Greeks Weren't Black

[Al-Falastini]

Note: I'm not white, so accusations of racism will need to be adjusted slightly.

I'm willing to bet this has already been discussed here. But I'm a bit annoyed at the imposition of contemporary politics into gaming.

Also before anyone mistakes my meaning - the characters I'm referencing aren't simply very 'tan' - they are clearly character models intended to be African (such as Damalis in Korinthia)

I'm all for including people of color in media. Hell, I want it, I like it. Being one, I enjoy seeing people who share my background being represented in games and movies and such. But I ONLY like it when it actually makes sense.

I liked seeing black characters in Origins, because it makes perfect sense for Egypt geographically. Egypt most certainly would have had many black Africans throughout their kingdom. I felt the Arabs in the first AC game were also appropriately represented.

But black Greeks? At the very least, identify them in some way as the children of African immigrants or something (I say children of immigrants since all these characters had Greek accents).

During the era in which this game is set, any black characters would have been the result of recent immigration (which was VERY rare at the time), or possibly remnants of Xerxes' Persian army - which has been documented to have had black soldiers within it.

Now that would have been cool - showing us an African in Greece, and including the very interesting dynamics that may have come with that. It could have been a whole side quest.

[Krauser686]

Originally posted by Zelovian:

But black Greeks? At the very least, identify them in some way as the children of African immigrants or something (I say children of immigrants since all these characters had Greek accents).

Well, maybe the game doesn't directly says it, but the skin tones in the game files have different names referencing the "origins" from each one. Skin tone colors go from Germanic (pale skin), passing through Mediterranean (most characters use this), to African (darkest skin tone).

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Well, I don't know about Greece, but Rome had peoples coming from as far north as Britain, as far south as Egypt, as far west as Iberia, and as far east as Persia. People emigrated in ancient times, especially during times of empires.

[Xenomorphlover]

Welcome to 2020 where Ariel is suddenly supposed to be black and Catwoman is turned into a gay black lady....kidding aside, woke leftist developers don't give a crap about historical accuracy and everyone who is not brainwashed should have realized that by now....They simply want to turn everything black....so be prepared for African American Vikings in the next AC installment ; )

[jjheims]

Greek is both an ethnicity and a culture at this time. Are Greeks African? No. Can Africans be culturally Greek? Yes.
The Greeks had colonies extending from the Black Sea to Spain to Northern Africa, and widely conducted trade across the Mediterranean (which is VERY basic Greek history).
So, yes: there were 'Black' Greeks.

[TastyToast]

what about the frogs in the ocean and cacti?

[Perplex]

Slavery was rampant in ancient greek world and a lot of slaves where also freed by their owners. That and a lot of people visited the greek world for various reasons. So having whites and blacks in ancient greece is not very strange.

[rui.silva.incp]

There is a serious problem a lot of people have with history lol

Black people as we define them today come mostly from Sub Sahara regions. Those regions were not so heavy in contact with the classical world. There was some contact but not nearly as much as a lot of people want to think.

There were a ton of mediterranean people. Same kind of people you find today in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt. But those are not exactly what we call black.

Granted there was some slave trading. But funny enough, it would be easier to buy germanic, slavic or iberian slaves then it would be to buy sub saharan. The trade network was just more active that way. If you want to go into technicalities....there were simply more germanics / slavics, iberians nearby. It was easier to go and get them. So you could do it at a cheaper price. Business.....

This was slightly different in the middle east. The middle east, because of the persian gulf, had better access to sub saharan regions. But the middle east was not big on trading with the Greek world. Slaves from the middle east would be somewhat expensive and harder to get.

Egypt had some access too, due to the river Nile and due to being mainly East of the Sahara desert. But then again, Egypt was not big on selling slaves by the classical period. Egypt was no longer a big powerhouse and no longer doing military campaigns around the area. Those were somewhat earlier in history. Most of the slaves they did still sell, again because of trade routes, were going into middle east. Egypt main export to classical cities was food. Way into late roman empire Egypt was a big food exporter.

All this being said, yes, it would be possible to find black people in classical cities. But their % was just very very low. You could have the odd black gladiator or the odd black slave. But you barely notice depictions of black people in classical art because....they did not deal with them as much.

You have to think that people did not make it a specific target of any race when they went out shopping for slaves. It was supply and demand. By classical period, it was fine to enslave conquered local villages. So it was just easier. And you would buy whatever was on discount at the local market. Only if you were incredibly rich would you order for a specific black slave from further away.

This is kind of like war elephants. Sure, Carthage and 1 or 2 greek cities did manage to field a number of them. But they were an oddity that would be very noticeable.

Now....the bigger issue with the depictions in Odyssey is.....Odyssey just did black face on people who mostly look to have caucasian hair lol I have no idea why this in turn was not considered racist lol By today ideas Ubisoft should have been the target of the PC brigade. Because....a lot of the black people they try to depict do not really look like black people. They rather look like caucasians with black face.....which is considered a very big insult of late.

GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

History is history tough and it should remain as so :)

P.S.:
The whole Atlantic slave trade is a whole hell of a different story. A sad one indeed. A very sad one. But one which would take a couple centuries to become reality. Places like current day Angola had no link at all with the mediterranean classical world.

[Perplex]

^The reason marroco, tunisia etc are not black today is because of the Arab expansion with the holy war to spread Islam. They where black back in the day. Not as heavily black as the subsaharan ones but still a lot darker than today.

And the TransAtlantic slavetrade was tiny compared to the muslim one. And most slaves that went over the Atlantic ended up in the South American region and not as most people belive, to the US.

[JazzGuru]

Remember, devs are ultra-sensitive to this sort of stuff now, after ignorant people cried because there were no black people in the Witcher 3, which was supposed to be representative of 13th Century Poland...

[Dregora]

Imagine making clear you're not white and as a result it's okay to say these things, implying only white people can be racist? Newsflash; ALL RACES can be racist. Even of your own race.

[Supahz]

Imagine complaining about the historical accuracy of skin color in a computer game featuring a minotaur, sphinx, and a cyclops or three.

[Perplex]

Originally posted by Supahz:

Imagine complaining about the historical accuracy of skin color in a computer game featuring a minotaur, sphinx, and a cyclops or three.

Atleast Medusa was a real person.

[UnHoly Xander]

Greek is a culture more than a specific race at this time. Hellenism was something anyone could fall under if you were within that part of the world.

[-Шasтe|Мanageмenт-]

Every single statue in Odyssey is fair-skinned like a typical European you expect, or the real relics/statue of ancient Greece, but almost every single one of the citizens is an "immigrant" from India.. now you'd think which dev. team in that department actually did their homework, right?

It's hard (if they even exist) to meet random Greek citizens in AC Odyssey who have the skin characteristics of Greek citizens like in Alexandria or Fayum in AC Origins. Well, how come AC Origins got that right? For example, you won't find Greeks in Memphis or Bayek's village of Siwa, but still you will find Greek and African in Alexandria or Roman-Mediterranean/Colonist and African in the upper left corner of the map/Cyrene/Libya. And it feels natural, accurate, immersive and that game also still has Big Snake and vengeful zombie Pharaohs

Greeks people like what you commonly expect.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HJJdosPRWrs/maxresdefault.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e94mt92hL_U/hqdefault.jpg
Roman
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xqcBlWlxuqc/maxresdefault.jpg
Greeks and an Egyptian male like Gaddaffi the dictator on the right
https://external-preview.redd.it/tH3giire_VseYvkd4VD-CctpN4KHiIbJNnUKXDcH42I.jpg?auto=webp&s=df69c23767ee732bbd31210af90119f6cdf4e747
Egyptian farmers
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/adiN0BNNiSs/maxresdefault.jpg

[Perplex]

Immigrant from India? wth are you smoking?