narrative-in-queen-cleopatra\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Appropriates My Egyptian Heritage To Push Its Racial Narrative In \u2018Queen Cleopatra\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnetflix-appropriates-my-egyptian-heritage-to-push-its-racial-narrative-in-queen-cleopatra%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1917192&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>The American culture war has washed up on the shores of the Nile. It comes in the form of a new historically illiterate\u00a0Netflix series on ancient Egypt, and it bugs me to no end.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I am a Coptic Christian, one of Egypt\u2019s 15 million indigenous people. All told, there are more than\u00a0110 million Egyptians, of which a few hundred thousand live in Canada and the <a href=\"https:\/\/data.census.gov\/table?q=B04006:+PEOPLE+REPORTING+ANCESTRY&#038;tid=ACSDT1Y2019.B04006\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">United States<\/a>. Our country is a fertile oasis \u2014 the gem of every empire that marched through her deserts and drank from her Nile. Our history stretches back to the fourth millennium B.C. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1599351085\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-657ea172df5a6ba269b29c9aa51a91ab fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-657ea172df5a6ba269b29c9aa51a91ab\"><\/div>\n<p>Every civilization lucky enough to discover Egypt has envied its\u00a0monuments. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Egypt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Plundered<\/a> by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Mamluks, and Turks, it took the adventurous spirit of Europeans \u2014 who were in Egypt on similar colonial missions \u2014 to help us rediscover the grandeur of our civilization. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before being discovered by an officer working for Napolean, the Rosetta Stone was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishmuseum.org\/blog\/everything-you-ever-wanted-know-about-rosetta-stone#:~:text=They%20discovered%20the%20Rosetta%20Stone,into%20a%20very%20old%20wall.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">foundation stone<\/a> for a fortress wall. It kicked off an entire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/science\/Egyptology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">academic discipline<\/a> that tries to\u00a0keep up with the taxonomy of discoveries found in our sand-swept tombs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I love when people fawn over my culture. Mimicry is the highest form of flattery, so go ahead. Dance like an Egyptian. Buy that Pharaoh costume for next Halloween.\u00a0But for Osiris\u2019 sake, do not\u00a0appropriate our history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Much to my chagrin and that of thousands of other Egyptians, the new Netflix series \u201cQueen Cleopatra\u201d does just that. Not only did Netflix fail to cast a single Egyptian, based on my read of the cast on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/ca\/title\/81230204\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">website<\/a>, but it did\u00a0not even pretend\u00a0it tried. \u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3fd16400356e6a3198d6f489c1fb2922 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3fd16400356e6a3198d6f489c1fb2922\"><\/div>\n<p>The furor on Twitter centers around the casting of Adele James to portray the ethnic Greco-Macedonian queen. <a href=\"https:\/\/mobile.twitter.com\/strongblacklead\/status\/1646166545754730504\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">One tweet<\/a> celebrating the choice got devastatingly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/ratio#:~:text=What%20else%20does%20ratio%20mean,and%20considering%20its%20content%20bad.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ratioed,<\/a> meaning more people commented their disapproval than liked or retweeted the post.\u00a0Critics quickly pointed out that Cleopatra\u2019s family tree\u00a0\u2014 with its Macedonian, Greek, Persian, and Egyptian lines\u00a0\u2014 gives\u00a0no reason to expect her to be dark-skinned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The idea that ancient Egyptians were black has been thoroughly debunked. Evidence from ancient Egyptian mummies shows they are genetically similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/scientists-thought-ancient-egyptian-mummies-didn-t-have-any-dna-left-they-were-wrong#:~:text=Whereas%20the%20mummies'%20soft%20tissue,the%20power%20plants%20of%20cells.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">modern-day Egyptians<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to Afrocentric pseudo-historians, ancient Egyptians \u201ccontain almost no DNA from sub-Saharan Africa,\u201d while \u201csome 15% to 20% of modern Egyptians\u2019 mitochondrial DNA reflects sub-Saharan ancestry.\u201d The<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosgenetics\/article\/file?id=10.1371\/journal.pgen.1002397&#038;type=printable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> introduction of sub-Saharan<\/a>\u00a0people into North African populations dates to \u201cabout 750 years ago into Egypt\u201d and may reflect\u00a0\u201cthe patterns of the trans-Saharan slave trade that occurred during this period.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In fairness, today\u2019s Egyptians\u00a0\u2014 like our ancestors \u2014 come in nearly all shades. Skin hues in my family range from pale white to brown. I am regularly mistaken as\u00a0Indian. A stroll through any museum\u2019s Egyptian collection corroborates my microcosm of a family: Ancient Egypt was skin-tone diverse. Neither white nor black captures the essence of being an Egyptian. \u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b6b8a6d0bccfd252150c76fa6eecf397 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b6b8a6d0bccfd252150c76fa6eecf397\"><\/div>\n<p>The discussion about\u00a0the lead actress of \u201cQueen Cleopatra\u201d being black frankly distracts from two more significant problems with the series.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>First: Where are the Egyptians in the show? The shamelessly leftist entertainment\u00a0industry has effectively shut the door on female Egyptian immigrants. Not a single\u00a0one could break into the industry\u00a0in the one series that would most evidently need them.\u00a0How many young Egyptian<em> <\/em>female actresses had their hopes\u00a0crushed after learning they were passed up for a role for the\u00a0likely reason that they did not fit the industry\u2019s mental model of an African queen?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Truthfully, I would have felt\u00a0indifferent to the casting of a black lead\u00a0if it were not for the\u00a0reveal that comes about a\u00a0minute and 30 seconds into\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IktHcPyNlv4&#038;ab_channel=Netflix\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">trailer<\/a>.\u00a0It comes when one of the interviewees claims she does not \u201ccare what they told you in school. Cleopatra was black.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then it hit me. The Netflix series does not care to faithfully retell Egyptian history. It\u00a0has ulterior motives. It is a Trojan horse to sneak in yet another commentary on a distinctly American social issue that has nothing to do with Egypt, ancient or modern.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Second: \u201cQueen Cleopatra\u201d will almost certainly mythologize parts of her story. It will probably start with some paradisical past state where the\u00a0African queen peacefully rules her subjects in fairness and justice. Then, because of the devious plots of (white) Romans, conflict will ensue, and she will have to\u00a0sacrifice her life\u00a0to save her kingdom from being shorn by evil, invading Europeans.\u00a0This storytelling appropriates Egyptian\u00a0history to push a contrived narrative.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bad\u00a0writers\u00a0torturously reinterpret history to legitimize the concerns of African Americans in the 21st\u00a0century. They conflate\u00a0the black American experience with that of a first-century B.C. Egyptian queen. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To the educated elites, the series might seem like a\u00a0timely counter-narrative to the Eurocentric orientalism that has characterized modern Egyptology. But even if that were true, it would still miss an obvious fact: Egyptians were not racially conscious as we are today. Race as such did not affect Egyptian politics \u2014 and certainly not in the way it does in America today. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Like their sub-Saharan counterparts, Egyptians<a href=\"https:\/\/factsanddetails.com\/world\/cat56\/sub404\/entry-6151.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> bought and sold<\/a> enslaved people. Afrocentric historians ignore these facts to construct their own\u00a0version of Eden: a glorious past that must be reclaimed from The White Man\u2122. I suppose we all need some form of religion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The narrative seduces for good reason. America is reckoning with its racial identity, conscious of yesterday\u2019s historical injustices and today\u2019s pervasive disparities. Achieving an egalitarian utopia seems unreachable unless<em> <\/em>race is recognized and brought into every discussion. Getting creative with Netflix documentaries helps Americans cope with the drama that seems to be a feature of the 24-hour news cycle and Twitter feed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The African American plight is mildly\u00a0similar to that of the Copts in Egypt. Like blacks, Copts are minorities that have experienced and continue to face barriers to\u00a0fully participating in institutional life \u2014 from the Roman conquest to the present day. Copts in Egypt still face <a href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/2013\/11\/14\/violence-against-copts-in-egypt-pub-53606\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">overt<\/a> discrimination, though\u00a0religious relations have recently improved.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Our community has historically doubled down on things we could<em> <\/em>control, like starting our own businesses or going into white-collar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/figure\/Distribution-of-occupation-types-among-Copts-and-Muslims-in-Egypt_fig2_256295601\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">professions<\/a>, the paths less dependent on the goodwill of strangers and more on the support of strong families and the immediate community. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite our relative <a href=\"https:\/\/theforum.erf.org.eg\/2021\/04\/26\/socio-economic-inequality-across-religious-groups-egypt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">success<\/a>, Copts in their Orthodox liturgies remind each other of the dark past\u00a0by retelling the biographies of saints who endured persecution. We tell ourselves these stories, and therein lies a critical difference between blacks and Copts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In America, the victim-industrial complex enriches itself by fanning racial strain. The entertainment industry infantilizes African Americans by engineering myths that heighten\u00a0racial discord while ignoring legitimate black\u00a0success stories. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Sudan\/The-kingdom-of-Kush\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">kingdom of Cush<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Songhai-empire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Songhai<\/a>, the Aksumites, and\u00a0the list goes on. Why not tell those stories?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it is\u00a0because those civilizations are less conducive to the narrative pitting whites against\u00a0blacks and, therefore, less likely to draw the attention of storytellers with an <em>a priori<\/em> commitment to divide the nation along racial lines. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The irony is that if we need to\u00a0learn one thing from ancient Egypt, it is how its civility and prosperity came only after uniting upper Egypt \u2014 consisting of dark-skinned Nubians \u2014 and lower Egypt, consisting of fairer-skinned peoples.\u00a0America,\u00a0take note.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b59d82bdae240b2d5acee8e1097fef50 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b59d82bdae240b2d5acee8e1097fef50\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">   Androu Arsanious is a practicing Coptic Christian living in Canada. He works in the Digital Healthcare space, but his true passion is exploring the intersection of science, philosophy, religion, and culture.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-tags bdr-top-black mt-30 mt-sm-60 pt-15 pt-md-45\">\n<ul class=\"list-unstyled d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center mb-0 mx-n10 p-0\">\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/adele-james\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Adele James<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/africa\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/black\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Black<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/christian\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Christian<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/coptic\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">coptic<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/egypt\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Egypt<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/entertainment\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">entertainment<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/greeks\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Greeks<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/netflix\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Netflix<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/nile\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Nile<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/pharaoh\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Pharaoh<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/queen-cleopatra\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">queen cleopatra<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/romans\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Romans<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/series\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">series<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American culture war has washed up on the shores of the Nile. It comes in the form of a new historically illiterate\u00a0Netflix series on ancient Egypt, and it bugs me to no end.\u00a0\u00a0 I am a Coptic Christian, one of Egypt\u2019s 15 million indigenous people. All told, there are more than\u00a0110 million Egyptians, of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1961,"featured_media":1917193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[24748,24747,17442,13357,4166,5158,3688,7291,5125],"class_list":["post-1917192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-appropriates","tag-cleopatra","tag-egyptian","tag-heritage","tag-narrative","tag-netflix","tag-push","tag-queen","tag-racial"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}