Not only are Egyptians not racially Black — which we all know from personal, familial, or travel experience — but Cleopatra wasn’t even Egyptian. Cleopatria was Greek, specifically Macedonian, a descendant of Alexander the Great’s general, Ptolemy I. GREECE IS NOT IN AFRICA!
Little wonder that former Egyptian Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass insists that Netflix’s depiction of Cleopatra “is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was blonde, not black.” (Witness the outraged denial in this brief video to the revelation that another Egyptian queen, Nefertiti, was also not quite so “African” looking.)
Incidentally, in order to get beyond the obvious objection — If modern-day Egyptians are not Black, how could their ancestors have been? — the cultural appropriators have long insisted that modern-day Egyptians “lightened up” following the seventh-century Arab conquest and comingling of Egypt.
In reality, according to recent DNA tests, it appears that, if anything, the opposite is true — ancient Egyptians were lighter, not darker, than their modern-day descendants. Apparently the ancients looked more like Levantine peoples, Syrians, Lebanese, etc.
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