Hoteps

Hoteps are a subculture of African Americans who use Ancient Egypt as a source of black pride.[1] The community is Afrocentrist and it has also been described as promoting a false history. One of the group's more recognizable beliefs is the theory that the Ancient Egyptians were a racially homogeneous civilization which was uniformly made up of a single ethnic group of Black people, as opposed to the more accepted theory that the Ancient Egyptians were an extremely diverse society, consisting of people who were indigenous to the Egyptian Nile valley, ethnic groups that lived in the desert, Libyans, Sudanese, and eventually Greeks and Arabs after conquests. Some of these groups, such as the Nubians, would be considered "Black" by todays standards but due to being distinguishable by Egyptians of their time for their ethnicity, would further disprove the former theory.[2][3][4]

For the Ancient Egyptian word, see Hotep.

Origins

Although its members are not always called "hoteps", the community originated in response to early 20th century Egyptomania within the black community of the United States,[1] as well as in response to the emergence of Afrocentrism following the civil rights movement (with a later resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s).[5]

The term "hotep" was used among Afrocentrists as a greeting, similar to "I come in peace",[5] but has gained popularity recently on social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram.[1] It later became used to refer to certain Afrocentric communities as a whole, often used disparagingly to "describe a person who's either a clueless parody of Afrocentricity [...] or someone who's loudly, conspicuously and obnoxiously pro-black but anti-progress".[6]

Ideology

The ideology of Hoteps has been described as promoting false histories and misinformation about black people and black history.[1] It is generally considered right-wing and socially conservative, and some critics have also likened it to the alt-right.[7]

Critics of hoteps have accused them of being conspiratorial, black nationalist,[6] anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, and antisemitic.[7] Some critics have argued that hotep beliefs are too narrow-minded (they only focus on Ancient Egypt as opposed to other aspects of African history),[8] and black feminists argue that hoteps perpetuate rape culture by policing women's sexuality and tolerating predatory black men.[9]

See also

References
  1. Lovett, Miranda (July 21, 2020). "Reflecting on the Rise of the Hoteps". Sapiens. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  2. Lefkowitz, Mary R; Rogers, Guy Maclean (1996). Black Athena Revisited. p. 162. ISBN 9780807845554. Retrieved May 28, 2016 – via Google Books.
  3. Bard, Kathryn A.; Shubert, Steven Blake (1999). Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. p. 329. ISBN 9780415185899. Retrieved May 28, 2016 – via Google Books.
  4. Howe, Stephen (1999). Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes. p. 19. ISBN 9781859842287. Retrieved May 28, 2016 – via Google Books.
  5. Gaillot, Ann-Derrick (April 19, 2017). "The rise of 'hotep'". The Outline. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  6. Young, Damon (March 5, 2016). "Hotep, Explained". The Root. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  7. Sheffield, Matthew (April 23, 2018). "Laura Ingraham meets the Afrocentric "alt-right" — and it's every bit as weird as it sounds". Salon. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  8. Bastién, Angelica Jade (October 17, 2016). "'Insecure' Season 1, Episode 2: Failure to Change". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  9. Bowen, Sesali (May 8, 2018). "What Dear White People Got Right About Hoteps". Refinery29. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.