Sargon Still Claims He's ¼ Black: Mystery Solved.

some of the most intense debates about
race racism immigration and national identity have centered around a YouTube channel known as sargon of akkad now recording and publishing videos under the name the thinker e among the more bizarre digressions in this guy's history of recording and uploading content was his claim that he is himself one-quarter black and when pushed on the claim he has clarified that he has one grandparent one grandfather who was a hundred percent africa not part africa now many people have been puzzled by this and many people simply ridiculed him for it not only is he appeared on camera himself he's had both of his parents appear on camera and none of them look like they're even one-quarter black none of them look like they're an eighth or sixteenth black and by the way should I even bother to mention some members of my own family some of my relations by marriage are in that position of being just slightly of African ancestry I'll put it that way um so yeah part from the fact that I went to a high school that was about 50% black I grew up in downtown Toronto around all kinds of black people all kinds people from the Caribbean who were of mixed European and black ancestry to some extent I'm in a position to know we had the solution to the riddle in today's new video his grandfather his African grandfather is a native of the island of st. Helena native native you say the island of st. Helena although it's considered part of the continent of Africa is way out in the middle of the ocean with no connection to any continent at all it is as close to the middle of nowhere as anything can be and the indigenous population of st. Helena when it was discovered by European explorers was 0 now this island had a very interesting role in the transatlantic slave trade in exploration and the European conquest of large parts the world and the mean thing it's famous for is being the abode of napoleon bonaparte after he fell from power is his earthly prison today doubtless there are some black african people living there i don't know i don't know the demographics but obviously his his quote-unquote african grandparent would in fact be an example of a white european probably british who was part of that empire who was part of the colonization who probably himself or his ancestors profited by the slave trade by the shipping of slaves and maybe opium and some other terrible things the british empire traded in that's what it was it was a hub of of transoceanic intercontinental trade and we have the solution to the riddle of how he's claimed it he has used the term black he doesn't just say african he has claimed he is one-quarter black sometimes clarified as one quarter african and yeah in fact he traces some of his ancestry to the island of st. Helena he made the even more bizarre claim that his ancestor his grandfather chose to become British chose to leave the island of st. Helena and embraced British culture and assimilated a British culture which he is contrasting to the disparaging picture he paints of many immigrants today who moved to England but in his from his perspective do not embrace British culture so look I have been an immigrant myself many many times over I'm now 40 years old I'm the product of several sequent migrations and in some countries you know what may be used in one country I was really embraced I was really accepted as part of that country when I lived in Laos I lived there for two and a half years I really put in a lot of effort to learn to speak the Lotion language and I studied the history and politics at working inside the government at a very very low level by the way but nevertheless and you know there was a very strange and moving moment toward the end of my time there and this wasn't the only moment but this is the one where was said literally I had to go in and talk to somebody inside a hotel and I stopped to talk to an old woman who was sitting on a what's your city car sitting on a crate I think in front of this hotel sitting on a box ISM there wasn't a bench or anything there her anyway and this woman you know I didn't know if she was working in the hotel herself with so his target or in lotion and she jabbed me feel a bit and then I went in to ask inside though tell and the guy and said that it was very apprehensive to see me think that's because they were just in the middle of doing renovations and he wasn't sure what was going on and I started asking some questions you could see it was really tense and the old woman came in the door and she said to him in love [ __ ] don't worry it's fine he's a white loud that was mind-blowing to me that kind of that level of acceptance and here's the other thing the degree of acceptance or perceived acceptance into that culture after only you know again two and a half years but I was only working hard on it for a year and a half or something I I wasn't I I didn't think I possibly could assimilate it's a Southeast Asian culture so it's over um when I was on the Thai border area so Laos has a long border with Thailand several times Thai people were racist against me I wish I was joking this is not joke they were not racist against me because I was white they were racist against me and shouted insults against me for being a white Lau for being lotion for being a white person who had assimilated into Lao culture yeah it was it was my book now you know add so that see part of the puzzle here I partly it was cuz I was young and strong and they wanted me and I was sounds weird but in terms of that culture you know just weird if you will be like oh wow he'll big and tough you can carry a lot of firewood there was this weird kind of appreciation just you look big and rugged we'll accept you into our tribe really there's a kind of you know peculiar but the other issue was I was a scholar of the ancient religious language so I could read and write patli and that gave me a certain status immenseness my girlfriend recently but you know several times people consulted me about ghosts where they thought they had a ghost infestation there was a haunting problem and they took my even though it was a total foreigner was a white Canadian they took my perspective on ghosts problems seriously because they knew I could reap Ali that could read the ancient scriptural language of their religion of course they can't they speak loud better than I ever will but they don't know anything about Pali and a lot of them are very limited literacy so there are different elements that now right next door to Laos is Cambodia man I don't have any words polite enough to express how I got along with Cambodian culture and how they got along with me I'm the kind of the kind of denigration and it's even know what even when I was delivering a lecture it was a formal academic lecture I delivered on ancient Buddhism and Pali in that history and related stuff and politics do all wrapped up in one lecture you know remember when I delivered that lecture even then the attitude I got from Cambodians in the audience and talk to me I flee just this sneering contempt you know to paraphrase no I think to quote verbatim stand-up comedian Chris Rock the attitude I got from kid boy is like yeah yeah yeah you you think you're smart you think you're tough well can you kick my ass really no I was always I I never I never could and never would you know assimilate into Cambodian culture it's right next door I mean the contrast is there they're adjacent tiny poverty-stricken countries in Southeast Asia that I lived in for a significant periods of time now the lens the frame that sargon of akkad or the thing curry puts up against this issue is that he presumes anyone who chooses to go and live in another country or chooses to my origin of the country is choosing to assimilate into that country and I think in a very simple sense that's fundamentally wrong whether it was Laos Cambodia nelle Taiwan or even when I made the decision within Canada to go to the area where our indigenous people live the curry in the Aegean to study their language and live with them I was not choosing to assimilate into their culture I did not imagine that I had something positive to offer them by imitating them just stay on that resume does does anyone in New York really value New York London Amsterdam doesn't matter he'll say Amsterdam does anyone in Amsterdam really value really need a Chinese person who moves to Amsterdam with the motivation to discard everything unique and distinctive about themselves and imitate and any late the local culture to become a game you know and you can never do it I can never be completely fluent in lotion I can never really share their perspective why would you value a second-rate foreign imitation of your culture as opposed to something different and distinctive and authentically alien that nevertheless has something positive to add to your culture like you know I mean let's keep it real simple oh great you came from China to Amsterdam and you opened a Chinese restaurant you didn't try to open a Dutch restaurant you didn't try to open up oh you didn't try to open a second-rate imitation of you know our cuisine you brought your own cuisine okay you know whatever you came from China you opened a Chinese antique shop and you're a Chinese art dealer you're expert in Chinese literature and culture okay you have something distinctive you can whatever it is these are really crude really simple examples when I came from Canada to Laos or from Canada Cambodia my feeling was hey I have something value I have something valuable to offer to your culture being Who I am in all my a leonis and all my difference when I went to live amongst the Cree in the achieve way at four stations university by the way this wasn't some remote village was in a university devoted to First Nations people but they are significantly a different culture believe me if you live in Saskatchewan white European culture and First Nations culture are separate they are separate and not equal it's a very deep very bitter racial and racist racist divide as a result of the history the British Empire you know I I know I actually refused I refuse to go and attend pipe-smoking ceremonies I refuse to sit in a tent and do the spiritual seances I said them no you know that's that's not who I am I'm not here to imitate your culture I'm not here to pretend to be a part of your culture I feel I have something valuable I can offer through you know the study of language and history and politics you know Max Turner has a dictum says you know people have this delusion if only everyone wore one hat nobody would have to take off their hat to one another you know it's a little bit cryptic I admit but the idea is that by unifying people under one cultural identity or one nation that then they're made equal and they don't have to take off their hats and instead the alternate approaches to say no we can recognize our mutual alienness we can recognize our distinctive and our difference and we can find value in that we can find something worthwhile we can make friendships that aren't based on a myth of unity and uniformity but that are based on a real and pragmatic appreciation of our differences and if we can't we can't sargon of akkad you tell me if you're not one-quarter black if you're not one-quarter African why have you made it a crutch in your career of pro British Empire transparently racist rhetoric to claim that you are I can't think of any good reason why you would lie about that why is it that in your video which I think clocks in it about twenty one minutes in length why is it that you only and repeatedly mention your feeling that London is now a city where the indigenous population are a minority and you don't mention any other example from the history of the British Empire where the native people really became a minority in their own land from Australia to Canada your empire has a tremendous history of bloodshed on its hands and it's for that reason that now in the 21st century you're not in the same position as Switzerland to say that you'd prefer to be an isolationist country you inherit the legacy of the cosmopolitanism that you created and that you opposed upon others two wars that were fought for slavey up partly through wars that were fought for control of the slave trade and even worse the trade in opium one-take no edits