Equatorial Africa is a term currently being used in place of "Sub-Saharan Africa" in anthropological and racial discussions. The term "sub-saharan" africa has been used throughout the modern era to distinguish Black-African societies south of the Sahara Desert from the more Arab dominated societies north of the Saharan Desert. The empathsis on making it clear that the north african societies, especially Egypt and Sudan (which have been given historical significance by both the established White/European/Caucasian social order and by the Afrocentric movement, which both claim the heritage of Egypts historical culture.
Psychological Significance
The use of "Sub-saharan" Africa is becoming offensive to in that it reinforces a psychological "submissiveness" to the European and Caucasian influence throughout the world, as well as isolation from the rest of the world. The arguement against this is that the offense is a politically correct nuance that ignores the "southern" orientation of that part of the continent. However the term's use of "sub" would indicate a psychological aspect that does reinforce the age old racial hierarchy of inequity. For example, sub-urban, a term that correctly describes small cities outside of a major city is no longer pronounced correctly in American Standard English as the sub-urban areas became predominantly white and thus psychologically speaking the term was modified in pronunciation to be "su-burbs" or even "burbs". For most, the actual meaning and origin of the word is entirely lost. Pronouncing "sub-urban" to an American would be offensive. Thus the negative psychological response to being labled part of a 'sub'-group is unquestioned.
Relevance
Equatorial Africa describes more clearly the nature of the people, their relationship to the continent, and most importantly their relationship to other peoples throughout the world. "Equatorial people" would indicate indigenous people of the world closest to the equator, from the East Indian, Australian, Filipino to the African, and to some extent Oceania and South America. These people are known to be either closely related to each other or very similar in appearance and experience (especially in interactions with white Europeans). This would be a direct contrast to the Northern Eurasian supergroup of people. Equatorial Africans are also linked closely to the Southern Eurasian Supergroup of people, as the migration patterns across the Indian Ocean have indicated direct cultural ties (E.x Madagascar shows Chinese/South East Asian mixture, while Indonesia/Thailand has shown peoples identical in appearance to Equatorial Africans). This is significant as most of the western world is unaware of the similarities across the Indian Ocean cultures from Africa to Indonesia, in both directions. The main goal is to re-integrate the significance of Black African oriented people among the rest of the population.
Modern Psychological arguements
The prevailing bias in the study of people is that the Black Africans only received influence, and never actively participated in significant settling and colonizing of areas outside of the continent since the early bronze age, except as slaves and soldiers commissioned by non-black empires. This myth, although unfounded, persists due to a large part to the way Africa is understood. It is a continent surrounded by water, and the first assumption from that is that the Black African societies were unable to sail due to this 'barrier', even though all other societies had become capable of overcoming it. Secondly, the areas of the northeast correspond to the only habitable region between the Equatorial (Sub-saharan) realm and the Mediterranean coast, and it is assumed that colonization of this area would have been done mostly by the non-Equatorial type (Caucasoid, Semetic, Hamitic, etc) and the Equatorial Africans (Black/Negroid) did not significantly interact in the area due to the 'barrier' of the cateracts of the Nile. These biases, in addition to the false classifications of the Indian-Ocean people as non-Equatorial (non-negroid) has caused historical analysis to have a virtual blind spot. This blind spot has made it impossible for historians to study Africa, India, and S.E. Asia in the context of the Indian Ocean, and has put more empathsis on Northern routes (like the spice trade route) between Caucasoid and Mongoloid peoples (North Euroasiatic Supergroup)