As a young Somali high school student, I was once referred to as a “black Caucasian”. I had never heard that term before, so it puzzled me. That day, I was told that I didn’t possess the characteristics required to be a “real African,”. After that encounter, I began learning about what it meant to be an African and why some people thought that people from Somalia were “black Caucasians“. This is what I discovered through my research.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a belief known as the Hamitic theory gained popularity as an anthropological and linguistic theory. According to it, the ancient Somalis, Ethiopians, and other inhabitants of North Africa and the Horn of Africa were descended from the Hamites, a group of Caucasian people.
The notion was comprehensively refuted by contemporary scientific studies since it was founded on an incorrect knowledge of genetics and racial classification. This theory served to promote scientific racism. Somali people don’t in any way resemble Caucasians because Caucasians don’t possess features that didn’t already naturally exist within Africans.
The Hamitic belief still has an impact on some ethnic and nationalist ideologies in various regions, despite being disproved. This false claim that individuals from Somalia are actually Caucasians is just one example of the fact that some people still hold onto this belief.
Somali people are a distinct ethnic group native to the Horn of Africa, predominantly inhabiting Somalia, Djibouti, and parts of Ethiopia and Kenya. Since the 1991 Civil War in Somalia, Somali communities could be found anywhere on this planet.
Although Somalis have a distinctive appearance, there is no unified “African look”. Instead, native Africans exhibit a variety of facial features. Africa is the second-largest continent in the world and has the greatest diversity of any continent. We Somalis resemble other African ethnic groups like Berbers (who dwell across the Sahara, in Central and northwest Africa) and other Cushitic peoples (who exist in the Horn of Africa, north Sudan, and southern Egypt).
Additionally, endogamy—the practice of getting married within a particular ethnic group—affects how Somalis look relative to some ethnic groups. It was frowned upon to marry outside of a particular clan, much less outside of the Somali ethnic group, due to the importance of clans in Somali communities throughout the history of the Somali people.
But overall, Somali people are unequivocally African and have a rich cultural heritage that is distinct from that of Caucasians or any other ethnic group. It is important to appreciate and celebrate this diversity, rather than erasing it through misguided and inaccurate classifications.
Good article. Understood alot