I’m gonna just cut to the chase, Jake.

I call bull$#@% on the argument that you initially tried to make regarding how “black is used to denote many things, sometimes racial and ethnic, sometimes not.”

For the record, too, this is a textbook example of whitesplaining. I couldn’t even believe that you went there, but here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Furthermore, in the realm of logical fallacies, that statement serves dual purpose as a partial ‘slippery slope’ and a partial ‘straw man.’

What does the term ‘black’ having connotations beyond the scope of race have to do with my essay, Jake?

Here’s a clue: It rhymes with ‘ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.’

As a pre-emptive strike, to illustrate for you the fallaciousness of your argument, I quite literally asked you to provide examples of “human populations have been called black that actually aren’t.”

In response, you’ve provided three or four uses of the term ‘black’ taken from the history of English that have nothing to do with human populations, i.e. ethnic or racial groups.

Meanwhile, Jake, my photo essay is about the “former existence of black people in pre-modern China.” Not blacksmiths. Not Blackguards. Not Blackmarketeers. Black people. That fact has been spelled out in no uncertain terms.

I mean, more than 120,000 people have seen my essay and not one–well, save you–has been confused about that fact. But if you’d bothered to actually read the essay before sending off your initial attempt to refute, you’d know that.

Hell, if you’d bothered to read it before following up with that sophomoric attempt to support what you already knew was a lame argument, you’d know that.

How do I know that *you* know your argument is lame? Because you saw the holes in it when you said: “I’m sure you could object by saying these are groups not populations…”

Yup, that’s what I asked for, Jake. But that’s not what you gave. And to make matters worse, you had the audacity to follow up the latter by accusing me of “trying to sneak race in the back door without acknowledging it directly.”

Did you bother to even read the TITLE of my essay?!?! For (Black) Pete’s sake, it’s: ‘Ancient Chinese Secret: These 14 Phenomenal Photos Reveal There Were Indeed Black Chinese.’

Right above that tell-all kinda’ title is a photo that offers some big, fat context clues/visual aids to support what the essay is about: Black Chinese people.

And in addition to that title and the 14 photos, the essay makes liberal use of terms like: black woman, Black Chinese, black people, blacks, ‘black southern barbarians,’ etc.

So how it is you think I’m tryna “sneak” race in the back door of a friggin’ HOUSE that’s constructed on the concept of race is beyond me.

Even more laughably, to add insult to ridiculousness, near the end of your last reply you brought up the ‘Black Irish.’

That’s the equivalent of bringing up how hard the Irish had it in America during a discussion about the enslavement of Africans, Jake.

But since you brought it up, let me also make this clear: nothing about the Irish–in relation to a discussion about black folks in pre-modern China–will offer me “enjoyment or contemplation.” Its only purpose, Jake, is to offer another distraction for the argument against my work that you tried and failed to make.