John Cleese: London doesn't feel like an English city anymore. Legitimate to prefer some cultures over others

[mongrel]

UAHAHUAHAUHUAHUAHAUHAUHAUAHUAH
Mongrel is doubling down on his claim of BLACK ROMAN NORTH AFRICA.

Dude, that's not up for debate. It's an ideological lie coming straight from Afroncentrism.

Also this is what I get when clicking:



Which reads: ''The author has made the video unavailable for your country''.

That's the level of intellectual integrity of your side, your argument etc. You have to hide your falsehood from Italians because otherwise we call out your bs?
''ROMAN BLACK AFRICA''. Rofl. Most retarded post of all times.

You said it was withdrawn, not that is was not available on a different link in some foreign country due to contractual reasons or similar. People outside the US can't see youtube of many popular shows for the same reason, as many in the forum will tell you.
Lying to the forum again, or simply treating your readers as idiots?

I wasn't aware that North Africa was exclusively lily white. Give us some evidence of that . If you are asserting that it is, why the complaints from your country about the refugees hailing from there? Surely Italy should be letting all these 'white' people in to stop white genocide?

In any event archaeologists have found black people living in Roman London, which makes the cartoon unremarkable.Come back if the Beeb asserts something genuinely implusable, like a Chinese lady leading the Boudicca revolt.

[Basil II the B.S]

Your problems go way beyond ideology , they go straight to the concept of ''typical''.Let me help you with the dictionary:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dic...nglish/typical

-showing all the characteristics that you would usually expect from a particular group of things:

A sub-Saharian African within the Roman Empire does not fit that definition.

Let's use another dictionary:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/typical

Definition of typical



1a : combining or exhibiting the essential characteristics of a group

b : conforming to a type a specimen typical of the species

Nor this one.

Now, the Roman Empire occasionally employed people from Ethiopia for instance, or even the areas of the Saharan desert. How would be define those?
Well, let's look, for instance, at the antonym of typical:
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/th...f/typical.html

atypical
unusual
aberrant
abnormal
anomalous
deviant
exceptional
irregular
nonrepresentative
nontypical
untypical
singular
uncharacteristic
unconventional
unexpected
out of keeping
out of the ordinary
odd
peculiar
strange
weird
bizarre
curious
queer
surprising
unfamiliar
non-typical
oddball
deviate
nonconformist
warped
quirky
idiosyncratic
non-standard
transgressing
out there
kinky
digressive
rogue
uncustomary
unhealthy
monstrous
erratic
malformed
off-the-wall
wacko
alien
funny
sick
corrupt
out of the way
off the wall
not typical
out of the common
not normal


Many of those fit, don't they? Was the presence of someone from Sub-Saharian Africa within the Empire rare, peculiar, out of the common, out of the ordinary? Yes. So you pick the outlier and normalize it. That's the most dishonest, retarded thing ever.

'''''Bottom spanking'''''''. A case that doesn't pass a dictionary test.

[Katsumoto]

Not even remotely as cringeworthy as a police that's patrolling stinky food in a period of rising stabbings. Oh and they also do diversity initiatives so that they can feel good about themselves.

The real cringe is your inability to understand basic concepts because you're too busy screeching about the evils of diversity. As pointed out already the police can do two things at once, not to mention that this tweet came from the British Transport Police who only handle trains and would have no bearing on protecting streets against knife crime. But please, don't let me interrupt your irrelevant rant about Roman Britain seeing as you've run out dung to peddle about London.

[sumskilz]

In any event archaeologists have found black people living in Roman London, which makes the cartoon unremarkable.

Nah, just North Africans.

The only historical reference is this:

"On another occasion, when he was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs. And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man's ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, 'You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god.'" (Historia Augusta Severus 22)

It get's sillier (from the old thread on the topic):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My favorite is the Iron Age blacksmith. Perhaps they should have also included an Nineteenth Century English bootblack.

[Infidel144]

Which reads: ''The author has made the video unavailable for your country''.

That's the level of intellectual integrity of your side, your argument etc. You have to hide your falsehood from Italians because otherwise we call out your bs?

I get the same thing, so not just Italy.

Trump had the white supremacist Steve Bannon as an advisor and said that the Charlottesville mob, one of them a terrorist, were pretty fine people.

What makes Bannon a white supremacist?
Can you provide the exact quote from Trump?

[mongrel]

Nah, just North Africans.

The only historical reference is this:

"On another occasion, when he was returning to his nearest quarters from an inspection of the wall at Luguvallum in Britain, at a time when he had not only proved victorious but had concluded a perpetual peace, just as he was wondering what omen would present itself, an Ethiopian soldier, who was famous among buffoons and always a notable jester, met him with a garland of cypress-boughs. And when Severus in a rage ordered that the man be removed from his sight, troubled as he was by the man's ominous colour and the ominous nature of the garland, the Ethiopian by way of jest cried, it is said, 'You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god.'" (Historia Augusta Severus 22)

I mentioned the evidence from the bodies of actual Roman Londoners. It can't be ignored. London was multicultural. As one would expect anyway, unless someone can prove it was an entirely Gaelic-speaking British , (naturally not an English) city.

It get's sillier (from the old thread on the topic):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My favorite is the Iron Age blacksmith. Perhaps they should have also included an Nineteenth Century English bootblack.

Cor, the presence of token black people. It is not as if they could use boats or anything. There were no migration controls in the UK until 1905, Jews excepted. Actually come to think about it no-one would complain about the presence of a Jew in such a context, but God help us if a brown or black person taking perhaps a shorter journey features anywhere. But you have helped me expose BS's . Because he said the Roman video was banned because the presence of a black person. It's clear that was a lie, more so as other cartoons feature black characters.

And are you seriously suggesting that there were no brown priests at all in the 11th century? Ridiculous. We are talking about a Catholic Church, not the British National Party. Priests are qualified by their knowledge of God's works, not by race. If I had an issue at all it may be that it is remeniscent of 1970's tokenism, but without the regulation black man dying a horrible death halfway through the movie.


It would seem that some sad racist, no doubt Russian, or so inspired has sat through an entire series then encouraged anti brown snowflakes to whinge at the beeb on the false premise that it is denying that Britons are black, when they are clearly doing no such thing for the groups mentioned. One in five Britons live in poverty, and life expectancy is falling, yet this Putin poodle is concerned about a few frames of cartoon footage featuring non-white people. Bollocks to him. Bollocks to them all.

For the record the original Britons looked like this....

I get the same thing, so not just Italy..

Any country not having the proper contractual arrangements would. And it applies to alll companies not just the BBC. I'm sure that the reason why I cannot watch John Oliver in the UK is because they want me to pay through SKy and not because it could have a black person involved which may be scary to racists and similar snowflakes.

What makes Bannon a white supremacist?
Can you provide the exact quote from Trump?

I won't dignify this with an answer. You will no doubt ask me to prove the faith of the Pope or to prove whether Irish Protestants fancy a walk on 14th July

[Basil II the B.S]

I get the same thing, so not just Italy.

Orwellian. In short, it's just for the UK and it's a closed system so that noone can interfere with the rewriting of history for the modern needs.

Meanwhile Mongrel still struggles with the concept of ''typical'' and thinks that an outlier, the odd one out, the abnormal, the rare is a good representation of a group he doesn't share the essential characteristics with. Hilarious.

[sumskilz]

For the record the original Britons looked like this....

Chedder Man probably had brown skin according to his DNA, but beyond general face shape, these types of reconstructions aren't a whole lot better than a guess.

Here's the previous reconstruction of Chedder Man:



In any case, Iron Age and Roman Period Britons had very little ancestry from the people who lived in Britain during the time of Chedder Man. Iron Age and Roman Period Britons were mostly descended from the Bronze Age migrants from Eastern Europe who replaced the migrants from the Middle East who had already replaced people like Cheddar Man.

[Aexodus]

I wasn't aware that North Africa was exclusively lily white. Give us some evidence of that . If you are asserting that it is, why the complaints from your country about the refugees hailing from there? Surely Italy should be letting all these 'white' people in to stop white genocide?

Most North Africans were Berbers who had inhabited it since 10,000 BC. They continued to make up the majority population until Islamization in the Dark Ages under the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates.



This is a Berber.

[Papay]

He went to a mosque where women were segregated. A political candidate wouldn't get a pass for attending a KKK meeting (unless they are a Democrat lol), neither should Khan for attending a sexist meeting. His support for illegal war in Iraq is only a cherry on top of a pie.

Oh wow. The horrors. He went in a place were there is segregation. I mean its not that segregation exists almost everywhere from sports to the army.

[caratacus]

Chedder Man probably had brown skin according to his DNA, but beyond general face shape, these types of reconstructions aren't a whole lot better than a guess.

That Cheddar man reconstruction, is the worst case of distorting history to fit a PC agenda I have ever seen. The selection of such a dark skin pigmentation to represent someone living in the British Isles is absolutely ridiculous and its claimed scientific basis from a laboratory in the US highly challengeable. The fact that anyone would believe this as an accurate model is beyond me.

Ancient 'dark-skinned' Briton Cheddar Man find may not be true
https://www.newscientist.com/article...y-not-be-true/
A Briton who lived 10,000 years ago had dark brown skin and blue eyes. At least, that’s what dozens of news stories published this month – including our own – stated as fact. But one of the geneticists who performed the research says the conclusion is less certain, and according to others we are not even close to knowing the skin colour of any ancient human.

[Aexodus]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto....co.uk%2F&_rdr

Channel 4 is coming out with stuff like ‘Indian people look British’ as a result of the cheddar man story.

[sumskilz]

The selection of such a dark skin pigmentation to represent someone living in the British Isles is absolutely ridiculous and its claimed scientific basis from a laboratory in the US highly challengeable.

The hunter-gatherers in Western Europe during that period had none of the alleles associated with lighter pigmentation in modern populations. As the article you linked suggests, it's possible they had some lighter pigmentation alleles that we are unaware of because they no longer exist in any modern populations. The reason this is plausible is that distinct light pigmentation alleles have arisen independently in different populations. Such mutations appear to simply be a mutation that partially breaks the function of one of the pigmentation genes without causing some disastrous side-effect. On the other hand, it seems quite likely that European hunter-gatherers had at least somewhat darker skin than modern Europeans, because the current light skin alleles have been under a high degree of positive selection over the past few thousand years. If the hunter-gatherers of Europe already had light complexions, it's hard to see why light skin alleles brought from the Middle East would be under such a high degree of selection if similarly effective alleles already existed, since the Neolithic farmers did absorb a small amount of ancestry from the hunter-gatherers.

It's also worth noting that modern Northern Europeans have lighter complexions than Siberian and North American populations who recently lived as hunter-gatherers at the same latitudes. Some degree of lighter complexion appears to be tied to an agricultural diet. This makes sense, hunter-gatherers ingested more vitamin D for example, so didn't need as much from the sun. The Mesolithic hunter-gathers of Western Europe were unlike any population that exists today. They contributed only a relatively small amount to the genome of modern Europeans.

[caratacus]

The hunter-gatherers in Western Europe during that period had none of the alleles associated with lighter pigmentation in modern populations. As the article you linked suggests, it's possible they had some lighter pigmentation alleles that we are unaware of because they no longer exist in any modern populations. The reason this is plausible is that distinct light pigmentation alleles have arisen independently in different populations. Such mutations appear to simply be a mutation that partially breaks the function of one of the pigmentation genes without causing some disastrous side-effect. On the other hand, it seems quite likely that European hunter-gatherers had at least somewhat darker skin than modern Europeans, because the current light skin alleles have been under a high degree of positive selection over the past few thousand years. If the hunter-gatherers of Europe already had light complexions, it's hard to see why light skin alleles brought from the Middle East would be under such a high degree of selection if similarly effective alleles already existed, since the Neolithic farmers did absorb a small amount of ancestry from the hunter-gatherers.

It's also worth noting that modern Northern Europeans have lighter complexions than Siberian and North American populations who recently lived as hunter-gatherers at the same latitudes. Some degree of lighter complexion appears to be tied to an agricultural diet. This makes sense, hunter-gatherers ingested more vitamin D for example, so didn't need as much from the sun. The Mesolithic hunter-gathers of Western Europe were unlike any population that exists today. They contributed only a relatively small amount to the genome of modern Europeans.

As you know, skin tone alone is not a good indicator of genetic lineage, but it does have a good correlation to climatic conditions because it is an adaptable trait. Given their outside lifestyle and diet if it contained high amounts of Vitamin D, there a strong possibility that Cheddar Man did have a very tanned complexion. But to present a rather ugly dummy with a skin colour that looks like someone living in Sub Saharan Africa goes far beyond the realms of scientific speculation.

[Aexodus]

Well it’s obvious from the sheer delight of everyone involved that having brown ancestors is exactly what they wanted.

[sumskilz]

As you know, skin tone alone is not a good indicator of genetic lineage, but it does have a good correlation to climatic conditions because it is an adaptable trait. Given their outside lifestyle and diet if it contained high amounts of Vitamin D, there a strong possibility that Cheddar Man did have a very tanned complexion. But to present a rather ugly dummy with a skin colour that looks like someone living in Sub Saharan Africa goes far beyond the realms of scientific speculation.

Well it’s obvious from the sheer delight of everyone involved that having brown ancestors is exactly what they wanted.

Not surprisingly, the politicization of Cheddar Man is fairly irrational.

Aarathi Prasad says Cheddar Man makes her feel more English. Well okay, but as a geneticist she should know that objectively South Asians are considerably more similar genetically to white ethnic modern English than they are to Cheddar Man. Other immigrant groups are also more similar to ethnic English people than they are to Cheddar Man. For example, this is true for Nigerians and even more so for Afro-Caribbeans.

The reverse is not always true. Ethnic English are more similar to South Asians than to Cheddar Man, but between two and three times more similar to Cheddar Man than to Nigerians. This is because both South Asians and Europeans have varying degrees of common ancestry from Neolithic and Bronze Age expansions out of the Near East and Pontic Steppe.

In the spoiler below are some measures of total genetic similarity between populations based on Fixation Index. The lower the number, the more similar two populations are, so that Fst = 0.001 indicates that the two populations are 99.9% identical in their range of variation. South Asians have Near Eastern and Indo-Aryan ancestry which varies based as much on caste and religion as it does by geography. Muslims, higher caste Hindus, Pakistanis and North Indians have the most Near Eastern and Indo-Aryan ancestry. Lower caste Hindus and South Indians have the least. For this reason, I included two groups that represent the extremes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fst = 0.001 English to Scottish
Fst = 0.001 English to German
Fst = 0.006 English to Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE)
Fst = 0.014 English to Syrian
Fst = 0.023 English to Pakistani (Sindhi)
Fst = 0.053 English to South Indian Dalits (Mala)
Fst = 0.058 English to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)
Fst = 0.110 English to Han Chinese
Fst = 0.151 English to Nigerian (Yoruba)

Fst = 0.014 Pakistani (Sindhi) to South Indian Dalits (Mala)
Fst = 0.023 Pakistani (Sindhi) to English
Fst = 0.087 Pakistani (Sindhi) to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)

Fst = 0.053 South Indian Dalits (Mala) to English
FSt = 0.110 South Indian Dalits (Mala) to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)

Fst = 0.151 Nigerian (Yoruba) to English
Fst = 0.195 Nigerian (Yoruba) to Cheddar Man

[caratacus]

In the spoiler below are some measures of total genetic similarity between populations based on Fixation Index. The lower the number, the more similar two populations are, so that Fst = 0.001 indicates that the two populations are 99.9% identical in their range of variation. South Asians have Near Eastern and Indo-Aryan ancestry which varies based as much on caste and religion as it does by geography. Muslims, higher caste Hindus, Pakistanis and North Indians have the most Near Eastern and Indo-Aryan ancestry. Lower caste Hindus and South Indians have the least. For this reason, I included two groups that represent the extremes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fst = 0.001 English to Scottish
Fst = 0.001 English to German
Fst = 0.006 English to Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE)
Fst = 0.014 English to Syrian
Fst = 0.023 English to Pakistani (Sindhi)
Fst = 0.053 English to South Indian Dalits (Mala)
Fst = 0.058 English to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)
Fst = 0.110 English to Han Chinese
Fst = 0.151 English to Nigerian (Yoruba)

Fst = 0.014 Pakistani (Sindhi) to South Indian Dalits (Mala)
Fst = 0.023 Pakistani (Sindhi) to English
Fst = 0.087 Pakistani (Sindhi) to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)

Fst = 0.053 South Indian Dalits (Mala) to English
FSt = 0.110 South Indian Dalits (Mala) to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)

Fst = 0.151 Nigerian (Yoruba) to English
Fst = 0.195 Nigerian (Yoruba) to Cheddar Man

It would be fair to point out that this index doesn't allow for population movement and mixing. The modern Syrian population will contain a fair amount of blood from elsewhere such as Greek, Turkish, Western European (during the crusades). Syrians have a noticeably fairer complexian and appearance than someone from Arabia. The same is true of some Pakistan people with migration of Persians, Greeks and other groups into the mountainous regions near Afghanistan. Pashtuns especially, have almost European appearance.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There is nothing here showing sample size or who is tested. What is English,Scottish, German?
Unless you are using ancient DNA, population movements over thousands of years will distort any DNA comparison between modern populations. That and the fact that current DNA analysis is not yet an exact science in its results.

[sumskilz]

It would be fair to point out that this index doesn't allow for population movement and mixing. The modern Syrian population will contain a fair amount of blood from elsewhere such as Greek, Turkish, Western European (during the crusades). Syrians have a noticeably fairer complexian and appearance than someone from Arabia. The same is true of some Pakistan people with migration of Persians, Greeks and other groups into the mountainous regions near Afghanistan. Pashtuns especially, have almost European appearance.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There is nothing here showing sample size or who is tested. What is English,Scottish, German?
Unless you are using ancient DNA, population movements over thousands of years will distort any DNA comparison between modern populations. That and the fact that current DNA analysis is not yet an exact science in its results.

As interested as I am in the topic, I don't really get the point with regard to modern politics or immigration. There seem to be people who are saying ancestry has nothing to do with English identity, who at the same time are making a big deal about an ancient person's DNA at a handful of loci.

What follows is a technical response to your post, anyone not interested in population genetics (or Cheddar Man in specific) may want to ignore:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The relationships I've mentioned are pretty well established. Calculations between modern populations can be done with massive databases. New samples from ancient West Eurasian populations rarely change Fst calculations by more than 0.002 even in cases when only 3 to 5 previous samples existed. Partly the reason is that each individual not only carries two full data sets from his/her population, but two half data sets, four quarter data sets, etc. This may seem counter-intuitive, but each individual is functionally up to 5 million samples for the purposes of defining the difference between populations, rather than a single sample. This paper from 2012 demonstrated that as few as 4 to 6 individuals could be used to achieve accurate results if greater than a 1,000 loci are used. Which is a minuscule fraction of the 597,573 loci typically used today. A few rare SNPs biasing ancient samples aren't going to throw a calculation off much. Currently the DNA of 2,107 ancient individuals is publicly available with coverage of up to 1,233,013 loci.

There are however many ancient populations for which there are few or no samples from. Western Hunter Gatherers are not one of them. Plenty of refinements will happen as more data arises, but something like the Fst between modern English people and WHG isn't likely to change much. Because of the nature of DNA

Anyway, here are some comparisons to ancient populations:

Fst = 0.008 English to Steppe Late Bronze Age
Fst = 0.018 English to Caucasus Bronze Age
Fst = 0.020 English to European Neolithic
Fst = 0.026 English to Anatolian Neolithic
Fst = 0.027 English to Levant Bronze Age
Fst = 0.042 English to Levant Neolithic
Fst = 0.058 English to Iran Neolithic
Fst = 0.058 English to Cheddar Man (Western Hunter Gatherers)

Cheddar Man is contemporary to the Near Eastern Neolithic. Modern English people are much more similar to the populations of the western half of the Fertile Crescent at that time than to Cheddar Man, but even more close to the Bronze Age steppe.

The modern Syrian population will contain a fair amount of blood from elsewhere such as Greek, Turkish, Western European (during the crusades). Syrians have a noticeably fairer complexian and appearance than someone from Arabia

The major change in Syrians from the Neolithic is the addition of ancestry from the Zagros Mountains, Caucasus, and Pontic Steppe. The latter two made them more similar to Northern Europeans than they previously were. Their light skin alleles didn't come from Europeans, European light skin alleles first came from the Near East, they were just selected for to a greater degree in Northern Europe. The population of Europe has been almost completely replaced since the Mesolithic.

Blue = People like Cheddar Man
Orange = Farmers from the Near East
Green = Pastoralists from the Pontic Steppe (mix of Eastern and Caucasus hunter gatherer ancestry):


Source

[conon394]

Well we have certainly gone a rabbit hole - good post sumskitz.

I don't really get the point with regard to modern politics or immigration

People always like to harness the past and their imagined version of it to shape modern politics. Look at the history of bleaching Greek statues by western archeologists (or imagining of building re DC) to create a very white greco-roman heritage, rather than the colorful one they actually made. In this case I assume no matter what skin tone they cave 'Cheddar' man somebody would be offended and not really interested in any science about it.

[mongrel]

Most North Africans were Berbers who had inhabited it since 10,000 BC. They continued to make up the majority population until Islamization in the Dark Ages under the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates.



This is a Berber.

and this is a white Briton.



Which type of person is John Cleese ranting about and why?

That Cheddar man reconstruction, is the worst case of distorting history to fit a PC agenda I have ever seen. The selection of such a dark skin pigmentation to represent someone living in the British Isles is absolutely ridiculous and its claimed scientific basis from a laboratory in the US highly challengeable. The fact that anyone would believe this as an accurate model is beyond me.

Are you one of those types who dismisses the theory of evolution?