The whole debate whether Cleopatra was a White woman or a Black woman is a long one. There are Americans who claim that she was White, and others claiming that she was Black. However, Egyptians, for obvious reasons, claim that she was of mixed heritage but looks similar to what Egyptians look like today.
According to Newsweek, following the release of a trailer for an upcoming docudrama series on Netflix, Mahmoud al-Semary has lodged a legal complaint with Egypt’s public prosecutor. He is calling for legal action against the show’s creators. He also is pushing for a permanent ban on Netflix in Egypt.
Following that, Jada Pinkett Smith, who holds the position of executive producer for the series, is quoted in Netflix’s promotional material expressing the significance of telling stories about Black queens. She highlights the importance of such representation for herself, her daughter, and her community, as these stories are often misrepresented.
Twitter users react to Cleopatra being Black
Next… pic.twitter.com/4bbZj4m0Oz
— 𝐆𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐯 🎧 (@Dr_logicaI) April 24, 2023
It appears that users are tired of Netflix being too “woke.” Furthermore, Twitter users are in the “go woke go broke” mode. They’ve successfully ruined Bud Light, Fox News and Netflix are on the list now. There are jokes that Netflix will one day make an Anne Frank or Elon Musk movie with Black actors portraying them.
It's not that she had color, it's the fact she wasn't African. She was Greek, so would have had a tanned complexion like Persians & Arabs.
— Hello, this is Nobody. Hello? (@Nobodys_Inn) April 24, 2023
There are other users stating that Cleopatra was not a “Caucasian.” Despite this claim, other users state that she was Greek and had a darker complexion. Regardless, this does not mean that she was a Black woman. The user then went on stating that there are several instances where Greek people can be darker than other Europeans.
Idiot. Egyptians are not arab they are amazigh coptic. The rest of North-Africa is amazigh (berber). Arabs come from the gulf era (Kuwait-Saudi-UAE-Yemen-Qatar). Go do your research. Amazigh are way older than arabs by 13000 years. We are way older than the pyramids.
— iamme2706 (@sike1309) April 24, 2023
Some are claiming that Egyptians are “Arabs” which causes offence to Egyptians. An Egyptian user states that the people living there today are the descendants of those that were living during Cleopatra’s time. Furthermore, he claims that Egyptians are an older race than the Arabs.
I’m Greek and it’s not our fault sub-Saharan Africans don’t have their own recorded history. They need to stop trying to steal ours.
— Virginia Slims 🇺🇸🇬🇷 (@VirginiaSlims14) April 23, 2023
Several racist comments are popping up stating that Black Africans do not have substantial histories of their own. This is of course untrue as there are quite a large number of documented stories of strong African tribes in the past. However, the race of Cleopatra is still debatable as we do not know what she actually looked like.
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Photo above is from Netflix.