WEWUZKINGZ”, also iterated as“KANGZNSHIET”, is an expression primarily used by users of 4chan’s/pol/(politically incorrect) board to poke fun at those who adhere to the Black Egyptian Hypothesis, an often disputed theory which postulates that Ancient Egypt was a Black civilization and that some of the most notable royal figures from the Dynastic era were of African ethnicity, including Tutankhamen, Cleopatra and Pharaoh Khafra, who is generally believed to be the face depicted on The Great Sphinx of Giza. In addition to its widespread usage on /pol/, the phrase has been also adopted by detractors of Pan-Africanism on other discussion forums, including white supremacist and nationalist websites.
Origin
The phrase is believed to have been coined on 4chan’s /pol/ (politically incorrect) board sometime around late 2015 by users who began assuming an increasingly skeptical and critical stance towards the new wave of African American civil rights protests surrounding a series of racially charged police brutality controversies, most notably the#blacklivesmattermovement andcivil unrest in Baltimore.
Background
The Black Egyptian Hypothesis[1]is a theory claiming that Ancient Egypt was a Black Civilization, thereby questioning the ethnicity of the Ancient Egyptian population and affirming that the civilization was comprised of a black majority. Upon its introduction during the first half of the 20th century, the theory quickly gained support among several leading African American scholars and became a popular subject of academic studies for historians, though it has been since largely marginalized as inconclusive or anachronistic by most scholars.
Spread
According toEncyclopedia Dramatica,[3]the phrase was anonymously coined on 4chan sometime around November 2015, which subsequently spread to YouTube with the upload of a video titled “We wuz kings and shit senpai” on November 21st (shown below).
