How we began the study of African history and what we need to study is important. The discussion makes it clear that eventhough each person has nad a different experience coming around to learning about African history it has always been an experience in which the learner has had to go out of his way to gain knowledge of the subject.
Since books are easy to come by we usually have a very good knowledge of the "big picture", i.e., the Mali and Ghana empires, but we know almost nothing about the cultures and civilizations that led up to these great ancient Black Empires like Sumer and Elam . This results from the fact that most of this knowledge base is found in articles.
In the 1970's it was easy to find this material because there were so few publications to read. Now when I go to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, to keep up with the literature, just in the field of ancient history I am overwhelmed by the literature sources. Much of it leading nowhere because of the Eurocentric nature--doxic assumptions made by many authors of these works--which were published to support the status quo view of history.
As a result, to truely benefit from this body of literature you need a frame of reference. People like to study Egypt because Diop provides this frame of reference. To study other aspects of African history is hard for most people because they don't have the background to interpret the material. This is further complicated by the fact that many English speaking Africans are so brain washed that they have failed to seriously research their history, as opposed to the French speaking Africans, and as a result Eurocentric dogmas continue to dominate interpretation of history in these areas.
I will never forget how in 1985, I wrote a three volume World History of Black people for Ahmad Patel, a Nigerian publisher which Nigerian historians refused to support because they could not believe we had such a history. Subsequently Patel got so mad at me, he refused to publish the books or give me the proofs to publish them myself.
This incident made it clear to me that writing about African history is a priority--but if we wait for English speaking Africans, especially Nigerians to do this, it will never happen because the academe in English speaking Africa is so gutless. -
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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My interest in linguistics and ancient languages began back when I was a preteen living on the Southside of Chicago. At this time I lived near a Moorish Science Temple.
At this temple many of the people spoke Arabic. I often talked to the Moors and they taught me Arabic.
This experience had a great affect on me. It taught me that I could learn languages easily. As a result, I decided to learn French in High School. I studied French for four years.
At DuSable High School they had one of the first Afro-American history programs in the late 1960s. I enjoyed studying history so I decided that I would be a High School History teacher specializing in African and Afro-American history.
In the fall of 1969 I began study at the University of Illinois-Urbana. At the U of I-Urbana I graduated with both my B.A. and Master's Degrees in June 1973.
At UofI I took just about every African history course and I earned an unofficial minor in African studies. My History professor was Charles Steward.
Dr. Steward taught every African history course at the University back in the early 1970's. He specialized in Islamic history. My background in Arabic and French allowed me the ability to read many of the primary documents relating to African Islamic History. This also encouraged me to learn more about the Arabic language.
As a student at Illinois I worked for the Student Affairs Department. One of my duties was to organize programs for Afro-American students living in the dorms.
One of my major projects was publishing a literary magazine for Afro-American students called Yombo. In this magazine I wrote many articles on ancient Black History. My most important article was on Africans in ancient America. In this article I discussed all the evidence of Africans living in America before Columbus came to the New World.
It was while writing this article that I became familiar with the work of Leo Wiener's Africa and the Discovery of America. Reading this book introduced me to the Mande influence in Mexico, and the possibility that the Olmec introduced writing to the Mexicans as evidenced by the Tuxtla statuette.
I was especially interested in East African history, so I minored in Swahili for my Master's Degree and decided I would become a specialist in East African History.
I chose this area because of the fact John Williams in his book: The man who Cried I am, mentioned the fact that knowledge of Yemeni textual material may allow one to understand why the Africans and Chinese shared many cultural items and traditions. My Master's Thesis was titled Zanj to Zanj: Blacks in the Countries Bordering the Indian Ocean.
It was while writing this thesis I began to learn about the Dravidians in India. Having read the work of Anta Diop and Th. Obenga in French , I knew the Dravidians and Africans shared cognate cultures and languages. Th. Obenga even talked about an Indo-African family of languages.
After College I taught High School and wrote articles for a Swahili language magazine. The article I wrote for Yombo regarding the Pre-Columbian Blacks and my Master's thesis have been the inspiration behind my interest in ancient scripts. These works led to my interest in the literature of Blacks in ancient Asia and the Americas.
Later I learned that the Mande speaking people had created many writing systems. Wangara mentioned that the Mande probably left inscriptions in the Americas--via the Vai syllabary. Once I saw the Vai script and learned about the Vai tradition that it was invented in ancient times I studied the Vai script and found that I could use it to read the inscriptions on the LaVenta celts.
My linguistic studies indicated to me that the Dravidians, Mande, Sumerians and Elamites spoke cognate languages that share a genetic linguistic connection. Given the fact that the Mande and Dravidians spoke cognate languages I hypothesized that the Indus Valley writing might also be deciphered using the phonemic values of the Vai signs, but reading the signs in Tamil. This hypothesis was correct and I deciphered the Indus Valley writing.
Since then I have went on to decipher the Proto-Sumerian, Meroitic and Minoan A scripts. In the following pages we will explore the literature these Blacks left mankind over the millennia.
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Why do we study ancient Black History? We study it because it explains where what we were and what we can do to make the world better today.
Amos Wilson, in the Falsification of Afrikan consciousness: Eurocentric history, psychiatry and the politics of white Supremacy (New York: Afrikan World Inforsystems, 1993), discussed how the lack of real awareness of Black history can cause mental problems. Wilson wrote that "When we permit another people to name and define, we permit another people to gain dominion and control over us" (p.22).
Dr. Wilson adds that "We must recognize the intimate relationship between culture history and personality. If we do not know our history then we do not know our personality" (p.23).
This led Dr. Wilson to declare: "History is used to intimidate African people and make them feel inferior and cultureless" (p.27
Many people of African descent are separated from their true history because they fail to realize that Eurocentrists write history to maintain the status quo, to day this purpose is white supremacy. Dr. Wilson, maintains that "The European writing of history is in tandem with everything else European and its purpose is ultimately the same: to maintain European power and domination" (p.25).
The best way to maintain this domination is to encourage African people to concentrate on slavery and the West African kingdoms because this period relates to the expansion of the European. If you read official history text, except for the kingdom of Meroe, Blacks did not have any great civilizations until the raise of the West African kingdoms and the Muslim domination of the Indian Ocean.
We are encouraged to study this period because it corresponds to the period when the Europeans began to expand. This fits in with the myth that Europeans have always ruled the world. This is a myth, Black Muslims in Spain and Portugal ruled much of these countries until 1492. In addition, Africa did not come under the domination of European powers until 1899, and for a considerable period after this date European powers were trying to militarily pacify Africa.
Although Europeans were not ruling much of the world until the 20th century, History text makes it appear that this hegemony existed much earlier. It is this myth making done through the writing of history by Europeans that has encouraged feelings of inferiority among many people of African descent. To fight this myth, and create an intact mental structure that promotes positive attributions within African people demands that you accurately study your history from an Afrocentric perspective.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Blacks writing ancient history have always been discouraged. They tell African people to write about slavery and the African kingdoms, everything else should be written by Europeans.
African researchers should not limit themselves to these periods of history writing. We must write about ancient history because this situates a people in time and culture. In the U.S., there are constant demands for Universities to return to teaching the Classics from Greece and Rome. Yet many Black people at University do not even study their history because they feel that all they need is to be credentialed in some field so they can get a job.
Knowing your history will reinvigorate your mind and spirit. Amos Wilson in The Falsification of Afrikan consciousness: Eurocentric history, psychiatry and the politics of white supremacy believes that the African spirit and mind can be healed through the advancement of African centered historiagraphic, social and natural sciences. Wilson wrote "Apparently the rewriting, the distortion and the stealing of our history must serve vital economic, political and social functions for the Europeans or else he would not bother and try so hard to keep our history away from us, and to distort it in our own minds" (p.15).
To Wilson we should see history as psychohistory, since the aim of writing Black people out of history is to destroy any sense of intellectual or social self-esteem for African people. Wilson noted that" In the final analysis, European history's principal function is to first separate us from ourselves and separate us from the reality of the world; to separate us from the reality of our history and to separate us from its ramifications"(p.24).
Wilson maintains that we must study Afrocentric History, because Europeans use history as a way of maintaining white supremacy; and the study of history by Blacks is a threat to the status quo. Some Black people belief that the writing of history is neutral. Writing history is not neutral. Michael Parenti, in History as Mystery (1999), believes that history is not neutral. In his opinion history is written by the ruling class to solidify their position. He observed that "much written history is an ideologically safe commodity. It might best be called "mainstream history", "orthodox history", "conventional history" and even "ruling-class history" because it presents the dominant perspective of the affluent people who preside over the major institutions of society" (Perenti, p.xi).
Parenti, supports Wilsons' view on the impact of Eurocentrism on education when he noted that " many history and political science programs offered in middle and higher education rest on a Eurocentric bias" (p.xiv). As a result, Parenti argues that we learned a "disinformational history" which represents the views of the ruling class rather than real history (p.10). As a result, Parenti claims that we have "consensus history textbooks" that teaches history from a distorted base.
The comments of Wilson and Parenti make it clear that history is not written from a neutral perspective, it is written by historians who define what history is or is not. This means that due to dozal, the personality and preconceptions of the historians determine how he writes history. As a result, we find that "establishment" historians usually write history which supports the dominant view of the ruling class, which primarily support institutions of higher learning through well funded endowments. The allegiance of a particular historian to a class or "association" means that when the historian identifies, selects and interprets facts, and the framework used to appraise the facts will be guided by the truths accepted by the "association" or social class. This is why Jacques Berlinerblau, in Heresy in the University: The Black Athena controversy and the responsibilities of American intellectuals (1999), observed that "How can a social-scientist, a historian, a literary criticism etc., claim that his or her conclusion are in any way true when it is so abundantly clear that these conclusions are inextricably bound with the social and political contexts in which he or she works and lives?"(p.192).
Since history is written from the perspective of the person writing history, an Afrocentric scholar's work should be respect just as much as the writing of a Eurocentric or "establishment" historian, but this is not the case.
This is why both Eurocentric and so-called Liberal historians will usually agree that Blacks lack any type of ancient history, or association with Egyptian history. They agree, because both groups do not believe that Blacks have a ancient history due to their absorption of "consensus history", that deny any role of blacks in ancient history except as "Ethiopian" or "Nubian" slaves among the Creeks, Romans and Egyptians.
We assume that any article or book written by an establishment member of the academe is best on valid historical truths, erudite scholarship and impeccable research. Although insiders and outsiders alike, sociological research indicates that there are unconscious cognitive structures within each individual hold this view idealistic view of members of the academe that determine how they perceive "reality". These structures are called doxa. Commenting on these schema Berlinerblau (1999) noted that "These types of theories share the assumption that human beings know things that they do not even know that they know; that they "possess" knowledge about the world which exists in some sort of cognitive substrate, beyond the realm of discourse" (p.106).Wacquant (1995) says that doxa is " a realm of implicit and unstated beliefs".
Given the research suggesting that doxa exist, support the view that some researchers allow their hatred of multiculturalism to define their discourse on teaching and writing by Afrocentrists and multiculturalists. Moreover, it suggests that when topics such as Afrocentrism are attacked by members of the academe, these academics are supported by the "establishment" without any reservation or test of the validity of their claims. In fact, it appears that doxic assumptions relating to the invalidity of Afrocentrism obviates critique of the academics that disparage Afrocentrist research. This research is attacked by these scholars without the scholars presenting any counter evidence to falsify the Afrocentric position.
People in Afrocentric studies are serious scholars. They use the same methods that other scientists use, the only difference is that they look at issues from an africalogical perspective. There is nothing wrong in taking such a perspective since all history is written from the personal perspective of the historian writing that history. If your frame of reference for Afrocentric study is based solely on the views of outsiders: Liberals and Eurocentrists you will spend the rest of your life trying to prove that Black people have a history, when Eurocentric and liberal European researchers already know that WE HAVE A HISTORY.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Social science research is about explanations, this results from the fact that the objective of social science is to explain social life. The method of this research is the development of the research question, choosing a design for the study, and deciding on how you will acquire and analyze the data to explain a social phenomena.
The four social science methods are: surveys, ethnogrphy, the study of records and history. To write anthropology and history we directly analyze the data using one's synthesis and reflection of the data under study.
The research question in historical research relates to what really happened at a particular point in time, or at a particular place. This means that the historical method involves reading documents, especially primary documents relating to the time and place you are studying.
Since you are relying on documents and other evidence including anthropological and archaeological knowledge and even gentics today, the historical narration is depended on the quality and abundance of evidence used in writing about a historical event, place and etc.
There is no "truth" in writing history, the story we tell is only an approximation of an actual event because we are interpreting this event or place based on the reports of others, may they be the primary records (usually from an eyewitness) relating to an event or the archaeologist's interpretation of the artifacts s/he discovered during excavation.
The historical research method after all is said and done is depended on the historian's interpretation and analysis of the data he is reading. As a result, the historical narrative can not be considered the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because new documents or artifacts may be uncovered that contradict the so-called established "fact".
If "facts" can be manipulated by "new" data, which in turn makes a former truth, false, there is no way we can conduct research based on "facts" because in any type of research the "facts" can change over time, as we acquire new sources of information.
If "facts" change with the discovery of new data, "truth" is transitory, and therefore worthless as a heuristic in the social sciences. This is why social science researchers use the terms confirm and disconfirm, instead of "fact" and "truth" relating to this or that phenomena or event under study.
You ask why history is based on race. It is based on race because history tells stories about people. As a result we have histories of Germany, that discuss Germans, while a history of Japan will discuss Japanese. You can not write a history of any country and its people without writing about race.
If you read a history of WWII historians will discuss the role of different races in the War: Japanese, Germans and Americans. There would be no history without a discussion of race.
The ability of data to determine what is "true" or a "fact" overtime,makes it impossible use truth and facts to determine what happened or didn't happen in the past. A research question therefore can either be confirmed, or rejected based on the evidence, it can not be a "truth" or "fact", due to the temporal nature of data/information.
For the above reasons we must reject a heuristic based on seeking truth and fact. Race will always be involved in writing history because, race is a reality of social life.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: Clyde - Not meaning to pry, but why waste such a nice manifesto on this crew?
I have always believed in teaching to the one. What this means is that if just one persons learns something new which makes them more informed after reading what I wrote than before they read it--I have accomplished my goal in spreading knowledge.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Below are some of the assumptions associated with Africalogical research.
Philosophical Basis for the Africalogical study of ancient history
There are four philosophical schools associated with the afrocentric study of ancient history: perennialist, essentialist, existentialist, and progressivist. The taxonomic system we use to classify the various afrocentric philosophical positions and related values affecting afrocentrism are modeled on philo-sophical developments associated with education.
We can use taxonomies of educational philosophies to discuss any proposed afrocentric curriculum because both education and philosophy are "cultural experiences". Moreover, because afrocentrism seeks to explain and delineate the story of African people, it clearly is a field of study which encompasses all aspects of the culture of Black and African people (Asante, 1990, 1991; Winters, 1994).
The perennialist afrocentrists study the great works. The adherents of this school include Martin Delaney (1978), Cornish and Russwurm (1827), Frederick Douglas (1966), and Edward Blyden (1869). These Afrocentrists see knowledge as truth, which is eternal.
The essentialist afrocentric school emphasize in their writing data that is well established through scientific research. Afrocentrists of this philosophical school include W. E. B. DuBois (1965, 1970), John Jackson (1974), C.A. Winters (1985, 1989, 1991, 1994) and Leo Hansberry (1981). They believe that as new research is published, it should be analyzed to discover how it relates to the ancient history of African and Black people to enrich our understanding of the past.
The existentialist afrocentrists believe that africalogical studies should thrive to teach African people to know more about themselves so we can have a better world. The afrocentric existentialists include J.A. Rogers, Anta Diop (1974, 1991), G.M. James (1954), Marcus Garvey (1966) and A.A. Schomburg (1979).
The final afrocentric philosophical school is the progressivist. The afrocentric school of progressivism believes that we should have knowledge of the process and futuristic focus on afrocentric studies. The major exponent of this frame of reference is Molefi K. Asante (1991). In regards to the afrocentric view that the Egyptians were Black Africans we must look to the afrocentric perennialists.
The perennialists founded the afrocentric ancient history curriculum. The perennialist school is associated with Frederick Douglas (1966) and Martin Delaney (1978). These Afrocentrists writing in the 19th century placed the great works of the past center stage in the formulation of their afrocentric ancient history knowledge base.
The perennialists postulated that you should use the Bible and the writings of the classical scholars who recognized the "Ancient Model" of history (i.e., Blacks played a major role in ancient history) in deciding on what to teach people about the ancient history of African Americans. The Old Testament provides annals of the ancient Empires of Africa and Mesopotamia. In the Old Testament the Blacks are recognized as the sons of Ham. According to the Old Testament narrative found in the Book of Genesis (10:6), the children of Ham, are alleged to be the founders of all the ancient civilizations including Kush (the Ta Seti, and C-Group cultures of Nubia and the Sudan; the Sumerians of Mesopotamia and the Elamites of Iran), Mizraim (the founder of the Egyptians), Phut (the civilizations of ancient Ethiopia/ South Arabia), and Canaan (the early Canaanites and Hattians of ancient Palestine). The Old Testament narrative and the classical literature was important to the perennialists because it already recognized the division of Black people of Africa into two groups: the Semitic (Canaan and Phut) speakers and Black African (Egypt, Sumer and Elam) speakers (Winters 1985, 1989, 1991).
Africalogical Paradigms of ancient history As a result of the "Ancient Model" scientific efforts of africalogical ancient history researchers of the diverse philosophical schools discussed above is organized around two theoretical or empirical generalizations\paradigms. An empirical generalization is 'an isolated proposition summarizing observed uniformities of relationships between two or more variables" (Merton, 1957, 95), a "scientific law" is "a statement of invariance derivable from a theory" (Merton, 1957, 96).
The two paradigms associated with ASAH developed by the perennialist afrocentric scholars are:
(1) Black\African people are the children of Ham;
(2) Blacks founded the first civilizations in Asia (Sumer, Babylon and Elam), Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya\ North Africa) and Europe (Greece and Crete).
The normal scientific research in africalogical ancient historical studies is directed toward the articulation of those phenomena and theories supplied by the ASAH to deduce new paradigms. Due to the foundation of africalogical ancient research by the afrocentric perennialists, ASAH research is paradigm based. As a result, africalogical ancient historical fact-gathering, that is the historical, linguistic and anthropological data through which afrocentric scientists inform their colleagues ( and the public at large) is based on these paradigms. The theoretical paradigms of the ASAH provide africalogical researchers with the criterion for choosing the problems and solutions to social science phenomena including:
(1) the design of research phenomena;
(2) the maps or areas of research; and
(3) the interpretation of research results.
The paradigms for ASAH predicted four hypothesis that were unknown at the time the "Ancient Model" of history was developed, to guide the development of scientific knowledge for the africalogical study of early history. These propositions based on the "Ancient Model" are: (1) If Blacks founded civilization in Asia and Africa , they may have influenced civilization in the Americas.
(2) If Blacks founded civilization in West Asia, Africa and Europe, archaeological data will support their earlier presence in these regions of the world.
(3) If Blacks founded the first civilizations, they also invented writing and other elements of social and scientific technology.
(4) If Blacks founded civilization they probably founded civilization throughout Asia and Europe.
Given the two empirical paradigms and four predicted hypothesis related to the "Ancient Model", africalogical ancient history research should increase the precision of the application of afrocentric research methods and scope of research in this area so as to answer three questions in the mature afrocentric social science.
Research in the afrocentric social sciences seeks to answer three classes of questions based on the ASAH paradigms:
(1) the determination of significant ASAH facts;
(2) the match of ASAH facts with theory; and
(3) the articulation of ASAH theory.
The normative function of the ASAH paradigms provides the afrocentric ancient history researchers with shared paradigms, or points of view that help define how s/he will research ancient history. These paradigms insure that africalogical researchers use the "Ancient Model" of research, as opposed to the "Aryan Model" of research to illuminate the early history of Black/African people.
The Africalogical ancient history paradigms developed by Delany (1978), Douglas (1966), Edward Blyden (1869) and Cornish and Russwurm (1827) form the theoretical base for ASAH research. In normal afrocentric social science research new paradigms have to 1) be related to the older theories; and 2) they must be compatible with already established rules for research modeled by the afrocentric perennialists.
Verification in Ancient Africalogical Research
Afrocentric social scientists use confirmation to verify the africalogical paradigm rather than falsification. Confirmatory knowledge is based on generalizing as a result of observation. Whereas confirmation is based on observation of observable facts, the aim of falsification is the rejection of an established theory.
The afrocentric scientific community seeks to obtain from their research one of three outcomes 1) confirmed (or corroborated) predictions based on the ASAH paradigm; 2) mixed outcomes, or 3) disconfirmed predictions based on the "Ancient Model". New paradigms resulting from africalogical ancient history research must have internal and external validity. Internal validity is the logical relationship between "facts" and reality, while external validity needs "empirical studies" or test to support any hypothesis. After the end of slavery in the United States, the africalogical scientific community began to conduct research to support the work done by the perennialists. The heroes in the founding of the africalogical ancient social science were usually professionally trained at Eastern Universities such as Harvard and Yale. Although, afrocentric researchers received training at prestigious Universities their research was usually conducted outside of the "established" academy.
Afrocentric Social Science Revolutions that Changed the Africalogical World View
Considerable progress has been made in the africalogical research of ancient history (DuBois, 1965, 1970; Diop, 1974,1991; Winters 1981\1982, 1991, 1994), classical studies (Parker, 1917, 1918) and the role of Blacks in ancient Indo-China and China (Winters, 1985) over the past 90 years. Marcus Garvey (1966) and DuBois (1965,1970) had a tremendous influence in the study of ancient Black history.
Marcus Garvey with the founding of the UNIA attracted many africalogical researchers to his organization. Some of these researchers wrote articles for the Negro World newspaper. These scholars formed the foundation for the africalogical scientific community including C.G Woodson, J. A. Rogers, William Ferris, Gerge W. Parker and Arthur A. Schomberg.
In addition to members of the UNIA playing a prominent role in the precision of prediction of the africalogical paradigm we find that afrocentric researchers belonging to the Hamitic League of the World (HLW), also contributed greatly to the enhancement of the "Ancient Model" and the ASAH paradigms at the turn of the 20th century.
John Albert Williams founded the HLW. Two its most prominent members include G. W. Parker (1917,1918) and A.A. Schomberg (1925). G.W. Parker greatly expanded the ASAH paradigm for classical study by providing a focused study of the role of blacks in Greece. Parker (1917) identified these ancient Afro-Greeks as Pelasgians. He also used linguistics to illustrate that the names of many Greek heroes betrayed there African, not Indo-European origin. In addition, Parker gave us the most detailed discussion of Blacks in India up to his time (Parker, 1918).
The second major confirmation for the "Ancient Model" of history was made by DuBois (1965,1970). In the Negro published in 1915, DuBois explained the African presence in Egypt and ancient Kush and a comprehensive analysis of the West African empires.
W.E.B. DuBois (1924) also firmly placed the presence of Blacks in America as a legitimate research area for africalogical researchers. In The Gift of Black Folks, discussed the Black presence in ancient America, including European references to Pre-Columbian Blacks, and the influence of Africans on the Amerindian religions (DuBois,1924). The confirmation of this paradigm was made by ( Clegg, 1975; Lawrence, 1962; Thompson, 1975; Winters, 1981\1982)
In The World and Africa, DuBois (1965) provides a full explanation of the role of Blacks in the early world. He explains the history of Blacks in China and India (pp.176-200); Blacks in Europe(the Pre-Indo-European Greeks and during the Dark Age of Greece), and Asia Minor (pp. 115-127), and the Egyptian foundation of Grecian thought (pp. 125-126).
The major revolution in the ASAH was the research of Diop (1974, 1991). Diop, a Senegalese expert on Egyptian and African history made important contributions to the ASAH paradigms, including:
1) clarification of the African role in Egypt;
2) proved positively that the West African people formerly lived in close proximity to the Egyptians who were in many cases their ancestors;
3) made Mdu Neter the Egyptian language the classical language for ancient africalogical research; and
4) developed the genetic model as the major paradigm in in the ASAH (Diop, 1991).
In general Diop (1974, 1991) caused an africalogical social scientific revolution because he was able to prove that Egypt was the archetypical civilization for many West Africans. This was an important discovery because almost all of the slaves that were sold in the United States had originally came from West Africa.
Verification of the Egyptian origin of West Africans provided African Americans with relationship to the ancient Egyptians. Moreover, Diop's use of linguistics, and anthropological evidence to confirm the African origin of Egypt eliminated the need for africalogical researchers to use the classical writers to prove the African origin of Egypt (Diop, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1986, 1987, 1988). This finding by Diop has led africalogical researchers to seek a better understanding of African philosophy through an interpretation of Egyptian philosophy. Moreover, africalogical researchers have also began the reconstruction of the Paleo-African language used by Blacks in prehistoric times (Anselin, 1982, 1982b, 1989; Winters, 1994) so that we will know more about the culture and civilization of the Proto-Africans.
The last major confirmation of the ASAH paradigms was made by Clyde Ahmad Winters (1977, 1979, 1981, 1983a, 1983c, 1983d, 1984, 1985) when he expanded our understanding of the role of Blacks\Africans in Indo-China, India and China; and the ancient literacy of Blacks (1979, 1983d, 1985c, 1986b). Using linguistic, anthropological and historical evidence, he proved that the earliest cultures of China and Indo-China were founded by Blacks from West Africa and modern Ethiopia (Winters, 1979, 1983d, 1985c, 1986b).
Winters also made it clear that the earliest Japanese were Blacks and that Japanese is related to African languages (Winters, 1979, 1981, 1983a, 1983c, 1984). In addition he was able to prove that the founders of Xia and Shang were of African and Dravidian origin (1983c,1985c).
Using the findings of Wiener in regards to the writing of the Olmecs Winters discovered that the Blacks from West Africa left numerous inscriptions written in the Manding language (Winters, 1977, 1979, 1983a, 1985b) . Winters later discovered that due to the cognition between the Mande writing and ancient scripts used by the Minoans and Indus Valley he could read the Indus Valley Writing and the Linear A inscriptions (1985b).
This africalogical research by Winters (1981/1982, 1983b, 1983d, 1989a, 1991, 1994) made it clear that the first civilizations in Indo-China and China were founded by Blacks. He has also proved the lie to Hume's (1875) claim that Blacks have "No literacy" and "No letters".
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Some of you may wonder why Wally, Mike and I rarely, if ever are defeated in a debate. We usually win because we follow knowledge first illuminated by founders of the Ancient Study of African History.
Research is the foundation of good science, or knowing in general. There are four methods of knowing 1) Method of tenacity (one holds firmly to the truth, because "they know it" to be true); 2) method of authority (the method of established belief, i.e., the Bible or the "experts" says it, it is so); 3) method of intuition (the method where a proposition agrees with reason, but not necessarily with experience); and 4) the method of science (the method of attaining knowledge which calls for self-correction).
Many researchers on Egyptsearch because they have been beaten down due to racism fail to practice science, they either use the method of authority or intuition. For example most researchers here believe that if something is written by a European what they write when thay pay a little lip service about Blacks playing a token role in ancient history here or there.
If they support a AA writing ancient history they only follow those Blacks the academe recognizes. They do this because they feel that since a Eurpean is an athority he must be right because he's white.
To explain the presence of Blacks as founders of the various ancient civilizations, we use the scientific method which calls for hypothesis testing, not only supported by experimentation, but also that of alternative plausible hypotheses that, may place doubt on the original hypothesis.
The aim of science is theory construction (F.N. Kirlinger, Foundations of behavior research, (1986) pp.6-10; R. Braithwaite, Scientific explanation, (1955) pp.1-10). A theory is a set of interrelated constructs, propositions and definitions, that provide a systematic understanding of phenomena by outlining relations among a group of variables that explain and predict phenomena.
Scientific inquiry involves issues of theory construction, control and experimentation. Scientific knowledge must rest on testing, rather than mere induction which can be defined as inferences of laws and generalizations, derived from observation.
Given this reality of science, since Wally, Mike and I are only writing about ancient history themes formulated by great researchers supported by empirical evidence it is only natural that when you oppose some of our theories the opposition will fail because their ideas that Blacks did not found the ancient civilizations have a foundation resting on sand.
They are so afraid to think for themselves that have bought into the idea that Blacks left Africa only once e.g., 6okya, eventhough the epigraphic, archaeological, historical and indicate that Blacks left Africa multiple times the last one was 5kya.
A good hypotheis is self generating. For example the DuBois and others made it clear that the Egyptians were Black Africans.
This led to the hypothesis, that if they were Black Africans, Egyptian would show a relationship to other African languages. This view was confirmed by Diop.
This led to a new hypothesis. If the Egyptian language is related to African languages, genetics will show a relation between ancient Egyptians and Africans . This hypothesis was confirmed by Keita.
Wally's thread on AAs and ancient Egyptians is a great example of hypothesis building.
Due to his research we have discovered that Egypt was a Pan-African civilization .
This led to the discovery that since Egypt was a Pan-African civilization the Egyptian language was probably a lingua franca.
Wally could do this by hypothesis building and testing the hyptotheses by looking at the evidence.
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You ask why history is based on race. It is based on race because history tells stories about people. As a result we have histories of Germany, that discuss Germans, while a history of Japan will discuss Japanese. You can not write a history of any country and its people without writing about race.
If you read a history of WWII historians will discuss the role of different races in the War: Japanese, Germans and Americans. There would be no history without a discussion of race.
This statement is wrong. You have mentioned geographical locations, not even so called "race" categorues.
History is not based on race. that is false
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The two paradigms associated with ASAH developed by the perennialist afrocentric scholars are:
(1) Black\African people are the children of Ham;
(2) Blacks founded the first civilizations in Asia (Sumer, Babylon and Elam), Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya\ North Africa) and Europe (Greece and Crete).
1) Are you saying that perennialist afrocentric scholars are religious perennialists rather than secular perennialists? You infer this by indicating the mythological Ham from the Bible as primary to perennialist afrocentrics but many afrocentrics believe that the original religions of man far predate Abraham faith and that Ham should not be implied to be a starting point, fundamental or even a real person.
2) Please list all Afrocentric scholars that believe blacks were not only the first inhabitants of the regions now called Greece but were also the founders of the classical period Greek civilization and define what it means to be the founder of a civilization, including what things were founded by black people in Greek civilization. thank you
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posted
Afrocentrism, is a mature social science that was founded by Afro-Americans almost 200 years ago.
These men and women provided scholarship based on contemporary archaeological and historical research the African/Black origination of civilization throughout the world. These Afro-American scholars, mostly trained at Harvard University (one of the few Universities that admitted Blacks in the 19th Century) provide the scientific basis for Afrocantrism and the global role played by African people in civilizing the world.
Afrocentrism and the africalogical study of ancient Black civilizations was began by Afro-Americans.
Edward Blyden
The foundation of any mature science is its articulation in an authoritive text (Kuhn, 1996, 136). The africalogical textbooks published by Hopkins (1905), Perry (1893) and Williams (1883) provided the vocabulary themes for further afrocentric social science research.
The pedagogy for ancient africalogical research was well established by the end of the 19th century by African American researchers well versed in the classical languages and knowledge of Greek and Latin. Cornish and Russwurm (1827) in the Freedom Journal, were the first African Americans to discuss and explain the "Ancient Model" of history.
These afrocentric social scientists used the classics to prove that the Blacks founded civilization in Egypt, Ethiopia, Babylon and Ninevah. Cornish and Russwurm (1827) made it clear that archaeological research supported the classical, or "Ancient Model" of history.
Edward Blyden (1869) also used classical sources to discuss the ancient history of African people. In his work he not only discussed the evidence for Blacks in West Asia and Egypt, he also discussed the role of Blacks in ancient America (Blyden, 1869, 78).
By 1883, africalogical researchers began to publish book on African American history. G.W. Williams (1883) wrote the first textbook on African American history. In the History of the Negro Race in America, Dr. Williams provided the schema for all future africalogical history text.
Dr. Williams (1883) confirmed the classical traditions for Blacks founding civilization in both Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia) and West Asia. In addition, to confirming the "Ancient Model" of history, Dr. Williams (1883) also mentioned the presence of Blacks in Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula. Dr. Williams was trained at Howard.
A decade later R.L. Perry (1893) also presented evidence to confirm the classical traditions of Blacks founding Egypt, Greece and the Mesopotamian civilization. He also provided empirical evidence for the role of Blacks in Phoenicia, thus increasing the scope of the ASAH paradigms.
Pauline E. Hopkins (1905) added further articulation of the ASAH paradigms of the application of these paradigms in understanding the role of Blacks in West Asia and Africa. Hopkins (1905) provided further confirmation of the role of Blacks in Southeast Asia, and expanded the scope of africalogical research to China (1905).
This review of the 19th century africalogical social scientific research indicate confirmation of the "Ancient Model" for the early history of Blacks. We also see a movement away from self-published africalogical research, and publication of research, and the publication of research articles on afrocentric themes, to the publication of textbooks.
It was in these books that the paradigms associated with the "Ancient Model" and ASAH were confirmed, and given reliability by empirical research. It was these texts which provided the pedagogic vehicles for the perpetuation of the africalogical normal social science.
The afrocentric textbooks of Hopkins (1905), Perry (1893) and Williams (1883) proved the reliability and validity of the ASAH paradigms. The discussion in these text of contemporary scientific research findings proving the existence of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Nubia-Sudan (Kush), Mesopotamia, Palestine and North Africa lent congruency to the classical literature which pointed to the existence of these civilizations and these African origins ( i.e., the children of Ham= Khem =Kush?).
The authors of the africalogical textbooks reported the latest archaeological and anthropological findings. The archaeological findings reported in these textbooks added precision to their analysis of the classical and Old Testament literature. This along with the discovery of artifacts on the ancient sites depicting Black\African people proved that the classical and Old Testament literature, as opposed to the "Aryan Model", objectively identified the Black\African role in ancient history. And finally, these textbooks confirmed that any examination of references in the classical literature to Blacks in Egypt, Kush, Mesopotamia and Greece\Crete exhibited constancy to the evidence recovered from archaeological excavations in the Middle East and the Aegean. They in turn disconfirmed the "Aryan Model", which proved to be a falsification of the authentic history of Blacks in early times.
The creation of africalogical textbooks provided us with a number of facts revealing the nature of the afrocentric ancient history paradigms. They include a discussion of:
1) the artifacts depicting Blacks found at ancient sites
recovered through archaeological excavation;
2) the confirmation of the validity of the classical and Old
Testament references to Blacks as founders of civilization in Africa and Asia;
3) the presence of isolated pockets of Blacks existing outside Africa; and
4) that the contemporary Arab people in modern Egypt are not the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
The early africalogical textbooks also outlined the africalogical themes research should endeavor to study. A result, of the data collected by the africalogical ancient history research pioneers led to the development of three facts by the end of the 19th century, which needed to be solved by the afrocentric paradigms: (1) What is the exact relationship of ancient Egypt, to Blacks in other parts of Africa;
(2) How and when did Blacks settle America, Asia and Europe;
(3) What are the contributions of the Blacks to the rise, and cultural expression ancient Black\African civilizations;
(4) Did Africans settle parts of America in ancient times.
As you can see the structure of Afrocentrism were made long before Boas and the beginning of the 20th Century.In fact , I would not be surprised if Boas learned what he talked about from the early Afrocentric researchers discussed in this post.
As you can see Afro-Americans have be writing about the Global history of ancient Black civilizations for almost 200 years. It was Afro-Americans who first mentioned the African civilizations of West Africa and the Black roots of Egypt. These Afro-Americans made Africa a historical part of the world.
Afro-American scholars not only highlighted African history they also discussed the African/Black civilizations developed by African people outside Africa over a hundred years before Bernal and Boas.
Your history of what you call "negrocentric" or Black Studies is all wrong. It was DuBois who founded Black/Negro Studies, especially Afro-American studies given his work on the slave trade and sociological and historical studies of Afro-Americans. He mentions in the World and Africa about the Jews and other Europeans who were attempting to take over the field. Hansberry There is no one who can deny the fact that Leo Hansberry founded African studies in the U.S., not the Jews.Hansberry was a professor at Howard University.
Moreover, Bernal did not initiate any second wave of "negro/Blackcentric" study for ancient Egyptian civilization. Credit for this social science push is none other than Chiek Diop, who makes it clear that he was influenced by DuBois.
DuBois
These scholars recognized that the people of Southeast Asia and Indo-China were dark skined, some darker than African and Afro-American people. But when they discussed Blacks in Asia they were talking about people of African descent.
In conclusion, Afrocentrism is a mature social science. A social science firmly rooted in the scholarship of Afro-American researchers lasting almost 200 years. Researchers like Marc Washington, Clyde Winters and Mike are continuing a tradition of scholarship began 20 decades ago. All these contemporary researchers is doing is confirming research , that has not been disconfirmed over the past 200 years.
Aluta continua.....The struggle continues.....
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Woodson, C.G. & Wesley, C.H. (1972). The Negro in Our History. Washington, D.C. Associated Publisher.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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The two paradigms associated with ASAH developed by the perennialist afrocentric scholars are:
(1) Black\African people are the children of Ham;
(2) Blacks founded the first civilizations in Asia (Sumer, Babylon and Elam), Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya\ North Africa) and Europe (Greece and Crete).
1) Are you saying that perennialist afrocentric scholars are religious perennialists rather than secular perennialists? You infer this by indicating the mythological Ham from the Bible as primary to perennialist afrocentrics but many afrocentrics believe that the original religions of man far predate Abraham faith and that Ham should not be implied to be a starting point, fundamental or even a real person.
2) Please list all Afrocentric scholars that believe blacks were not only the first inhabitants of the regions now called Greece but were also the founders of the classical period Greek civilization and define what it means to be the founder of a civilization, including what things were founded by black people in Greek civilization. thank you
J.A. Rogers in Sex and Race, Parker, Diop, Winters and DuBois have reviewed the writings of the classical authors, the anthropological, linguistic and historical evidence to reach the conclusion that the ancient Greeks were blacks and that the European Greeks learned the liberal arts and sciences from their "black ancestors" who first settled Greece and the Egyptians.
For example, Parker used anthropological, archaeological, historical and classical sources to prove that blacks once lived in the Aegean. Parker used the Greek classics to prove that the Pelasgians were of African origin. He also discussed the origin stories about the Pelasgic founders of selected Grecian cities and proved that these men were blacks and not Indo-Europeans. Parker also observed that "the great Grecian epics are epics of an African people and Helen, the cause of the Trojan war, must henceforth be conceived as a beautiful brown skin girl" . These Africans sailed to the Greece from North Africa.
Using archaeological evidence and the classical literature C.A. Winters explained how the African/Black founders of Grecian civilization originally came from the ancient Sahara. Winters makes it clear that these Blacks came to the Aegean in two waves 1) the Garamantes a Malinke speaking people that now live along the Niger river, but formerly lived in the Fezzan region of Libya; and 2) the Egyptians, Phoenicians and East Africans who were recorded in Greece's history as the Pelasgians See: http://clyde.winters.tripod.com/chapter6.html . The Pelasgian civilization has been discussed in detail by Parker .
Blacks introduced arts, sciences, architecture and etc.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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The two paradigms associated with ASAH developed by the perennialist afrocentric scholars are:
(1) Black\African people are the children of Ham;
(2) Blacks founded the first civilizations in Asia (Sumer, Babylon and Elam), Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya\ North Africa) and Europe (Greece and Crete).
1) Are you saying that perennialist afrocentric scholars are religious perennialists rather than secular perennialists? You infer this by indicating the mythological Ham from the Bible as primary to perennialist afrocentrics but many afrocentrics believe that the original religions of man far predate Abraham faith and that Ham should not be implied to be a starting point, fundamental or even a real person.
These Afrocentrists saw knowledge as truth, which is eternal.Their concern was understanding the past and the role of African people in history.
They saw the Bible as a source of ancient history of Black people. They accepted the history of Kushites, as mentioned in the Bible as real.
These researchers accepted the Biblical truths because the Classical writers also wrote about the Kushites.
In time archaeologists found archeological evidence that the Kushites existed and formerly Mesopotamia was a center of Black civilizations.
posted
Clyde, would you say that most Afrocentrics believe 4-5th century Greece was a black or predominantly black society or that some do not believe this?
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Lioness - The absolute worst thing that you can do is to try to think - especially about my motivations.
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness: Clyde, would you say that most Afrocentrics believe 4-5th century Greece was a black or predominantly black society or that some do not believe this?
For example was Plato black?
No. By this time whites were in control.
Plato was not Black.
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posted
Clyde Winters can you Afrocentrics explain to us why Greece or Minoan civilization cannot be found within the African continent itself if black Africans created such civilizations?
And if "Blacks introduced arts, sciences, architecture and etc." why can't we find such arts, sciences and architecture etc of Minoa or Greece in Africa?
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posted
Well there is a fundamental difference between Clyde Winter's view of ancient Greece and Mike111's view of ancient Greece.
Clyde believes that by the 4-5th century BC Greece was controlled by whites
Mike111 believes that the control of Greece by whites occurred after the classical period of 4-5th century BC starting at about 323 BC.
Clyde at what time did whites take control of Greece by whites occur? Can you give us a date give or take a couple hundred years or better? Was it right at the beginning of the 5th century BC or earlier? Also how were they able to take control?
Posts: 42921 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness: Well there is a fundamental difference between Clyde Winter's view of ancient Greece and Mike111's view of ancient Greece.
Clyde believes that by the 4-5th century BC Greece was controlled by whites
Mike111 believes that the control of Greece by whites occurred after the classical period of 4-5th century BC starting at about 323 BC.
Clyde at what time did whites take control of Greece by whites occur? Can you give us a date give or take a couple hundred years or better? Was it right at the beginning of the 5th century BC or earlier? Also how were they able to take control?
I can not put a time on when the Ionians took Greece.
They took control through a process of slow infiltration. Slow infiltration was a process in which Indo-Europeans would ask to settle in a place in small numbers.
Overtime they would outnumber the Blacks and take control through miltant action probably involving limited warfare.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Spiralman: Clyde Winters can you Afrocentrics explain to us why Greece or Minoan civilization cannot be found within the African continent itself if black Africans created such civilizations?
And if "Blacks introduced arts, sciences, architecture and etc." why can't we find such arts, sciences and architecture etc of Minoa or Greece in Africa?
First of all, the Greecian civilization is totally based on Egyptian civilization--so there is no question that its origin lies in Africa.
In the case of Minoan Crete, we know that the civilization was founded by the Garamante who originated in Africa. We don't find evidence in Africa because much of African civilization is not taught in school . As a result, the cities in Africa built in stone have not been published in general text or renovated.
Secondly education in most African civilizations is taught via the secret society. As a result, members of the secret society are not allowed to make promenant their knowledge to the outside world.
As a result, they can not present evidence of their knowledge in their locales. But once they settle a new area there are no societal restictions on showing their knowledge so they make evident the skills they have mastered in the secret society in their new homeland.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness: Well there is a fundamental difference between Clyde Winter's view of ancient Greece and Mike111's view of ancient Greece.
Clyde believes that by the 4-5th century BC Greece was controlled by whites
Mike111 believes that the control of Greece by whites occurred after the classical period of 4-5th century BC starting at about 323 BC.
Clyde at what time did whites take control of Greece by whites occur? Can you give us a date give or take a couple hundred years or better? Was it right at the beginning of the 5th century BC or earlier? Also how were they able to take control?
Lioness - I think that I can answer your question now.
On the great stairways of Apadana, are relief's of Persian, Median, and Elamite officials. Additionally, there are twenty three scenes, separated by cypress trees, depicting representatives from the twenty three vassal kingdoms of the empire. They are being led by a Persian or Mede, as they come to made offerings to the king at the festival of the vernal equinox. The various delegates are shown in great detail, giving insight into the costume and equipment of the various peoples of the Persian Empire in the 5th century B.C. But, there is NO inscription to identify who these people are!
About eight miles northeast of Persepolis, on the opposite side of the Pulvar River, rises a cliff-face in a place called Naqsh-e Rostam. Four tombs are carved out of the cliff-face, the first and oldest is the tomb of Darius I, which is identified by inscriptions. The other three tombs have no inscriptions to identify them, but are believed to be the tombs of Achaemenian kings Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II.
Close-up of Darius's tomb
This top register is adorned with a framed relief panel showing a dais supported by thirty representatives of the nations of the empire. These representatives are identified by cuneiform captions. They are arranged in two tiers of fourteen people with raised arms between the legs, and two people on the outside supporting the feet of the dais.
Translation of the texts:
1. This is the Persian. 2. This is the Mede. 3. This is the Elamite. 4. This is the Parthian. 5. This is the Arian. 6. This is the Bactrian. 7. This is the Sogdian. 8. This is the Chorasmian. 9. This is the Drangian. 10. This is the Arachosian. 11. This is the Sattagydian. 12. This is the Gandaran. 13. This is the man of Sind. 14. This is the haoma-drinking Saca. 15. This is the Saca with the pointed hat. 16. This is the Babylonian. 17. This is the Syrian. 18. This is the Arab. 19. This is the Egyptian. 20. This is the Armenian. 21. This is the Cappadocian. 22. This is the Lydian. 23. This is the Greek. 24. This is the Scythian from across the sea. 25. This is the Thracian. 26. This is the Macedonian. 27. This is the Libyan. 28. This is the Kushite. 29. This is the man of Maka. 30. This is the Carian.
I find this picture of the Macedonian very interesting.
Alexander the great was a Macedonian, wasn't he?
Funny, this doesn't look anything like a "Real" Macedonian like above. Have you White folks been playing "Make-believe" with phony artifacts again?
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As usual Mike a simple question is posed "at what time did whites take control of Greece by whites occur?" and you say you answer it but you don't.
The basic format of a thesis, theory or claim is to state it plainly first and then to try to use evidence to support it. What you do is put up random pieces of information and act like you answered a question when you didn't. Either answer the question or don't. What is the date?
Nobody needs to go through your posts and then to guess what they think your answer is. Clyde was honest he said plainly he could not out a time on it but it was time prior to the classical period 4-5th century BC.
Your silver decadrachdm is a crude very small item. It proves absolutely nothing, it could be anybody of any race. No scholar does things the way you do. You are overly reliant on pictures. You post artifacts that are crude and vague and don't even say what you are trying to prove with the picture. Nobody even knows what you are trying to show with this silver decadrachdm. You just have to act like you know something and people are supposed to be impressed you put up some artifacts but you don't say what it proves. That's garbage. If somebody was being honest they would say something like the following photo shows.... etc, etc, But you leave that out because you know if you do you haven't really proven it. You don't even say "believed to be", not even a low level of commitment to what you posture as something being evidence of.
It doesn't work like that. Before you go and select a photo of something you need to make a statement about exactly what you think it means. If you put up an artifact and think it looks like something you should say what it looks like not what it doesn't look like. Not to do so and use all this innuendo and guess what I mean smoke and mirrors is bullsyt.
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Lioness - Repeat after me: if 1 + 1 = 2 Then a hat wearing Macedonian with very curly hair MUST mean that up until 487 B.C. (the time of Darius's death) Greeks were a "MIXED" race people. So you see my little Albino ditz in denial, I did answer your question.
BTW - That is how the Persians referred to them - in at least one instance: "The Hat wearing Greeks".
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Your posts are the most important and logical I have seen here. I need to take this to a higher level and post under my real name and a real online forum or printed material with real scholars.
Thank You
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quote:Originally posted by Spiralman: Clyde Winters can you Afrocentrics explain to us why Greece or Minoan civilization cannot be found within the African continent itself if black Africans created such civilizations?
And if "Blacks introduced arts, sciences, architecture and etc." why can't we find such arts, sciences and architecture etc of Minoa or Greece in Africa?
Spiralman can you explain why Egypt and Nubia can not be found in Europe or Arabia itself if "Eurasians" created such a civilization, and please Explain why the 2 closest Civilizations to Km.t were Kush and Axum??
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quote:This is further complicated by the fact that many English speaking Africans are so brain washed that they have failed to seriously research their history, as opposed to the French speaking Africans, and as a result Eurocentric dogmas continue to dominate interpretation of history in these areas.
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Apart from Cheikh Anta Diop the only Francophone African who has written a continental history is Joseph Kizebo, late of Burkina Faso. In Nigeria there was Olumide Lucas who wrote very early on the connections between Yoruba culture and Ancient Egypt. There are also a number of historians from Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone who have written on West African history. Check out names like Dike, Ajai( with Michael Crowder), Boahen and more recently Toyin Falola .
It is a fact though that African historians--because of the colonial paradigms they are trained on--tend to focus on local areas than on continental ones. But this applies to both Francophone and Anglophone historiansPosts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:This is further complicated by the fact that many English speaking Africans are so brain washed that they have failed to seriously research their history, as opposed to the French speaking Africans, and as a result Eurocentric dogmas continue to dominate interpretation of history in these areas.
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Apart from Cheikh Anta Diop the only Francophone African who has written a continental history is Joseph Kizebo, late of Burkina Faso. In Nigeria there was Olumide Lucas who wrote very early on the connections between Yoruba culture and Ancient Egypt. There are also a number of historians from Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone who have written on West African history. Check out names like Dike, Ajai( with Michael Crowder), Boahen and more recently Toyin Falola .
It is a fact though that African historians--because of the colonial paradigms they are trained on--tend to focus on local areas than on continental ones. But this applies to both Francophone and Anglophone historians
Ok. Besides Lucas, name the contemporary works they have written on Egyptian-West African connections. Here is a partial list of Francophones.
Anselin, A. (1981). Le Question Peule. Paris: Editions Karthala. Anselin, A. (1982). Le Mythe D' Europe. Paris: Editions Anthropos. Anselin, A. (1989). pour une morpologie elementaire du Negro-Africain, Carbet, no.6, pp.98-105. Anselin, A. (1992a). L'ibis du savoir-l'ecriture et le mythe en ancienne Egypte, ANKH, no.1, pp.79-88. Anselin, A. (1992b). Samba. Guadeloupe: Editions de L'Unite de Recherche-Action Guadeloupe. Anselin, A.(1993). Anamneses. Guadeloupe: Editions de l'UNIRAG. Cèsaire, A. (1956). Cahier d'un retour au pays Natal. Paris: Presence Africaine.
Diop, C.A. (1974). The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Westport, Conn.:Lawrence Hill and Company. Diop,C.A. (1977). Parentè gènètique de l'Egyptien Pharaonique et des languues Negro-Africaines. Dakar: Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire. Diop, C.A. (1978). Precolonial Black Africa. Wesport, Conn. :Lawrence Hill and Company. Diop, C.A. 1981. A methodology for the study of migrations. In African Ethnonyms and Toponyms, by UNESCO. (Unesco: Paris) 86--110. Diop, C.A. (1991). Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn,N.Y.: Ngom,G. (1986). Rapports egypte-Afrique noire: aspects linguistiques, Presence Africaine, no.137/138, pp.25-57. Obenga, T. (1973). L'Afrique dans l'antiquite-Egypte pharaonique-Afrique noire. Paris: Presence Africaine. Obenga, T. (1978a). Africa in antiquity, Africa Quarterly, 18, no.1, pp.1-15. Obenga,T. (1978b). The genetic relationship between Egyptian (ancient Egyptian and Coptic) and modern African languages. In UNESCO (Ed.), The peopling of ancient Egypt and the deciphering of the Meroitic script (65-72). Paris: UNESCO. Obenga, T. (1988). Esquisses d'une histoire culturelle de l'Afrique par la lexicologie, Presence Africaine, no.140, pp.1-25. Obenga, T. (1992). Le chamito-semitique n'existe pas, ANKH , no.1, pp.51-58. Obenga, T. (1993a). Origine commune de l'Egyptien Ancien du Copte et des langues Negro-Africaines Modernes. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan. Obenga, T. Origine Commune de l"Egyptien ancien du coptes et des langues negro-africaines modernes. Paris: Editions l'Harmattan. Pfouma, O. L'abeille royale, Carbet, no.6, pp.98-105.
Senghor, L.S. (1961). Negritude and African socialism, African Affairs, pp.20-25.
Toukara, B. (1989). Problematique du comparatisme , egyptien ancien/langues africaines (wolof), Presence Africain, no.149/150,pp.313-320.
Now give me a list of English Speaking West Africans.
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quote:Clyde Winters can you Afrocentrics explain to us why Greece or Minoan civilization cannot be found within the African continent itself if black Africans created such civilizations? And if "Blacks introduced arts, sciences, architecture and etc." why can't we find such arts, sciences and architecture etc of Minoa or Greece in Africa?
As it happens in globalization, the main actors in spreading cultural phenomenons are also affected by those they meet. The best example is the Greek kouros, which was modeled after Egyptian statues Greek artists were inspired by the large stone sculptures seen in Egypt and Mesopotamia and started to carve from stone as well. Artists used the Egyptian example of body sculpture, using a very stoic form, with one foot forward and his hands to the side, but they added an element of humanity to the body, especially in the facial expression where Greeks use what has been called the "archaic smile." Greek sculpture became the basis for classical art, especially during the Renaissance, all over Europe. https://qed.princeton.edu/main/User:Efrantze/Empire_and_Art There is no evidence that ancient Greek mathematicians knew of the Fibonacci sequence. There was use of the Fibonacci sequence in Minoan design, but Preziosi (1968) cites evidence indicating that this could have been brought from Egypt by Minoan architectural workers employed at Kahun.
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Mr. Winters, The point I make is not to be taken in any absolute sense because culturally there is not that much difference culturally between West Africans--whether Francophone, Lusaphone or Anglophone. You have people who live on the coastal areas, those who live in the Savannah and those from the Sahel area. And that cuts across colonial groupings.
In your reply you mention Senghor and Anselin. Senghor did not buy the Diop thesis at all. And Anselin sounds like a French European. Cesaire did not write on Egypt or African history for that matter.
On the so-called Anglophone side you have Abu Abarry from Ghana who has collaborated with Molefi Asante on a number of projects.
There is the late South African Tseloane Keto who wrote the book The Ancient Egyptians of Africa. Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanian novelist and essayist who has written extensively on Ancient Egypt. He even has a Publishing company called Per Ankh. He lives in Senegal. Then you have Abdulrazak Salau, a Nigerian historian who wrote on Olumide Lucas and the Yoruba-Egypt connection. There is also Gloria Emeagwali(Nigeria) and Ama Manzama who have written on Ancient African history.
So you see the difference is not that great.
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: Mr. Winters, The point I make is not to be taken in any absolute sense because culturally there is not that much difference culturally between West Africans--whether Francophone, Lusaphone or Anglophone. You have people who live on the coastal areas, those who live in the Savannah and those from the Sahel area. And that cuts across colonial groupings.
In your reply you mention Senghor and Anselin. Senghor did not buy the Diop thesis at all. And Anselin sounds like a French European. Cesaire did not write on Egypt or African history for that matter.
On the so-called Anglophone side you have Abu Abarry from Ghana who has collaborated with Molefi Asante on a number of projects.
There is the late South African Tseloane Keto who wrote the book The Ancient Egyptians of Africa. Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanian novelist and essayist who has written extensively on Ancient Egypt. He even has a Publishing company called Per Ankh. He lives in Senegal. Then you have Abdulrazak Salau, a Nigerian historian who wrote on Olumide Lucas and the Yoruba-Egypt connection. There is also Gloria Emeagwali(Nigeria) and Ama Manzama who have written on Ancient African history.
So you see the difference is not that great.
Mr. lamin
The fact remains that these researchers have made no major contributions to the field. What are their major contributions: nothing.
As a result the difference is great. While one group has been perfecting our knowledge of the relationship between Egyptian and West African languages, the other group has given us nothing.
As I said English speaking West Africans have contributed little if anything to Afrocentrism since Lucas.
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Mr. Winters, Apart from C.A. Diop there is nobody else of significance. Obenga did some work in African linguistics but he worked in close cooperation with Diop. So apart from Diop I don't thnik there's anybody else of significance--Frncophone or Anglophone.
Diop formualated a new synthetic paradigm and other scholars both Francophone and Anglophone worked from that paradigm. I mentioned as an example of an Anglophone.
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: Mr. Winters, Apart from C.A. Diop there is nobody else of significance. Obenga did some work in African linguistics but he worked in close cooperation with Diop. So apart from Diop I don't thnik there's anybody else of significance--Frncophone or Anglophone.
Diop formualated a new synthetic paradigm and other scholars both Francophone and Anglophone worked from that paradigm. I mentioned as an example of an Anglophone.
Mr. lamin you are wrong.
While Diop discusssed the Egyptian and Wolof relationship other researchers added the Fulani and Bantu. In addition these researchers confirmed Diop's research and expanded it. This is how a field advances.
I repeat, English speaking Africans have contributed nothing since Lucas either in advancing the field or knowledge building.
Below are the Afro-American contributions to Afrocentrism.
Afrocentrism, is a mature social science that was founded by Afro-Americans almost 200 years ago.
These men and women provided scholarship based on contemporary archaeological and historical research the African/Black origination of civilization throughout the world. These Afro-American scholars, mostly trained at Harvard University (one of the few Universities that admitted Blacks in the 19th Century) provide the scientific basis for Afrocantrism and the global role played by African people in civilizing the world.
Afrocentrism and the africalogical study of ancient Black civilizations was began by Afro-Americans.
Edward Blyden
The foundation of any mature science is its articulation in an authoritive text (Kuhn, 1996, 136). The africalogical textbooks published by Hopkins (1905), Perry (1893) and Williams (1883) provided the vocabulary themes for further afrocentric social science research.
The pedagogy for ancient africalogical research was well established by the end of the 19th century by African American researchers well versed in the classical languages and knowledge of Greek and Latin. Cornish and Russwurm (1827) in the Freedom Journal, were the first African Americans to discuss and explain the "Ancient Model" of history.
These afrocentric social scientists used the classics to prove that the Blacks founded civilization in Egypt, Ethiopia, Babylon and Ninevah. Cornish and Russwurm (1827) made it clear that archaeological research supported the classical, or "Ancient Model" of history.
Edward Blyden (1869) also used classical sources to discuss the ancient history of African people. In his work he not only discussed the evidence for Blacks in West Asia and Egypt, he also discussed the role of Blacks in ancient America (Blyden, 1869, 78).
By 1883, africalogical researchers began to publish book on African American history. G.W. Williams (1883) wrote the first textbook on African American history. In the History of the Negro Race in America, Dr. Williams provided the schema for all future africalogical history text.
Dr. Williams (1883) confirmed the classical traditions for Blacks founding civilization in both Africa (Egypt, Ethiopia) and West Asia. In addition, to confirming the "Ancient Model" of history, Dr. Williams (1883) also mentioned the presence of Blacks in Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula. Dr. Williams was trained at Howard.
A decade later R.L. Perry (1893) also presented evidence to confirm the classical traditions of Blacks founding Egypt, Greece and the Mesopotamian civilization. He also provided empirical evidence for the role of Blacks in Phoenicia, thus increasing the scope of the ASAH paradigms.
Pauline E. Hopkins (1905) added further articulation of the ASAH paradigms of the application of these paradigms in understanding the role of Blacks in West Asia and Africa. Hopkins (1905) provided further confirmation of the role of Blacks in Southeast Asia, and expanded the scope of africalogical research to China (1905).
This review of the 19th century africalogical social scientific research indicate confirmation of the "Ancient Model" for the early history of Blacks. We also see a movement away from self-published africalogical research, and publication of research, and the publication of research articles on afrocentric themes, to the publication of textbooks.
It was in these books that the paradigms associated with the "Ancient Model" and ASAH were confirmed, and given reliability by empirical research. It was these texts which provided the pedagogic vehicles for the perpetuation of the africalogical normal social science.
The afrocentric textbooks of Hopkins (1905), Perry (1893) and Williams (1883) proved the reliability and validity of the ASAH paradigms. The discussion in these text of contemporary scientific research findings proving the existence of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Nubia-Sudan (Kush), Mesopotamia, Palestine and North Africa lent congruency to the classical literature which pointed to the existence of these civilizations and these African origins ( i.e., the children of Ham= Khem =Kush?).
The authors of the africalogical textbooks reported the latest archaeological and anthropological findings. The archaeological findings reported in these textbooks added precision to their analysis of the classical and Old Testament literature. This along with the discovery of artifacts on the ancient sites depicting Black\African people proved that the classical and Old Testament literature, as opposed to the "Aryan Model", objectively identified the Black\African role in ancient history. And finally, these textbooks confirmed that any examination of references in the classical literature to Blacks in Egypt, Kush, Mesopotamia and Greece\Crete exhibited constancy to the evidence recovered from archaeological excavations in the Middle East and the Aegean. They in turn disconfirmed the "Aryan Model", which proved to be a falsification of the authentic history of Blacks in early times.
The creation of africalogical textbooks provided us with a number of facts revealing the nature of the afrocentric ancient history paradigms. They include a discussion of:
1) the artifacts depicting Blacks found at ancient sites
recovered through archaeological excavation;
2) the confirmation of the validity of the classical and Old
Testament references to Blacks as founders of civilization in Africa and Asia;
3) the presence of isolated pockets of Blacks existing outside Africa; and
4) that the contemporary Arab people in modern Egypt are not the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
The early africalogical textbooks also outlined the africalogical themes research should endeavor to study. A result, of the data collected by the africalogical ancient history research pioneers led to the development of three facts by the end of the 19th century, which needed to be solved by the afrocentric paradigms: (1) What is the exact relationship of ancient Egypt, to Blacks in other parts of Africa;
(2) How and when did Blacks settle America, Asia and Europe;
(3) What are the contributions of the Blacks to the rise, and cultural expression ancient Black\African civilizations;
(4) Did Africans settle parts of America in ancient times.
As you can see the structure of Afrocentrism were made long before Boas and the beginning of the 20th Century.In fact , I would not be surprised if Boas learned what he talked about from the early Afrocentric researchers discussed in this post.
As you can see Afro-Americans have be writing about the Global history of ancient Black civilizations for almost 200 years. It was Afro-Americans who first mentioned the African civilizations of West Africa and the Black roots of Egypt. These Afro-Americans made Africa a historical part of the world.
Afro-American scholars not only highlighted African history they also discussed the African/Black civilizations developed by African people outside Africa over a hundred years before Bernal and Boas.
Your history of what you call "negrocentric" or Black Studies is all wrong. It was DuBois who founded Black/Negro Studies, especially Afro-American studies given his work on the slave trade and sociological and historical studies of Afro-Americans. He mentions in the World and Africa about the Jews and other Europeans who were attempting to take over the field. Hansberry There is no one who can deny the fact that Leo Hansberry founded African studies in the U.S., not the Jews.Hansberry was a professor at Howard University.
Moreover, Bernal did not initiate any second wave of "negro/Blackcentric" study for ancient Egyptian civilization. Credit for this social science push is none other than Chiek Diop, who makes it clear that he was influenced by DuBois.
DuBois
These scholars recognized that the people of Southeast Asia and Indo-China were dark skined, some darker than African and Afro-American people. But when they discussed Blacks in Asia they were talking about people of African descent.
In conclusion, Afrocentrism is a mature social science. A social science firmly rooted in the scholarship of Afro-American researchers lasting almost 200 years. Researchers like Marc Washington, Clyde Winters and Mike are continuing a tradition of scholarship began 20 decades ago. All these contemporary researchers is doing is confirming research , that has not been disconfirmed over the past 200 years.
What are the specific contributions of English speaking Africans to the field?Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: Garamante Architecture
quote: In the case of Minoan Crete, we know that the civilization was founded by the Garamante who originated in Africa.
No it was not. And those architectural examples you showed do not demonstrate anything like the Minoan Crete civilization. The Minoan crete architecture and civilization was for more advanced and older.
quote:We don't find evidence in Africa because much of African civilization is not taught in school. Secondly education in most African civilizations is taught via the secret society.
[quote][qb]As a result, members of the secret society are not allowed to make promenant their knowledge to the outside world.
Can you explain Ancient Egypt and et al?
quote:Secondly education in most African civilizations is taught via the secret society. As a result, members of the secret society are not allowed to make promenant their knowledge to the outside world.
Typical excuse from an Afrocentric, if cannot be proven or refuted make an attempt to claim such conspiracist theories.
The reason why we cannot trace or find such arts, sciences and architecture etc of Minoan Crete civilization in Africa is because the Minoan Crete Civilization was NOT created by Africans.
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The earliest inhabitants of Greece and the Aegean Islands were Blacks from ancient Libya, Palestine, and Asia Minor. These Blacks founded Athens, Thebes Thera and Attica. They occupied much of the mainland and all the Aegean Islands.
These Blacks are frequently depicted in the art associated with the so-called Dark Ages (1200-600 BC). There are also fine frescos from Thera (Sanorin) Island which illustrate one of the Agean cities occupied by these Blacks during the 16th and 15th centuries BC.
Although these people of the Heroic age came from diverse origins, the Aryan-Greeks called them Pelasgians. According to the Greeks, the first man was Pelasgus--ancestor of the Pelasgians. The Pelasgians were a combination of different Black tribes called Achaeans, Cadmeans, Leleges, Carians or Garamantes. The term Pelasgian was applied to all these pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. R.J. Hopper, in The Early Greeks, noted that "indeed the classical Greeks believed in the separate existence of diverse ethnic elements side by side, and thought particularly of the Pelasgians in this connection". According to tradition, the Pelasgians inhabited Arcadia and many Aegean Islands. These Blacks took their own writing to Greece which was later used by the Aryan-Greeks. According to Herodotus quadrigas or four-horse chariots were introduced to Greeks by the Libyans . The Aryan-Greeks adopted the language of the Pelasgians and Egyptians. The linguistic evidence shows that there was a differentiation of Greece into East Greek and West Greek. The Black Greeks spoke East Greek (Achaioi or Achaean). West Greek was spoken by the Dorian or Aryan Greeks. The earliest Aryan tribe called Ionians spoke a dialect of East Greek called Aeolic.
Many classical scholars teach the world that the Greek language is entirely Indo-European. This view of Greek is wrong. Dr. Anna Morpurgo Davies, has made it clear that "less than 40% of the words which have an Indo-European etymology" . According to Dr. Davies, 52.2 % of the Greek terms in Chantraine's Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue Grecque (1968) have an unknown etymology. The mixed nature of the Greek language results from the early settlement of the Aegean by Blacks from Africa.
Some of these words are of African origin. Robert K.G. Temple, in The Sirius Mystery, shows that many of the most common words of the Greek vocabulary are of Egyptian origin. Diop (1991) has also discussed the Egyptian origin for many Greek terms.
GARAMANTES
Some of the first African colonists to arrive in Greece came from Crete. These Cretans were called Garamantes. After the goddess Ker or Car, these people also came to be also known as the Carians. The Carians spoke a Mande languages.
Minoan Pottery
Fezzan Pottery
These people usually sailed to the Islands in Aegean and the surrounding coast were they established prosperous trading communities. There is frequent mention of the Garamantes of the Fezzan, in Classical literature of Greece and Rome. The Garamantes were recognized as a Black tribe. They were known to the Greeks and Romans as dark skinned. In Ptolemy (I.8.5.,p.31) a Garamante slave was described as having a body the color of pitch or wholly black.
Graves (1980) and Leo Frobenius linked the Garamante to the ancient empire of Ghana (c.300 BC to A.D. 1100). Graves (1980) claims that the term Garamante is the Greek plural for Garama or Garamas. He said that the present Jarama or Jarma are the descendants of the Garamante; and that the Jarama live near the Niger river.
The Olympian creation myth, as recorded by Pindar in Fragment , and Apollonius Rhodius, makes it clear that the Garamantes early colonized Greece. Their descendants were called Carians. The Carians practiced apiculture. As in Africa the Carians practiced matrilineal descent. According to Herodotus , even up until his time the Carians took the name of their mother.
Many of the Greek myths are historical text which discuss the transition of Greece from an matriarchal society to a patriarchal Aryan society. The term Amazon was often used by the Aryans to denote matriarchal societies living on the Black Sea. The battle between Thesus and the Amazons, led by Queen Melanippe, records the conflicts between the ancient Aryan-Greeks and the Libyco-Nubians settled around the Black Sea. The classical Carians and Egyptians were very close. Having originated in the Fertile African Crescent they had similar gods and cultural traditions dating back to the Proto-Saharan period.
The Garamantes founded Attica, where they worked the mines at Laureium. Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fruitfulness, came from the Fezzan (Libya) by way of Crete. It was Demeter who took poppy seeds and figs to Europe. Apollonius Rhodius (.iv.1310) tells us that the goddess Athene was born beside Lake Triton in Libya. The goddess Athene, was called Neith by the Egyptians and Nia by the Cretans in Linear A writing. This shows that the Garamantes took this god to Europe in addition to Demeter and Amon (=Ammon ,Amma).
By 3000 BC, the Garamantes has spread their influence to Thrace and early Hellenic Greece. Hesiod, who was a Kadmean (i.e., of Egyptian descent), in Works and Days , said that before the Hellenic invasion the Grecian people lived in peace and tranquility and had matriarchal societies. The name Europe comes from Aerope, the daughter of King Catreus, a Cretan.
Thucydides observed that:
"The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades into most of which he sent the first colo- nies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons as governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in these waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use".
Thus we find that many Cretans also settled much of mainland southern Europe.
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The Keftiu spoke a Mande Language like the rest of the Garamante
The Ancient Minoans: Keftiu were Mande Speakers
Every since Arthur Evans discovered the Hieroglyphic and Linear A writing of Crete there has been a search for the authors of this writing.
Some Grecian traditions indicate that Libyans (called Garamante) formerly lived on Crete. This suggest that some of the Eteocretans may have spoken one of the ancient languages of Libya.
A major group from Libya that settled Crete were the Garamante. Robert Graves in (Vol.1, pp.33-35) maintains that the Garamante who originally lived in the Fezzan fused with the inhabitants of the Upper Niger region of West Africa.
This theory is interesting because the chariot routes from the Fezzan terminated at the Niger river. In addition, the Cretan term for king "Minos", agrees with the MandeManding word for ruler "Mansa". Both these terms share consonantal agreement : M N S.
The name Garamante, illustrates affinity to Mande morphology and grammar. The Mande language is a member of the Niger-Congo group of languages. The name for the Manding tribe called "Mande", means Ma 'mother, and nde 'children', can be interpreted as "Children of Ma", or "Mothers children " (descent among this group is matrilineal) . The word Garamante,can be broken down into Malinke-Bambara into the following monosyllabic words Ga 'hearth', arid, hot'; Mante/Mande , the name of the Mande speaking tribes. This means that the term: Garamante, can be interpreted as "Mande of the Arid lands" or "Arid lands of the children of Ma". This last term is quite interesting because by the time the Greeks and Romans learned about the Garamante, the Fezzan was becoming increasingly arid.
The Egyptians called the Cretans Keftiu. There is agreement between the Keftiu names recorded by Egyptian scribes (T.E. Peet, "The Egyptian writing board BM5647 bearing Keftiu names". In , (ed.) by S Casson (Oxford, 1927, 90-99)), and Manding names.
The root kef-, in Keftiu, probably is Ke'be, the name of a Manding clan , plus the locative suffix {i-} used to give the affirmative sense, plus the plural suffix for names {u-}, and the {-te} suffixial element used to denote place names, nationalities and to form words.
On the Egyptian writing board there are eight Keftiu names. These names agree with Manding names:
Keftiu....... Manding
sh h.r........ Sye
Nsy ..........Nsye
'ksh .........Nkyi
Pnrt Pe,..... Beni (name for twins)
'dm ..........Demba
Rs............. Rsa
This analogy between Keftiu and Manding names is startling.
In conclusion, the evidence of similarity between Keftiu names and names from the Manding languages appear to support Graves view that the Eteocretans, who early settled Crete may have spoken a language similar to the Mande people who live near the Niger. Conseqently, there is every possibility that the Linear A script used by the Keftiu, which is analogous to the Libyco Berber writing used by the Proto-Mande .This is further support to Cambell-Dunn' s hypothesis that the Minoans spoke a Niger-Congo language.
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I pointed out to you that there are African Anglophone scholars who have written on Ancient Egypt and its connection to the rest of Africa and you just ignore it.
I mentioned Professor Tseolane Keto whose research included the study of Ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa and it's as if that doesn't count for anything. Keto taught at Temple University for many years after being invited to Temple's Department of Africana Studies by Molefi Asante.
I also mentioned Nigerian Professor Salau who did a critical analysis of Olumide Lucas's work on the connection between Yoruba culture and Ancient Egypt.
And there's also the very well-know scholar from the Cameroon who researches ancient African history and archaeology, Augustin Holl. He worked not only in Africa but also at UCLA for a number of years.And there are others.
As I said Diop's contribution to African studies is that on account of his deep knowledge in a number of areas he was able to synthesize all the previous disparate knowledge on Africa.
One point though which I must bring to your attention. I wonder why you do not include as an Anglophone African scholar of Afrocentrism, Molefi Asante. Asante as a strict Afrocentric always refers to himself as an African scholar. In discussions in Africa Asante--now a chief with a stool in Ghana--always claimed that he was first and foremeost African and that his passport had nothing to do with it.
I am neutral in all of this since I speak and write both French and English fluently as my circumstances dictated. It's just that you were inaccurate in your claims.
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I pointed out to you that there are African Anglophone scholars who have written on Ancient Egypt and its connection to the rest of Africa and you just ignore it.
I mentioned Professor Tseolane Keto whose research included the study of Ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa and it's as if that doesn't count for anything. Keto taught at Temple University for many years after being invited to Temple's Department of Africana Studies by Molefi Asante.
I also mentioned Nigerian Professor Salau who did a critical analysis of Olumide Lucas's work on the connection between Yoruba culture and Ancient Egypt.
And there's also the very well-know scholar from the Cameroon who researches ancient African history and archaeology, Augustin Holl. He worked not only in Africa but also at UCLA for a number of years.And there are others.
As I said Diop's contribution to African studies is that on account of his deep knowledge in a number of areas he was able to synthesize all the previous disparate knowledge on Africa.
One point though which I must bring to your attention. I wonder why you do not include as an Anglophone African scholar of Afrocentrism, Molefi Asante. Asante as a strict Afrocentric always refers to himself as an African scholar. In discussions in Africa Asante--now a chief with a stool in Ghana--always claimed that he was first and foremeost African and that his passport had nothing to do with it.
I am neutral in all of this since I speak and write both French and English fluently as my circumstances dictated. It's just that you were inaccurate in your claims.
We are discussing Afrocentrism--not African studies.
I am not being dogmatic I am discussing people who contributed to Afrocentrism. For example, Augustin Holl writes on African archaeology but he is not an Afrocentric researcher--in fact-he does not support this field of Study.
I do not add Asante to the English speaking West Africans, because Afrocentrism is a core discipline for many Afro-American scholars, e.g., DuBois. The same can not be said for contemporary English speaking Africans who for the most part are Eurocentric in orientation.
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quote:I do not add Asante to the English speaking West Africans, because Afrocentrism is a core discipline for many Afro-American scholars, e.g., DuBois. The same can not be said for contemporary English speaking Africans who for the most part are Eurocentric in orientation.
Your point about Asante doesn't follow. If he's Afrocentric then he fits the bill. That's all.
Dubois ought not to be considered Afrocentric because according to your definition of "Afrocentric" he would not pass for the following reasons: 1)he did not consider the AEs blacks. For him they were, as he put it, "mulattos". 2) His opposition to Garvey bordered on being racist and black petty-bourgeois narrowly nationalistic. Holl, who is essentially an archeologist, has done some very useful work on the archeaology of Africa not just researching his own locality as many scholars are wont to do.
To be quite objective on the matter the most "Afrocentric" scholar of the last century was Kwame Nkrumah. His reconfiguation of the "Gold Coast" to become Ghana his strictly pro-Africa policies have not been rivaled by anyone since then. Nkrumah was a Pan Africanist through and through and for that he was opposed by the whole Francophone bloc--tightly controlled by France at the time--except for Sekou Toure.
His academic colleague William Abraham the author of The Mind of Africa certainly qualifies as an Afrocentric--i.e. an intellectual who views the world through African lenses when it's a question of the interpretation of the African experience.
Your point about African scholars being Eurocentric in the main is noted, but that applies to both Francophone and Anglophone scholars.
Again, if you are consistent with the fundamental definition of "Afrocentrism" as formulated by Asante and others then you will have to say that the list of Anglophone African scholars would have to include not only Asante but also Van Sertima.
Finally, according to those who embrace "Afrocentrism"--Asante et al.,-- it is not a discipline but an "orientation", a "way of looking at things". So, for example, you would have an Afrocentric history, or an Afrocentric anthropology, an "Afrocentric Egyptology", etc. whick seek to critique and correct the ideological errors of Eurocentrism with objective analysis.
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