Davidylan, what do you have against Haitians exactly?

The way you're going out of your way to put down Haiti is literally exactly in the manner that white supremacists do.

PhysicsQED: Davidylan, what do you have against Haitians exactly?

The way you're going out of your way to put down Haiti is literally exactly in the manner than white supremacists do.

Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

ezeagu:

You've clearly fell for it. In the West: Whenever there's a discussion on bronze casting or bronze artefacts in history, how many times do you think Benin will be discussed and for how long? When there's a discussion on ultra-realistic ancient art, how many times do you think Ife will be mentioned? Whenever there's a discussion on ancient arms, how many times do you think the weapons of Africa, such as the cross-bow will be mentioned? Whenever there's a discussion on Egypt, how many times will the origin of the Egyptians in the upper nile be discussed as opposed to the Macedonian, the Greek, the Sumerian, and other non-African origins or a pharaoh or his "red hair"?

These are questions that you ask yourself and then realise that the West is a EURO-CENTRIC SOCIETY and it[b] AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMES THAT EVERYTHING EUROPIAN IS THE NORM AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS 'OTHER' AND UNIMPORTANT[/b] (which is why they do not need to put white, caucasian, or European in any of their headlines and why your story is limited to a footnote or a page in a history text-book).

I have noticed this a lot with the "world history" textbooks. The ones authored in the West are heavily slanted towards "classical" civilizations in greece, rome, Egypt (only as it relates to Europe/middle-east), Middle-eastern cultures.

A smaller but respectable portion of these books is devoted to the Indus Valley Civilization and Ancient China/Japan.

A much more smaller portion talks about the Mayans of the Americas.

Little to nothing is discussed about sub-saharan Africa (As an aside, the lot of these books also do a good job in demarcating "Classical" Egypt from it southern counterparts).

The majority of the very tiny bits devoted to our region in Africa reference colonization and slave trade as if they are the major highlights of our history. I remember reading a passage in one very respected world history tome blatantly stating that sub-saharan Africa had contributed little to humanity and was not worth discussing in the context of a broad, world history.

It's also interesting that these books hardly discuss Nubian/Ethiopian/Punt Civilizations, all of which had ties to ancient Egypt, and to an extent Greece.

Hmm...na wa o.

davidylan:

Thats the nonsense whites sold you. Have you tested this in the lab yet? We just parrot anything we see in white media as true without verification.

If you want verification, you can try and build a Large Hadron Collider. I would support you 99.9%

davidylan:

Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

How is Haiti such a different country from many failures in Africa, including Nigeria?

Actually Haiti should even be elevated compared to many Black countries as they were the first to actually fight against foreign rule before independence.

davidylan:
Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

I see. Well, anyway, when you have time, try and read the book The Black Jacobins by CLR James. You might change your mind.

Nebeuwa:

If you want verification, you can try and build a Large Hadron Collider. I would support you 99.9%

You dont need a collider, you simply need to prove that Higgs Boson is what resulted in what we call nature today. Obviously you're a member of the "random origin of earth" society.

nnenna.1:


How is Haiti such a different country from many failures in Africa, including Nigeria?

Actually Haiti should even be elevated compared to many Black countries as they were the first to actually fight against foreign rule before independence.

Did you even read my statement that you quoted? Read it before commenting blindly.

davidylan:

Again this is nothing but a deceitful flight of fancy. So the mechanic who works on your car for wages is a part owner of that car with you? Do you consider the laborer hired to weld sheets at the GM factory a co-creator of the Chevy Equinox?

You really dig the depths of ignorance. There is no ''your car'' as far as it concerns whites in America. It was not THEIR country. It takes a special kind of perversion to adduce the wholesale massacre of millions of inhabitants of a territory, and the importation of millions more in the form of slaves to work that territory, to some sort of ''high intelligence''. Would I be displaying 'high intelligence' to storm your house tonight, shoot you dead, and get some guys in from somewhere to do the housework while I sit back on my asss? I thought not.

You give far too much credence to white brigandage, mass murder and criminality, which you seem to think constituted 'intelligence'. Probably because of the way you were raised.

To think that America would never have been built without black labor is nonsense. Germany and Japan are not far away from the US in terms of Industrialization and they did all that without black labor.

BUT AMERICA DID NOT.

Nigeria has 300 million blacks

No it doesn't. You need to go to school, because you're obviously severely undereducated.

... is it anywhere closer to the US in terms of industry?

I guess our ancestors didn't take too kindly to the idea of importing 20 million slaves from another continent and massacring 4/5ths of their own indigenous population merely because of material wealth. For a walking dead soul like you, wealth is everything regardless of how many millions are massacred and lives destroyed. Not everyone thinks with you and your white masters' amoral, wildly greedy, unscrupulous abandon.

Again daft and the same problem with blacks... blame their own problems on the white man. I asked a simple question... Haiti and the Dominican republic share a large border... why is the GDP per capita of DR over 8 times that of Haiti?

You are obviously a cursed RET.ARD to keep asking the same questions after repeatedly being educated. You must need a brain transplant. Onukwu.

Without black labor America would have been built. Have you ever wondered why the only nations in Africa with any form of industrialization are all nations with whites in sizeable population?

There's no great mystery to it. The industrial revolution occurred in Europe. That revolution happened following a convergent set of circumstances. For thousands of years prior to the industrial revolution, Europe was the most backward place on earth. The industrial revolution would have not occurred without the list of 12 great African inventions as posted. See, in this world, every race gets its turn to contribute. It doesn't mean that other races are inferior. Unless you wish to state that whites were inferior beings when Africans were inventing writing, mathematics, medicine, architecture et al.

How long ago was Haiti invaded? So that invasion decades ago is why they cant build a single decent road to save themselves?

And you know they haven't built roads based on what you've seen on CNN?

Can't you see you're an example of the worst mental retar.d and empty skull bozo?

Black people sef na wa.

Leave black people out of it as we are NOT on your level. Save that for you and your wretched family of self-loathing non-entities.

davidylan:

Did you even read my statement that you quoted? Read it before commenting blindly.

I read and understood your statement. I also read your other quotes specifically picking out Haiti out of several examples of failures in Africa, including Nigeria (which would have been a more suitable choice). Given Haiti's history I don't think it should be mentioned as "a (real) example" of Black failure.

But maybe it's just me.

davidylan:

You dont need a collider, you simply need to prove that Higgs Boson is what resulted in what we call nature today. Obviously you're a member of the "random origin of earth" society.

Do you mean "random origin of the universe" society?

And I am a firm believer that everything in nature can be replicated by humanity in one way or another.

davidylan:

Haiti is an example of the failure of the black race. QED.
I'm black by the way. But lets call a spade a spade.

I'm waiting for you to reply me.

nnenna.1:


I read and understood your statement. I also read your other quotes specifically picking out Haiti out of several examples of failures in Africa, including Nigeria (which would have been a more suitable choice). Given Haiti's history I don't think it should be mentioned as "a (real) example" of Black failure.

But maybe it's just me.

this is quite daft. You obviously did not read the entire thread. Haiti came up as an example of a country in the Americas with 95% blacks and a failed country... this was to counter Rossike's claim that the USA would never have been as great as it is today without black labor. Haiti has 95% blacks and is a failed state.

PhysicsQED asked why i seemed to be picking on Haiti and i explained i used it as a general example of the fact that 99% of nations with a majority black population are failures.

Nebeuwa:

Do you mean "random origin of the universe" society?

And I am a firm believer that everything in nature can be replicated by humanity in one way or another.

and this blind faith is backed up by what empirical evidence? Have you replicated the creation of an animal or plant yet?

Rossikk:

You really dig the depths of ignorance. There is no ''your car'' as far as it concerns whites in America. It was not THEIR country. It takes a special kind of perversion to adduce the wholesale massacre of millions of inhabitants of a territory, and the importation of millions more in the form of slaves to work that territory, to some sort of ''high intelligence''. Would I be displaying 'high intelligence' to storm your house tonight, shoot you dead, and get some guys in from somewhere to do the housework while I sit back on my asss? I thought not.

You give far too much credence to white brigandage, mass murder and criminality, which you seem to think constituted 'intelligence'. Probably because of the way you were raised.



BUT AMERICA DID NOT.



No it doesn't. You need to go to school, because you're obviously severely undereducated.



I guess our ancestors didn't take too kindly to the idea of importing 20 million slaves from another continent and massacring 4/5ths of their own indigenous population merely because of material wealth. For a walking dead soul like you, wealth is everything regardless of how many millions are massacred and lives destroyed. Not everyone thinks with you and your white masters' amoral, wildly greedy, unscrupulous abandon.




You are obviously a cursed RET.ARD to keep asking the same questions after repeatedly being educated. You must need a brain transplant. Onukwu.



There's no great mystery to it. The industrial revolution occurred in Europe. That revolution happened following a convergent set of circumstances. For thousands of years prior to the industrial revolution, Europe was the most backward place on earth. The industrial revolution would have not occurred without the list of 12 great African inventions as posted. See, in this world, every race gets its turn to contribute. It doesn't mean that other races are inferior. Unless you wish to state that whites were inferior beings when Africans were inventing writing, mathematics, medicine, architecture et al.



And you know they haven't built roads based on what you've seen on CNN?

Can't you see you're an example of the worst mental retar.d and empty skull bozo?



Leave black people out of it as we are NOT on your tragically low level of existence. Save that for you and your wretched family of self-loathing failures.

more bloviating idiocy unworthy of the dignity of a response.

^^Your very existence is an anomaly and a tragic waste of consciousness. Ignorant, worthless animal.

davidylan:

this is quite daft. You obviously did not read the entire thread. Haiti came up as an example of a country in the Americas with 95% blacks and a failed country... this was to counter Rossike's claim that the USA would never have been as great as it is today without black labor. Haiti has 95% blacks and is a failed state.

PhysicsQED asked why i seemed to be picking on Haiti and i explained i used it as a general example of the fact that 99% of nations with a majority black population are failures.

Hmm...at words such as "daft," "blindly commenting" and all that nice, intelligent stuff you use. Good work!

Rossikk: ^^Your very existence is an anomaly and a tragic waste of consciousness. Ignorant, worthless animal.

obviously you just learnt those words at school. Good job!
Go right ahead to 6000BC and chronicle more black achievements. That is definitely the solution to Nigeria's crisis.

davidylan:

this is quite daft. You obviously did not read the entire thread. Haiti came up as an example of a country in the Americas with 95% blacks and a failed country... this was to counter Rossike's claim that the USA would never have been as great as it is today without black labor. Haiti has 95% blacks and is a failed state.

PhysicsQED asked why i seemed to be picking on Haiti and i explained i used it as a general example of the fact that 99% of nations with a majority black population are failures.

Let me face this animal. What do you term ''failures''? Countries that are still in development? Is that what you call ''failures''? Where did you go to school to come up with such garbage? Was Europe always advanced? Do you know that less than 100 years ago people slept 10 to a room in many parts of London, Manchester and Leeds? Streets littered with dead folks whom no one picked, and putrid garbage all over the place? Child labour and exploitation the order of the day? Have you ever studied Dickensian England? Were white people ''failures'' during that stage of their development? You really are a disgrace to humanity and a curse to your family to come up with this nonsense you do here. Illiterate dunce.

davidylan:

and this blind faith is backed up by what empirical evidence? Have you replicated the creation of an animal or plant yet?

Similar to a blind faith in a Supreme Being? Humanity has already entered into the realm of genetic engineering and cloning. The replication of animals and plants is not that far into the future.

@OP thank you so much for this advance knowledge you have posted. Well a lot of Africans are lost because our educational system is base on European form of education which of course is very bias and does not do good on Africa history. The worst part of slavery and colonization is not to be chain and shipped but to be mental handicap in terms of knowledge and history of oneself. I've read a lot to understand the profound impact of the Africans to the world in terms of civilization.. The Africans are the first human on earth and therefore created a lot of things that has being archaeologically accepted with fact. Sometimes i begin to imagine why the European has spew the world with so much lies and hatred towards Africans and their descendant, surely if the truth is to be told; We Africans in ancient times rule the world and now we are at the bottom of the ladder despite our abundant resources. We have being told that, we're inferior for hundred of years and contributed nothing in terms of civilization but truly not knowing that we're the beginning of the world and its civilization. Well empire rises,empire collapses and as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the ending... Africans count...

ezeagu:
Whenever there's a discussion on ancient arms, how many times do you think the weapons of Africa, such as the cross-bow will be mentioned?

lol, this reminds me. . .a while back I used to watch this show "Deadliest Warrior"

They would pit ancient and modern warriors from different nations against each other hypothetically, and then run simulations to determine who would win after collecting information about the strength and capabilities of each warrior's weapons and defenses. For example, samurais, ninjas, pirates, vikings, green berets, etc. would go up against one another.

On one episode, they had a Zulu warrior with a war axe up against a fully armored Scottish knight wielding a claymore (in addition to other weapons).

Both sides started bragging about the greatness of their side's warrior in between tests of the weapons and defenses, as always happens on every show. But the white guy for the Scottish side (I think he was Scottish American or maybe just some other type of white American) on the show was chuckling at some points because of the disparity in weapon strength and defenses.

It was a bit of a joke. Even my roommate (white) at the time started laughing when they brought a "Zulu stick fighting master" (that was how they titled him) in to explain the stick fighting and to hype up their warrior. I tried to think of what to say as a counter, but I would have laughed myself if I was in my roommate's position (but in my position, I wasn't going to laugh at an African warrior going up against a European, even hypothetically).

The weird thing is that the Zulu stick fighting experts were totally oblivious to how it would look (despite coming from countries (SA, USA) with a history of racism) and were willingly hyping up their warrior only for it to be embarrassed. They actually thought anyone wanted to know - as if it wasn't obvious - who would win in a simulation of a battle between one fully armored knight using a claymore and one Zulu warrior.

But that wasn't the only time they put an African on that show. The other one that I saw involved a group called the Zande from central Africa that I hadn't heard of before. Their warrior was actually more versatile than the Zulu in terms of unique weaponry, but didn't really look like a formal military type.

I could understand their use of the Zulu, since they were actual fierce warriors with notable victories in battle - although I think it's mainly because of their battles with a European group when the Europeans had no machine guns that they're known in the West - even though the match up with the armored knight made them look bad for no reason. But the Zande? Who has heard of the Zande when talking about African warriors or armies? I'm supposed to believe that in all of Africa, that's all they could find? No offense to the Zande, but I really didn't see why they chose them specifically unless they wanted to reinforce the idea that any warriors from Africa had to conform to a certain limited type of weaponry and defenses.

Yet for every other group in the world besides Africans, whenever they were doing comparisons of ancient (not modern) warriors, they used the most formidable types or most famous warriors from the places with the greatest military traditions.

Given the history of the Mali empire, why couldn't they have used a Mali warrior like this?: http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/exhibiti/rhepics1.htm

http://malicav.files./2010/12/f152i.jpg%3Fw%3D640%26h%3D1121

or warriors like this from another kingdom:

http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9733/sreiter0pc.jpg

http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lookandlearn-preview/M/M095/M095166.jpg

when they were doing their comparisons to the Scottish knight?

Anyway, I got annoyed and I stopped watching that show even before it was cancelled.

- Rant over -

davidylan:

this is quite daft. You obviously did not read the entire thread. Haiti came up as an example of a country in the Americas with 95% blacks and a failed country... this was to counter Rossike's claim that the USA would never have been as great as it is today without black labor. Haiti has 95% blacks and is a failed state.

PhysicsQED asked why i seemed to be picking on Haiti and i explained i used it as a general example of the fact that 99% of nations with a majority black population are failures.

How do you explain Barbados, The Bahamas, Seychelles, St Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia which are ALL over the Dominican Republic in terms of human development?

coolzeal: @OP thank you so much for this advance knowledge you have posted. Well a lot of Africans are lost because our educational system is base on European form of education which of course is very bias and does not do good on Africa history. The worst part of slavery and colonization is not to be chain and shipped but to be mental handicap in terms of knowledge and history of oneself. I've read a lot to understand the profound impact of the Africans to the world in terms of civilization.. The Africans are the first human on earth and therefore created a lot of things that has being archaeologically accepted with fact. Sometimes i begin to imagine why the European has spew the world with so much lies and hatred towards Africans and their descendant, surely if the truth is to be told; We Africans in ancient times rule the world and now we are at the bottom of the ladder despite our abundant resources. We have being told that, we're inferior for hundred of years and contributed nothing in terms of civilization but truly not knowing that we're the beginning of the world and its civilization. Well empire rises,empire collapses and as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the ending... Africans count...

Thanks. To buttress your point on how the whites were regarded in ancient times:

In those times, (circa 3000BC) many whites lived in caves in the caucasus mountains, and for thousands of years, were widely derided as the most 'stup.id' and backward of all the races, as shown in this Egyptian Mural of the Races found in the tomb of Rameses I in Biban-el-Moluk, Egypt. The two blacks of course represent first the Egyptian, ('First of All Men') and then continental Africans. The Asiatic is between the two blacks. The European man is last on the mural, depicting his status as the most backward of all the races.



The English historian, Wallis Budge, visited the tomb and wrote:

"According to the legend...they (the Ancient Egyptians) wished to represent the inhabitants of Egypt and those of foreign lands. Thus we have before our eyes the image of the various races of man known to the Egyptians... the last one is what we call flesh-colored, a white skin of the most delicate shade, a nose straight or slightly arched, blue eyes, blond or reddish beard, tall stature and very slender, clad in a hairy ox-skin, a veritable savage... he is called Tamhou.... I certainly did not expect, on arriving at Biban-el-Moluk, to find sculptures that could serve as vignettes of the history of the primitive Europeans, if ever one has the courage to attempt it. Nevertheless, there is something flattering and consoling in seeing them, since they make us appreciate the progress we have subsequently achieved."

The great thing about this famous Mural of the Races by the Egyptians is it just shows that there is absolutely nothing cast in stone as far as it concerns the progress of this or that race. So, just as the blacks today are regarded pretty much how the whites were in antiquity, this is just as likely to be a temporary phenomenon as it was in the case of the whites. Who knows what will be in say the next 200 years? Or 500 years? Or 1000 years? The whites could be right back at the bottom of the pile and Africans on top. Even today there is a shift, as Asia increasingly takes its turn, usurping western dominance. There's no reason at all to suppose that the turn of the Africans will not come again. If anything, the signs of a resurgence are there already - today, six of the world's ten fastest growing economies are in Africa.

So the lesson to be taken from this thread I suppose is that No Condition Is Permanent. The only constant thing in life is Change.

Of course Africans will rise again just like in antiquity. I know full well that Kemet(ancient Egypt) are black African civilization, the culture, languages, Art, techno-complex, religion etc. They're so many civilization in Africa apart from ancient Egypt; such as the Carthage in Hannibal period, Nubian or Kush, the great Zimbabwe, Ethiopia( Lalibela) the oldest christian in the world, Ghana, Songhai, Timbuktu( the largest university and most sophisticated center of learning in the 14th century when Europe was still a mess) Moors, Lunda, congo, Rwanda, Buganda( Successful Caesarean section performed by indigenous healers in Kahura, Uganda. As observed by R. W. Felkin in 1879. when no one survive it in Europe) Lozi, Malawi, Monomotapa, Kilwa, Merina, Zulu, Axum, Kanem Bornu, Yoruba, Bini or Benin, Ashanti, Wolof... These're great kingdom in antiquity on the African continent by black Africans... i know why they could not consider us in history because, all the anthropological study of blacks has being dealing with primitive or semi primitive or little rural villiage or simple people on the edge of the continent. A lot of people don't know that we Africans suffer from the greatest holocaust in history of mankind, we've been turn slaves, colonize, dehumanize and lost everything we once had in antiquity and knowledge of ourselves. The Africans was on the seize of war back then to protect their land and its wealth( Gold, spice, Art etc) from the Arab and the European invasion but fail to defend herself plus we black people are the most hated people in the world. Well for all the lost sheep( Maybe the bible is talking about us here haha).. Please read and research more. We were great people in ancient time and history and we will rise again.. I think this site is good to learn about Africa history....http://www.africankingdoms.com/

Ezeagu.

In my high school, we read portions of The Canterbury Tales (actually, the copy we had also had a translation into modern English.)

This is a collect of stories and was written it seems in the 1300s. So that is what the Europeans were doing in the 1300s. Writing down their culture, history, and stories.

Unfortunately, your ancestors and mine were not doing this in the 1300s. God knows what they were doing, but it certainly wasn't documenting their culture.

In my own personal family, I think my first literate ancestor who could read and write in Yoruba or English was probably my great-grandfather. So like somewhere between 1900 and 1910?

This Jewish white girl I dated once...her family has likely been literate since the time of Christ.

So. Is it the white man's fault that my ancestors didn't record their history, and his did?

They've been writing down stuff they've done for thousands of years. We have not.

Hell, even Hausa at least documented some things in Arabic, ajami, or whatever the heck writing system they had. Your ancestors and mine did not.

Now, I'm not passing blame on them. But neither does it make any sense for me to blame white boy either.

What we should be happy about is that, the way the world works these days, you don't have to be handicapped by things your ancestors did not do.

Her ancestors have probably been literate since the time of Christ, mine have only been literate since 1900 or so. Yet we are in exactly the same place in life.

The world is growing more egalitarian, and becoming more of a meritocracy. Information is more freely available than it ever was before.

Python that was invented by some Dutch programmer can be freely used by Nigerians like Seun to build Nairaland. Or an American technology company like Google to build most of their infrastructure.

We are no longer isolated from the rest of humanity.

So, rather than wallowing in fake accomplishments of the past...now is the time to go out and conquer!

Even today in my hometown, we have not written down all of our stories. As the older generations die off, many of these stories will be lost forever.

Should I blame the white man that the history and tales of ekt_bear's hometown are not as well-recorded as that of Macon, Georgia?

let me rain on rossiks parade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid

Pyramids have been built by civilizations in many parts of the world. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids—first the Red Pyramid in the Dashur Necropolis and then the Great Pyramid of Khufu, both of Egypt, the latter the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still remaining. Khufu's Pyramid is built entirely of limestone, and is considered an architectural masterpiece. It contains around 1,300,000 blocks ranging in weight from 2.5 tonnes (5,500 lb) to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) and is built on a square base with sides measuring about 230 m (755 ft), covering 13 acres. Its four sides face the four cardinal points precisely and it has an angle of 52 degrees. The original height of the Pyramid was 146.5 m (488 ft), but today it is only 137 m (455 ft) high, the 9 m (33 ft) that is missing is due to the theft of the fine quality limestone covering, or casing stones to build houses and Mosques in Cairo. It is still the tallest pyramid. The largest pyramid by volume is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, in the Mexican state of Puebla.

pyramids in spain, greece, china mesoameriaca, india - i suppose they all got the idea from the egyptian pyramids

speech, art, animal husbandry, basic tools, writing, money, etal will eventually develop in any society. its inevitable . thats why patents have limits. (A patent (play /ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.) maybe the op should read the short story melancholy elephants by spider robinson - says the same thing in a different way.

there are things that will inevitably be rediscovered even if knowledge is lost.

concrete(artificial stone) is a classic example - discovered by the Romans, lost in the dark ages and rediscovered

The widespread use of concrete in many Roman structures has ensured that many survive to the present day. The Baths of Caracalla in Rome are just one example. Many Roman aqueducts and bridges have masonry cladding on a concrete core, as does the dome of the Pantheon.

Some have stated that the secret of concrete was lost for 13 centuries until 1756, when the British engineer John Smeaton pioneered the use of hydraulic lime in concrete, using pebbles and powdered brick as aggregate. However, the Canal du Midi was built using concrete in 1670.[7] Likewise there are concrete structures in Finland that date back to the 16th century.[citation needed] Portland cement was first used in concrete in the early 1840s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_findings_for_hominid_art

Location of concept

Locating the earliest art work depends upon the suitability of the thing proposed as art with respect to a consensually agreed definition, as to those necessary factors characteristic of something fulfilling the purpose of artistic creation. [3]
data available

from the Blombos Cave connected to ochre use,showing the Blombos Cave people having engraved pieces of ochre [4][5] regarded as the oldest known artwork [6] but very much simpler than the cave paintings and figurines found in Europe after 40,000 BP.
Earliest accepted beginning

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the earliest known art is dated to 40,000 B.C., at Ubirr in northern Australia.[7] Visual art began with emergence of sculptures, beads and cave paintings of Europe, Africa, Americas and Australia in the cultures of Homo sapiens at around 40,000 years ago.[8]

so if not for some hunter gatherer cave men, there would be no art today. what bs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_the_Middle_Paleolithic

The earliest undisputed evidence of prehistoric art dates to the Upper Paleolithic, some 50,000 to 40,000 years ago. Together with religion and other cultural universals of contemporary human societies, the emergence of figurative art is a necessary attribute of full behavioral modernity.

There is, however, evidence of an emerging preference for the aesthetic among the Homo sapiens of the Middle Paleolithic (Middle Stone Age) in the period leading up to the beginning Upper Paleolithic, from 200,000 to 50,000 years ago, in particular in the high symmetry exhibited by stone tools, often manufactured with much greater care than would strictly be needed to arrive at an operative hand-axe.
Contents

1 Location of concept
2 Pre–Homo sapiens
3 Blombos cave
4 Earliest accepted beginning
5 References
6 See also

Location of concept

Locating the earliest art work depends upon the suitability of the thing proposed as art with respect to a consensually agreed definition, as to those necessary factors characteristic of something fulfilling the purpose of artistic creation. [1]
Pre–Homo sapiens
Acheulean hand-axes from Kent. The types shown are (clockwise from top) cordate, ficron and ovate.

Homo erectus had long before produced seemingly aimless patterns on artifacts such as is those found at Bilzingsleben in Thuringia, and these might be understood as a precursor to art, as well as to reveal some intent of the artificer to decorate and fashion beyond practical necessity. The symmetry and attention given to the shape of a tool has led authors to see Acheulean hand axes and especially laurel points as artistic expressions.

The Mask of La Roche-Cotard has also been taken as evidence of Neanderthal figurative art, although in a period post-dating their contact with Homo sapiens. Similarly, the "Divje Babe flute" has controversially been claimed as a Neanderthal musical instrument dating to about 43,000 years ago.

There are other claims of Middle Paleolithic sculpture, dubbed the "Venus of Tan-Tan" (before 300 kya)[2] and the "Venus of Berekhat Ram" (250 kya). Both objects may be natural rock formations with an incidental likeness to the human form, but some scholars have suggested that they exhibit traces of pigments or carving intended to further accentuate the human-like form.
Blombos cave
Bifacial points, engraved ochre and bone tools from the c. 75 -80 000 year old M1 & M2 phases at Blombos cave.

In 2002 in Blombos cave, situated in South Africa, ochre stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago. This suggested to some researchers that early Homo sapiens were capable of abstraction and production of abstract art or symbolic art. Also discovered at the Blombos cave were shell beads, also dating to c. 70,000 years ago. [3][4][5] In 2011, the cave surrendered containers which may have held paints, along with other art supplies, dating to c. 100,000 years ago. [3]

Several archaeologists including Richard Klein of Stanford are hesitant to accept the Blombos caves as the first example of actual art.
Earliest accepted beginning

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the earliest known art is dated to 40,000 B.C., at Ubirr in northern Australia.[6] Visual art began with emergence of sculptures, beads and cave paintings of Europe, Africa, Americas and Australia in the cultures of Homo sapiens at around 40,000 years ago.[7]

viva the Neanderthals

Any fool that references wikipedia in an intellectual discourse should never be taken seriously.

Brainwashed idiots.

ekt_bear: Ezeagu.

In my high school, we read portions of The Canterbury Tales (actually, the copy we had also had a translation into modern English.)

This is a collect of stories and was written it seems in the 1300s. So that is what the Europeans were doing in the 1300s. Writing down their culture, history, and stories.

Unfortunately, your ancestors and mine were not doing this in the 1300s. God knows what they were doing, but it certainly wasn't documenting their culture.

In my own personal family, I think my first literate ancestor who could read and write in Yoruba or English was probably my great-grandfather. So like somewhere between 1900 and 1910?

This Jewish white girl I dated once...her family has likely been literate since the time of Christ.

So. Is it the white man's fault that my ancestors didn't record their history, and his did?

They've been writing down stuff they've done for thousands of years. We have not.

Hell, even Hausa at least documented some things in Arabic, ajami, or whatever the heck writing system they had. Your ancestors and mine did not.

Now, I'm not passing blame on them. But neither does it make any sense for me to blame white boy either.

Writing has little to do with the elision of your history from Western texts. If it was so then there'd be no literature on Stonehenge, the pyramids, most of South American cultures (although some had writing), Germanic peoples, and countless other parts of history that text has not been found including the origin of humans themselves.

The writing in Europe even is negligible seeing as 90% and above of Europeans before 1700 couldn't read or write and probably couldn't be bothered too. Writing was a privilege given to monks and royalty and they predictably only recorded religious and royal issues, and sometimes major wars. There were a few times that the state was documented, but this was usually as a survey after a war or for the royalty to share the land. If history books went 100% off these texts then we wouldn't have a reliable story since there was a lot of bias. If they only looked at text, the wouldn't be able to understand the way Europeans lived in those eras without having to research further using both archaeology and oral sources.

Even if we were to agree that writing is the reason for the marginalization of African history, then how on Africa's Equatorial forest are we going to explain the fact that there are hundreds of books on Southern Nigeria pre-European history alone? How do you explain the fact that in 1921 a book of the History of the Yoruba by Samuel Johnson who had died in 1901 (meaning this books was written in the late 19th century) was published without the Yoruba use of writing for the most part (with over 700 pages by the way)? Even his Wikipedia page says:

"After his death, his brother Dr. Obadiah Johnson re-compiled and rewrote the book, using the reverend's copious notes as a guide. In 1921, he released it as A History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate. The book has since been likened to the rise and decline of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon." Then you have to explain how in 1913 a European by the name of Thomas Northcote who studied Igbo history and society and went on to produce six volumes. All of this without writing but from oral history. Why then is there more said about stonehenge in an average history books than is said about the whole of West Africa or even the whole of Africa? Let's not even start talking about the Bayeux Tapestry from Normandy or pre-Chinese Japan.