Hey, bit of background, I'm a college student who is currently enrolled in a class that focuses on Alexander the Great's conquests and legacy. I've learned so much about that period of time this semester, and it has quickly become one of my favorite courses ever!

In several of the lectures, my professor brought up how one of Alexander's closest companions, Ptolemy I Sotor (as he'd come to be known), ended up in charge of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, which controlled the region for close to 300 years.

This line of rulers seems to all be descended from ethnically European Macedonians/Greeks, and they seem to have inbred quite a bit.

Cleopatra the 7th, the one we simply refer to as Cleopatra, was the very last in this Macedonian dynasty.

So, that brings me to my question. Why do some people seriously seem to believe that she was racially "black"? It makes no sense to me. I know 1 person in real life who believes this, but she won't really explain why she believes that, which prompted me to post this question here.

If Cleopatra was the result of the inbreeding of a long line of Macedonians, how could anyone realistically claim that she was black?

I guess this has to do more with modern history and historical revisionism than ancient history. When did this notion first appear and why does it persist?