Phantom147

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Malia Bouattia". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 7 August 2016.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 20:44, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Malia Bouattia, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 03:08, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Are North Africans black?

You seem to think the answer to this question is cut-and-dried. But, as an anthropologist, I can tell you that the meaning of blackness has varied over time, and continues to vary from society to society. To name one example, Ancient Egyptians were referred to as "black" by the Greeks and Romans, despite the fact that they would have been considered "brown" by many people today.

For more reading, see Black Britons (a category that often includes North Africans, though this is debated) and https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Black_people#Northern_Africa. (Even in the United States, where blackness is firmly tied to sub-Saharan ancestry, I know of some North Africans who identify as black, although they are of a much darker hue than Ms. Bouattia, and their claims have not gained mainstream attention or acceptance to this point.)

You seem to think I'm a defender of Bouattia. Not so. She's a hectoring political correctite and a casual antisemite. But she's not lying about her race. You can say she's "wrong" to identify as she does; indeed I added criticism of her racial identity to the article. But her identification is based on her established (Algerian) heritage and is grounded in ample historical precedent.

More importantly, her claim to be black is supported by almost every RS to comment on the matter. That's what we go off of on Wikipedia. With respect to Dolezal, she is not called black because no one refers to her as black; if public/academic opinion on Dolezal changes then we (Wikipedia) will call her black. Steeletrap (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I genuinely don't understand why you have a problem with the page as is. It covers the controversy over her racial identity, states her basis for it (Algerian heritage), and clearly implies that she is not sub-Saharan African. Readers are perfectly capable of deciding whether they think she is black or not based on these facts. If we just stated black uncritically, I'd get your beef; but we provide all the facts to the readers.

For the record: I dislike Bouattia and would not consider her black (whatever that means). I added the criticism of her racial identity to the article. All I care about is NPOV. Steeletrap (talk) 21:56, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I explicitly told you not to do that until this is resolved. I am calling in a moderator. and reverting your edit. if you think i will stop you are wrong. and stop commenting here, the article has a talk page for a reason.Phantom147 (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)