[mainestategop]

Okkie dokie! Don't know what to make of this... Maybe he was of black descent, or maybe this is all done by some black history revisionist making every famous person in the world out to be black. Came across it awhile back thought it would be worth sharing

ANY THOUGHTS?

[Doctor Raoul]

Explains a few things...

[Pharmboy]

Death Mask of Ludwig van Beethoven (1827)

I have been reading Beethoven biographies since I was in high school, and remember hearing about him "being black" perhaps 20 years ago. Nonsense.

A few generations before his birth, Dec 16th, 1770 in Bonn, Germany, his Flemish ancestors came from Belgium. He did not have much German blood, and certainly no Austrian. This whole flap reminds me of the German joke:

"Name the two greatest 20th Century achievements of the Austrian."
Answer: "To have convinced the world that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German."

Click here for Beethoven's genealogy.

[Sawdring]

Jimmy Hendrix and that guy who did all those things with peanuts were actually white. But whites aren't claiming Oprah and only half of Obama.

[Borges]

Classical Music PING

[tomkat]

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Didn’t you get the memo? We’ll all be at least half black by the end of the next four years, no matter our current race or ethnic make-up. ;)

[Emperor Palpatine]

This brings to mind a classic "SNL" skit from their first season or so. John Belushi played Beethoven sitting at a piano playing the "Moonlight" sonata in an 18th Century Viennese drawing room......



Then after Gilda Radner as one of the Contessas asks him to "liven things up - this is boring!", Belushi puts on some dark shades and starts rocking back and forth doing a killer impression of Ray Charles' "Hey, What Did I Say?" - complete with the female trio behind him, hehehe.

[Reaganesque]

As long as the author is basing his/her conclusion on such hearsay, random quotes and shaky logic, he or she may as well point out that Beethoven had rhythm as well. Surely that proves something? I despair for American intellectualism.

[onedoug]

What difference does it make in music?

[Nowhere Man]

I know the Arabs and the Blacks have intermingled for centuries in Africa, I know The Arabs have gone as far as Mozambique, Zanzibar and Madagascar as well. It is generally accepted that Barack Obama himself is half White, 3/8's Arab and 1/8th Black. Although is father would look Black, it is still possible he is mostly Arab, genetics and hereditary is sometimes an inexact science. So to say that Obama is our first "Black President," well, I'll admit the looks are there but if that makeup is true, it really isn't the whole picture. You can say he is our first "multi-racial" President which is more accurate.

Yeah, but getting back to Beetoven, well, yeah, anything is possible but if if he has some Black on his mom's side, it makes him more of a mutt so to speak like a lot of people. I'm a "mutt" myself, German, Swedish, Russian, Serbian and Russian Jew.

[eleni121]

Martin Bernal a lunatic at Cornell posited that most of Ancient Greek philosophers and philosophy/languages was nothing more than taken/stolen/lifted from Black Africa/Mesopotamia—his Black Athena theory, an afrocentric origins theory ridiculed by most linguists and classicists,

This is more of the same bunk.

[Impy]

[Moulay]

If Ludwig vB was black, then the rest of the family must be black too. Ludwig van Beethovens’ family is Belgian. There are at this time 46 entries “van Beethoven” in the Belgian online telephone directory (www.infobel.be). Please call a few to ask whether they are black (start by telling this is not a joke).

[mnehring]

This does fit with some of the writings of his day describing him as “dark”. It was generally taken to describe his mood, but it may have also been a reference to his appearance.

[Zionist Conspirator]

This is the typical ultra-right wing chauvinistic self worship of every ethnic group with an inferiority complex. Other examples from recent history are Italy, Germany, and Japan. Get the idea?

And yes, I said ultra-right wing. In spite of the fact that Black chauvinists have latched onto Marxism as if it were of African origin (and yes, there are some Black nationalists who claim that Marx got is ideas from traditional African society--har!har!har!). If it were a white American group with an inferiority complex making these ridiculous claims they would be called right wingers. But the presence of melanin makes one left wing, apparently.

Next thing you know, they'll be claiming Marcus Garvey!

[ArrogantBustard]

ANY THOUGHTS?

When I was a child, aeons ago, my very black piano teacher subscribed to this bizarre theory.

Nice lady, excellent pianist AND teacher ... and proof that expertise in one subject does not connote expertise in another.

[wardaddy]

Lol......the stupidity of white people today

The gift that keeps on amusing

[Pharmboy]

Here's a look at Ludwig's father and mother. Seems clearly German and Flemish...and here's a quote from this Wiki entry:

The Nazis were especially interested in Beethoven's background: "After making sure that Beethoven had no suspicious racial or national tinge of the non-Germanic in his background (clear evidence of his Flemish ancestry was denied in a series of articles), the masters of the Nazi propaganda and cultural machinery promoted his works as the essence of Germanic and Aryan strength".[9]