>but I can't figure out exactly what corrections he wants made.
He wants accuracy in historical depictions, not over-representation of (insignificant at the time and place) populations the way they do in stock photos to show how "diverse" a company is.
He also doesn't like the historical revisionism of considering all the people coming from Africa or called african in Roman years as black, whereas the whole northern Africa was full of white populations. Those were not Ethiopians, Nubians, etc...
It's bad that the English were racist and colonialists, but that's their problem. They don't get to say their "sorry" today (after the fact) to the black people, by washing out whole populations of Mediterranean people, that were actually there at the Roman era, because they want to feature more prominently some populations they put down.
> He wants accuracy in historical depictions, not over-representation of (insignificant at the time and place) populations the way they do in stock photos to show how "diverse" a company is.
“Accuracy” is not possible if your depict a smaller group then the whole, as any story (regardless of media; visual, text, or otherwise) that focusses on a small number of focal characters to illustrate something about broad society and time period will not accurately represent the composition of the broader society.
You either exclude lots that was present by focussing exclusively on the most common or overrepresent minorities that were present in the broad society by having them present at all in the small focal group, and in practical terms you end up doing some of each. But you can't losslessly compress history; you just have to choose what's appropriate for your purpose.
>“Accuracy” is not possible if your depict a smaller group then the whole, as any story (regardless of media; visual, text, or otherwise) that focusses on a small number of focal characters to illustrate something about broad society and time period will not accurately represent the composition of the broader society.
You're talking absolutes, which is neither possible, not the point.
If taking any random sample of 3 people in e.g. Roman Britain, you had e.g. in 1/1000 chances of having a black person among them, then showing 3 persons and having 1 be black is not a representative picture. It's that simple.
When trying to create something representative, it often gives a better result to over-represent than exclude, because the latter may imply there were none.
I'd argue a large reason we're having this discussion at all is exactly because the idea of black people in Britain at that time is surprising to a lot of people, exactly because a lot of people have an image of the Romans as being mostly white Italians to the point where seeing a black character at all is a surprise, rather than out of concern that they're not accurately representing the precise proportions.
dragonwriter was talking about the limitations of a numerically "representative picture" to tell a history, not about "absolutes," whatever that means. I thought it was pretty clear.
This shouldn't even be an argument, since history over-represents minorities all the time. It's not a mystery as to why. Trade and war have a couple of things in common. They feature prominently in histories because they are a catalyst for change, and they are practiced as often as not by "minorities" - ethnic, religious, racial, etc.
Tell a history well (or poorly) or try to make some kind of historical point and it is likely you are going to be talking about minorities. Over-representing them, to be sure. Taleb knows all this, and his recommendations regarding written histories have been pretty good. Regarding this thing, he was just being a combative douche. (or he has some other goofy racial agenda, as some have speculated... who knows)
You can read pretty much any historical account describing the peoples of those regions, see frescoes and mosaics, and so on.
Besides, this couldn't be more racist towards Mediterranean people - perhaps they all look black to some. It wouldn't be the first time, mediterranean people (from Lebanese and Egyptians, to Italians, Greeks and Spanish) were also classified as "non-white" when immigrating into the US by racist WASP populations.
Frescoes and mosaics are not reliable sources for the composition of the overall population, as they generally will over-represent specific social-strata and specific demographics, so without a control we don't really know what they tell us.
Considering Libya where the Roman presence itself in the North quite possibly was quite light-skinned and where the elite under Roman rule likewise quite likely was white than average for the population, with a lot of people coming from elsewhere in the empire. But a lot of the rest of the population was berbers, which range from relatively light brown to the darkest sub-Saharan black.
We know that sub-Saharan berber groups went to the North, because we know that a whole Roman legion was stationed on the coast to repel raiders from the South.
But I don't think we do know how large a number of the Northern population was made up of Romans from elsewhere and lighter skinned berbers vs darker skinned berbers and/or other groups at any given point in time. If there is data on this, I'd love to see it.
Though we also know that the bedouin population that dominates the North of Libya today, largely came with the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, so modern day Libya is at the very least a very poor indicator of what it looked like 2000 years ago.
(focusing on Libya because Septimius Severus - one the persons mentioned in Beards response - was born in Libya, and because I've covered it in other comments)
No-one is suggesting that everyone or even the majority of people in North Africa have "black" skin, but I'm awaiting references showing that North Africa was majority white at the time of the Roman empire. The guy in the cartoon has brown skin.
White as in not black. Not as in red-haired blue-eyed WASPs.
Of course it can have "brown skin". Egyptians, Tunisians, and co, including people in Souther Spain, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, the Middle East, and so, had, and still have brown skin, but are not black like e.g. Ethiopians (which ancients also describe), nor are depicted as such.
Well, in Europe (and hopefully modern US) white includes the peoples not considered black (or asian etc).
Arabs for example are still white, Egyptians too, etc. Outside of racist circles were only WASPs or northern europeans were considered white (which was historically the case for most of the 20th century where white was hijacked for "northern European ancestry").
Egyptians for example, are also white. As are Arabs, middle eastern people, etc. But e.g. Ethiopians, or Ghana people are not (the majority of course, not that all citizens are not).
Many of the groups you're mentioning don't even self-identify as white in English-speaking countries. Not really sure what you're trying to get at any more.
He wants accuracy in historical depictions, not over-representation of (insignificant at the time and place) populations the way they do in stock photos to show how "diverse" a company is.
He also doesn't like the historical revisionism of considering all the people coming from Africa or called african in Roman years as black, whereas the whole northern Africa was full of white populations. Those were not Ethiopians, Nubians, etc...
It's bad that the English were racist and colonialists, but that's their problem. They don't get to say their "sorry" today (after the fact) to the black people, by washing out whole populations of Mediterranean people, that were actually there at the Roman era, because they want to feature more prominently some populations they put down.