Afrocentrism
Righty: The glorification of African culture is just a transparent attempt by disaffected black intellectuals to further discredit our European heritage and weave a web of self-aggrandizing myths and lies around their primitive culture. Let’s get real: how can you compare tribal masks to the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Afrocentrists even have the audacity to claim the ancient Egyptians as ancestors of today’s African Americans, when everyone knows the Egyptians weren’t black. Afrocentrists are clearly desperate to find some evidence of distinction in their past, but their efforts are either self-deluding or plainly dishonest. To make matters worse, they’re actually teaching this drivel in schools today. What about teaching black kids how to read and write so they don’t end up as angry, drug-dealing street thugs or unwed teenage mothers?
Lefty: Africa was the birthplace of humankind and home to the most ancient civilization on the planet. Africans built the pyramids and the Sphinx; they created brilliant works of art while Europeans huddled over peat fires to warm their sorry backsides. Systematically excluded from our racist school curricula until now, Africa has re-emerged as the cultural focal point in restoring pride and dignity to millions of African-American students — the descendants of enslaved Africans who had been blatantly deprived of their cultural birthright for centuries.
The New Moderate:
African history and culture are worth studying, but so is everyone’s heritage. All world history courses (and world history must become a requirement in all public schools) should include a segment on Africa — as well as on Europe, the Middle East, India, China, Latin America (you get the picture).
The Afrocentrists’ emphasis on the glories of their African heritage might boost the self-esteem of underachieving black kids, and that’s a worthy goal. But at what price? Dismissal of (and hostility toward) European history as little more than a chronicle of systematic imperialist exploitation? Further self-ghettoization of the already ghettoized African American community? The creation of a narcissistic cultural identity that clouds reality with wishful half-truths? (Yes, the ancient Egyptians were African; no, they weren’t black.)
The cultivation of a mythic Afrocentric world-view, like the invented holiday Kwanzaa, springs from noble intentions but will only dig a deeper gulf between the black community and the rest of American society. Include African history and folk traditions in every social studies curriculum, definitely — but teach it accurately, and don’t make it the focal point of a black child’s education. With slavery and Jim Crow dead and buried, black separatism should join them in the cultural graveyard.
Should American blacks take pride in their African heritage? Absolutely. With a passion. Do they need to connect with Africa in order to feel good about themselves and their achievements? Absolutely not. What a sad idea. African Americans need no validation from another continent. A four-century history of suffering and redemption on these shores is validation enough. African Americans are, above all else, quintessentially American, and they have an abundance of American heroes to admire. In a New Moderate’s utopia, some of those heroes might even be white.
Summary: Afrocentrism is a well-intentioned but divisive influence. Include African history in social studies courses, but keep it free of dogma and don’t make it the core of a black child’s education.
We really shouldn’t edit history to favor one group, no matter the intent behind the revisions, because obvious lies discredit people and lead to disaffection. The last thing any group needs is to go and say “we’re better than you.” It’s still racist if a minority says it. The Egyptians weren’t black, the Nubians weren’t always in charge, and yes, Europe screwed over Africa. Why? Because they needed more stuff to kill each other with/money, and they could. Just because your culture got royaly screwed doesn’t mean you get to be a self-righteous jerk, and just because your culture dominated doesn’t mean you should be proud, or ashamed. WE WERE NOT THERE, no guilt, no reperations, pity, or smugness, history is just facts and they are to be kept neutral so future generations, and here’s the important bit, DO NOT, make the same stupid mistakes over and over again. Not to make anyone feel good/bad.
I agree with most of your post. Europe also screwed North and South America because they could. But that is old history. And history is meant to be learned from so we don’t repeat the same mistakes, as you said, not so we can get angry and blame people for our current mistakes. We are all responsible for our own actions no matter what, or who, our ancestor was. I am the descendant of a Viking who raped a Scottish woman. I have no intention of asking reparation from one of the countries the Vikings came from…it is old history. Not everything in history is pretty. Children need to be taught HONEST history and Whole history, not fanciful bits that make it seem like a fairy tale. I did “afterschooling” with my children to fill in what the school left out. History was a big subject for us because the school did such a bad job. My kids came home after Martin Luther King Day and told me that “he freed the slaves” and he was a really great “prophet” and one of my daughters asked my if we should pray to him. I went ballistic!! Spent a week teaching them about President Lincoln and the Civil War and of course called the school and reamed them out. But my girls said “If Lincoln freed the slaves, how come he doesn’t have a day off from school?” I didn’t have an answer to that one! Teach history Honestly so we can learn from it!
I don’t really have much to say beyond two rants…
I’m sick and tired of subsaharan Africans trying to claim Egypt and Carthage… Egyptians were not black, they were light brown or olive and depicted themselves as lighter than the Nubians which they considered inferior barbarians, and darker than the caananites who they also considered to be inferior barbarians…And the Carthaginians weren’t even African, they came from Lebanon in the middle east. If anything I, someone who’s family comes from the Mediterranean, is closer to either of the aforementioned groups than anyone beyond that impassable desert that marked the end of the world for most of antiquity.
To add, the Greeks had the same olive supremacist attitude… their take was interesting, they considered the white people to the north to be moral but stupid primitives, and the darker people to the south to be more intelligent but also dishonest.
That’s more or less it, I don’t care about black Jesus, its bs but then he didn’t look likeTed Nugent either. Plus, you know, atheist.
My comment is similar to Giuliano. I’m sick and tired of hearing people trying to be something they’re not. You are what you are. Black America does NOT know its history pre-slavery and it has only recently come out that through extensive genetic research, most “African-Americans” are descended from peoples in very SPECIFIC parts of Africa. Secondly, the term “African-American” is rather inappropriate since MOST of today’s American blacks have NO connection to anyone on the continent of Africa. They know NOTHING about the various cultures/countries there – to include sadly – from which TRIBES they even come. Being African doesn’t make you black by the way, since many colors, races, ethnicities, proliferate that continent. Creating a past for yourself does not make it so.
Giuliano and Ami: Afrocentrism is a touchy issue, and I didn’t want to rub salt in any 400-year-old wounds. I think what we’re seeing when American blacks claim Egyptians as their ancestors is a kind of desperate grab for prestige, even if it’s retroactive prestige.
They’ve looked at statues of full-lipped ancient Egyptians, noted that the Egyptians were Africans like them, and made a kind of flying leap in logic to link themselves with a great culture. (“Egyptians were African. We’re African. Therefore, we’re Egyptian.) We know, as you’ve both observed, that the ancient Egyptians weren’t black, because they depicted black people in their art with a distinctively different look.
I’m guessing that today’s blacks (including some highly educated ones) are selectively ignoring the evidence in a misguided attempt to erase centuries of brutal treatment and low status. Some of the educated Afrocentrists are probably playing the Egyptian heritage card as a weapon to use in belittling Whiteys’“Johnny-come-lately” European pedigree.
It’s irritating, I know, but it’s also sad… as if American blacks feel so inferior that they need to dig up 5000-year-old “ancestors” to justify their existence. Good grief, there have been so many great and distinguished blacks since the Civil War that it seems almost pathological for them to harp on the greatness of their imaginary Egyptian heritage. I guess this is what happens when you’ve been told you’re inferior for generation after generation. Their response is understandable, but that doesn’t make it right. And it certainly doesn’t justify the spreading of falsehoods within the academic world.
Postscript: If American blacks want to celebrate their ancestral heritage, they can look to the Nubians (the Egyptians might have looked down on them, but they still had a pretty impressive civilization) as well as some West African cultures (like the Ife) that created first-rate art.
What disturbs me as much as Afrocentrism is the increasing conversion of American blacks to Islam. To me it’s evidence that blacks are still feeling alienated from white people, to the extent that they want to distance themselves and even segregate themselves from mainstream American society. I hope they realize that Mohammed was white. (Dark white, but still Caucasian.)
Here in Philly, I see so many black women clad in black from head to foot even on hot summer days. I wonder when African Americans will finally start identifying as Americans. I’d have thought Obama’s election would do it, but I guess he’s “not black enough.”
Agreed. He could NEVER be “black enough” for them because he acknowledges having a white parent, just like his detractors want to IGNORE the fact that his mother is white…hence the Kenya Muslim birther crap. During my entire existence the black community has gone from negro to colored to black to Afro-American to African American. When I asked one black person what was with all the different labels over the last 50 years, the response was, “Well…our community has never REALLY known where we’re from….” I guess that says it all.
And interesting that you’ve mentioned their conversion to Islam. If they are still feeling alienated from white people as you’ve pointed out..this will not help their cause. I went to Turkey in 1997 and the tour guide said as far as his country was concerned, American Black Muslims are not regarded as “true Muslims” because the men wear “bling bling”, which is considered a FEMALE thing. Muslim men don’t wear jewelry. (Just quoting the tour guide).
And another interesting point, an Egyptian woman told me that it was the ENGLISH who made a distinction between “Egyptians” and the Sudanese…only because the Sudanese are black. Egyptian people have no issues with “blackness” or the Sudan, and consider the Sudan part of Egypt. Hence the Sudanese are Egyptian as far as Egyptians are concerned….which of course, as you’ve already pointed out, does NOT make Black America “Egyptian”.
Black people should be proud –there are many accomplished people who claim to be members of the black and mixed races. However, claiming the ancient Egyptians were black, is kind of telling the actual Egyptians that THEY have no rights to their own history and heritage. This could cause an identity crisis for the Eqyptians—at least for those who are deluded enough to think that they are, well, Egyptians—- and that their ancient ancestors—were—well, their ancestors. My Egyptian friends seem to think THEY are Egyptian–you know, a brown semitic type people who historically have lived in Egypt? Although they think black people are wonderful, they don’t think they themselves are black nor their ancestors. And, they believe, THEY are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Since the afrocentrist movement centers in America, I don’t get how these people who don’t live in Egypt think they should dictate to the Egyptians who their ancestors were. I mean, I’m sure the Swedes would just love to be told their ancestors are black, cuz, well blacks are just great, but it just isnt accurate, and most Swedes, like most other people, just want the truth -cuz reality can be a mentally healthy thing, right? What if a bunch of Swedes decided they were actually the ancestors of the sub-saharan black Africans?—It’s easy to twist up some data to sound accurate—so they could do that and call it the Swedo Centric movement.