so-treu:

African mercenaries from where in Africa? Isn’t in Libya in Africa, after all? So why are we treating these Africans as if they’re from a different place than Libyans? I’m guessing because they’re from sub-Saharan Africa, meaning they are black. (i’ll post a link to an article that discusses this.)

and this isn’t to call anyone out, but i think it’s important to note the erasure of Africa in the coverage of the protests, the clinging to colonial understanding of nation and place (“the middle east,” who came up with that one?), and the erasure of black Africans from this narrative - notice how there has been no coverage, from any news source that i have seen, on the conditions of African immigrants within Egypt, Libya etc., esp those from sub-Saharan Africa. Egypt for one has had some serious problems with racism, usually directed at Sudanese immigrants or what they assume to be Sudanese immigrants (two of my friends in college, both dark-skinned African American women, studied abroad in egypt and were forced to leave before the semester was up due to the amount of harassment they experienced - folks calling them prostitutes, asking them how much from passing cars, walking up to them and spitting on them).

yes yes yes.  both egypt and libya are well known for shooting immigrants (read: black africans) as they try to cross through the desert. 

and the sexual/racial harrassment of dark skin black women in cairo is constant.  just relentless.

and there are plenty of black egyptians.  i mean southern egypt is known as nubia, it is so visually obvious (when one is here) that egypt is african that it kind of boggles my mind how folks refuse to acknowledge it. 

(Source: thearabspringrevolutions)