posted
Afrocentric study provides the African American the self-discipline, the intellectual ideals, love of learning and other motivational attributes necessary for their acquisition of success, and protection from the mental, and physical suffering caused by WHITE RACISM which takes hold of Third World people due to the C.A.I.D.S. virus. The letters C.A.I.D.S. mean Culturally Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. C.A.I.D.S. has caused much destruction in the African-American community, it is the psychological equivalent to the A.I.D.S. virus.
On the other hand, Eurocentricism because of its roots in white supremacy and Negro inferiority cause these salient African attributes to be lacking in most African-Americans. Jewish scholars long ago recognized the need for self-segregation i.e., Jewish institutions to support Jewish traditions.
Afrocentric studies should be compared to Jewish studies. Jewish studies aim to teach Judaism to Jews and promote Jewish learning and scholarship. No serious commentators attack the self-segregation institution of the Jews that promote Jewish learning and Jewish self-esteem.
Due to C.A.I.D.S. the vast majority of African-Americans feel inferior to Europeans. Because of these feelings of inferiority many middle class African-Americans and the Black Church have perpetuated Eurocentricism instead of fighting to encourage race pride among African-Americans. This failure to assert manliness has allowed C.A.I.D.S. to run rampant in Afro-America . This malady has caused the rise of many social problems among African-Americans who have adopted a negative lifestyle: gangs, bastardy and etc., first imposed on the African slave, but today identical negative behaviors are being perpetuated by African-Americans who believe that Black Culture is having children out of wedlock, and any other negative visions of America such as gangbanging popularized by the media. All of these negative cultural elements have no basis in Africa, and are the result of C.A.I.D.S.
The African-American middle class after the 1920's has avoided identification with Afrocentricism, cultural nationalism or race consciousness. Harold Cruse has pointed out that "The [Southern] black middle class as it was constituted (even in the north) was not committed to any serious sponsorship of promising artists or any involvement in the 'politics of culture'". According DuBois, the first response of African-Americans to racism can be categorize as the slave insurrections led by Gabriel in Virginia in 1800, Vesey in Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner also in Virginia around 1831. After slavery this period is best typified by the Black Nationalist Movement of the 1960's, which began with the martyrdom of Malcolm X and the rise of militant organizations in African-American communities such as the Black Panthers, SNCC and the Republic of New Africa. These movements, like the slave rebellions a hundred years earlier were brutally suppressed and destroyed by local state and national police agencies.
The third response to white racism was formerly the "Negro" Renaissance of the 1920's. Today this response to white supremacy founded upon objective scholarship is Afrocentricism. An Afrocentric view of history is especially needed to combat the debilitating effects of white supremacy and C.A.I.D.S.
The Church , long an expression of African -American independence has also failed to combat the destructive effects of C.A.I.D.S., because its middle-class materialist orientation. The capitulation of the Black Church and the African-American middle-class to Eurocentric values has not brought them assimilation or integration into the American mainstream , but no true African-American cultural identity , based on African history and African traditions.
This is especially true of many African-American academics. As a result, we have African American professors like W.J. Moses, in Afrotopia, who is happy to brag about the absence of any Afrocentric history courses at any of the major Universities. And makes it clear he wants to maintain the status quo. Consequently, he believes that cultural relativism should control the interpretation of history, not sources and narratives of history( see p.233).
Granted, today we have more African-American professors then ever before. Yet, these academics produce few if any research articles, or even serve as editors of mainstream intellectual journals. In fact, many African American academic historians ( if they are not writing about slavery) would not be published at all if they were not writing books attacking Afrocentrism
The most glaring evidence of the devastating effects of C.A.I.D.S., is that except for the Afrocentric scholars who self-publish their own work, since the demise of the journal Black World, in the 1970's African-Americans do not have a journal, which expresses the intellectual ideas, and culture of the African in America. The failure of the African-American academics /intellectuals to publish their own journal suggest that either they have nothing to say,or are afraid to express their own opinions without the approval of the department heads at the Universities where they teach, or they simply feel inferior to whites because of their contraction of the C.A.I.D.S. virus. I believe they fell to start their own publications because of C.A.I.D.S, since some of these professors already have tenure.
The failure of many African-American intellectuals (even those in Black Studies Departments) across the United States, except in Education, to publish their work in mainstream publications also highlight the inability of many African-Americans to be fully integrated into American academia. Due to Eurocentricism , even those African-American "scholars " recognized as competent researchers can only hope to associate with the American Academic Establishment, not assimilate into it.As a result, people like Moses, can only publish a work by a major American press if it attacks Afrocentrists, Africanity and Afrocentrism.
Anything written by Blacks to uplift the race is often rejected and may never see the light of publication.
A luta continua…the struggle continues.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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What you say warrants the following question: why then don't blacks with the resources open publishing houses and support universities with funds that are to be used for journals. In Euro-America, people of Jewish heritage--have long recognised the importance of such and I guess anyone can do the research to see how successful they have been in that regard.
If they have been successful maybe you can explain why?
And by the way a very egregious example of what you say is that the vast majority of serious books about Africa--on any topic--are not published in Africa nor are they read by African university personnel--students and faculty.
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posted
To understand this phenomena you have to read the work of Carter G. Woodson on the education of Afro-Americans. The answer is easy many members of the Black Middle Class have been brain washed as a result of their education and training to believe that the only history of Afro-Americans is that of enslavement and exploitation.
And by the way a very egregious example of what you say is that the vast majority of serious books about Africa--on any topic--are not published in Africa nor are they read by African university personnel--students and faculty. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Your observation is correct. This is just my opinion but I believe that many people in Africa don't really think about writing and reading history because history has been traditionally the preserve of the oral historian. Writing was left to preserving religious ideas . I believe it was the Greeks who first wrote history.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Note though that Sadi and Kati were 2 Timboktoo historians who wrote respectively Tariq-es Soudan(History of the Sudan) and Tarik-el Fettach. But reference is to modern Africa where there are a number of universities. One would expect that many of these universities would have their own presses to publish books, monographs journals and professor lecture texts. But it doesn't happen---except in the white-run universities of South Africa. And even the study of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Nubia--using the post-pharonic names--is carried on principally by Euro-Americans.
Note that the two major sets of volumes on African history were not published in Africa--Cambridge History of Africa and the UNESCO History of Africa. And I want to want believe that Joseph Ki-Zerbo's 1,000 page History of Africa was published in Paris
The argument about tradition doesn't work because places like Korea and Japan relied on oral folk history not too long ago. Today both nations are in the top ranks regarding research and publishing for their own populations academic or lay.
Is it, therefore, that CAIDS is a world-wide African phenomenon?
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: Note though that Sadi and Kati were 2 Timboktoo historians who wrote respectively Tariq-es Soudan(History of the Sudan) and Tarik-el Fettach. But reference is to modern Africa where there are a number of universities. One would expect that many of these universities would have their own presses to publish books, monographs journals and professor lecture texts. But it doesn't happen---except in the white-run universities of South Africa. And even the study of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Nubia--using the post-pharonic names--is carried on principally by Euro-Americans.
Have you travelled into every African country, so as to reach such a questionable conclusion?
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My point is that most of the writing by Africans on Africa are published outside Africa by Western publishing houses. And even so, just check the bibliographies of books on African topics by whomever and you will see that most of the references are European.
Is the Winters's paradigm the right one to correct this situation?---meaning that a black/African scholar would feel more comfortable having his/her works were published by, say, the University of Ghana Press than by Cambridge or Harvard University Press?
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posted
Though there are not many Africans writing on traditional African themes there are a ton of Afrocentric books written by Africans. Granted these authors mainly come from French speaking Africa , but they are firmly linking West African people to Egypt.
In the Carribean Alain Anselin, a few years ago graduated in Martinique the first Carribbean Egyptologist.
Sadly, the second richest nation in SubSaharan Africa, Nigeria, has very few researchers interested in Afrocentric studies. Right now I can't think of one scholar.
As a result, Europeans can go to Africa and write anything they want about the countinent without fear of being corrected by native Africans. It is sad that even in Islamic studies most of the people writing on this topic are Europeans.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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My point is that most of the writing by Africans on Africa are published outside Africa by Western publishing houses.
And this is precisely the point I question. Just because you [personally] happen to read books on Africa, from outside Africa, doesn't mean African issues aren't regularly written...by Africans!
quote:Lamin: Is the Winters's paradigm the right one to correct this situation?---meaning that a black/African scholar would feel more comfortable having his/her works were published by, say, the University of Ghana Press than by Cambridge or Harvard University Press?
It doesn't matter, as long as whatever is being written actually reflects FACTS about Africa and Africans.
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Your question is easy to answer. All one has to do is to take the major universities in Africa and check to see whether they have a press. Also there are easily obtainable bibliographies of books published about Africa--in Africa or outside Africa--to note that most books on African topics or books by Africans on whatever topic--natural science, social science, mathematics, etc.--are not published by African university presses or even private presses. There is a research organisation in Dakar called CODESRIA that publishes books and journals but--shamefully it is funded mainly by those samll European donor nations like Sweden and Norway.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Your question is easy to answer. All one has to do is to take the major universities in Africa and check to see whether they have a press. Also there are easily obtainable bibliographies of books published about Africa--in Africa or outside Africa--to note that most books on African topics or books by Africans on whatever topic--natural science, social science, mathematics, etc.--are not published by African university presses or even private presses. There is a research organisation in Dakar called CODESRIA that publishes books and journals but--shamefully it is funded mainly by those samll European donor nations like Sweden and Norway.
What determines 'major universities' in Africa, and have you checked each and every university or institution in Africa, to see if this is the case? And even if we were to go by what you are saying here, about presses, that you are still talking about Africans publishing their own work, is what really matters. I don't care whether the African publishes his/her work in the North pole. We are talking about African minds; again, this is what counts!
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quote:It doesn't matter, as long as whatever is being written actually reflects FACTS about Africa and Africans
.
It does matter for 2 reasons. Precedent and control of the knowledge flow.
Fact: most books about English topics are published by English persons and in English presses. The same for France, Germany and Japan. And for the U.S.--it goes without saying.
Fact: The English would feel uncomfortable if most of their books--academic or otherwise--were published in Germany by Germans.
And they would put a stop to it.
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It does matter for 2 reasons. Precedent and control of the knowledge flow.
How does an African publishing his/her material via an English, German, French or whatever press, matter?...if this person's goal is to approach African matters from his/her own perspectives, and as long as these perspectives reflect facts?
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posted
To make my point clear: how would most Americans react if the majority of the films they pay to see were produced in China with Chinese money, mainly Chinese actors and some American actors on American themes?
There would a big hue and cry about that kind of outsourcing.
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: To make my point clear: how would most Americans react if the majority of the films they pay to see were produced in China with Chinese money, mainly Chinese actors and some American actors on American themes?
There would a big hue and cry about that kind of outsourcing.
The only thing that I can see anyone have reservations about this, is fear of negative and untruthful propaganda about his/her own people or fellow citizens. But if I am an African, with intent on disseminating facts about Africa, it sure the heck doesn't matter to me, which medium [as long as I am familiar with that medium] I use to disseminate those facts. If my fellow Africans can understand the medium I'm using, that is just fine with me.
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quote:How does an African publishing his/her material via an English, German, French or whatever press, matter?...if this person's goal is to approach African matters from his/her own perspectives, and as long as these perspectives reflect facts?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, but the purpose of publishing something is that there's a readership waiting for what is being published. And that's a very major problem. Very few students in Africa can afford to purchase books by Diop, Obenga, Fanon, etc.
In fact, most African academic authors are read more by Europeans than by their African peers and students.
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quote:The only thing that I can see anyone have reservations about this, is fear of negative and untruthful propaganda about his/her own people or fellow citizens. But if I am an African, with intent on disseminating facts about Africa, it sure the heck doesn't matter to me, which medium [as long as I am familiar with that medium] I use to disseminate those facts. If my fellow Africans can understand the medium I'm using, that is just fine with me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But that's exactly the point. If what is being published is radical or is not in consort with what the European publisher believes is true about the theme-- the book will be rejected, or the author will be asked to change certain ideas So in the end it's better to have serious indigenous publishing houses.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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If possible could you comment on John Hope Franklin's interview with Israel historian Benny Morris in the Guardian(British), Feb. 9.
With respect to your CAID thesis, JHF calims that African Americans "lack a world view"--which I think can be extended to blacks everywhere--Africa and the other Americas.
But note that the answer about the world-view of blacks came after JHF was probed about why blacks in the U.S. did not protest about "Arabs killing blacks in the Sudan". This tendentious question by Morris is just another instance of Jews being obsessed with Darfur on the hope that they could entice blacks to notice the so-called "Arabs fighting blacks in Darfur".
Everybody who has eyes can see that it's a "black-black" conflict--yet people like Morris and the pro-Israeli media keeping pushing that sly disingenuous line.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Lamin: In fact, most African academic authors are read more by Europeans than by their African peers and students.
Is this based on some statistical data I am not aware of, or is it based on assumption via personal observation?
quote:Originally posted by lamin:
quote:The only thing that I can see anyone have reservations about this, is fear of negative and untruthful propaganda about his/her own people or fellow citizens. But if I am an African, with intent on disseminating facts about Africa, it sure the heck doesn't matter to me, which medium [as long as I am familiar with that medium] I use to disseminate those facts. If my fellow Africans can understand the medium I'm using, that is just fine with me.
But that's exactly the point. If what is being published is radical or is not in consort with what the European publisher believes is true about the theme-- the book will be rejected, or the author will be asked to change certain ideas So in the end it's better to have serious indigenous publishing houses.
One of those lines, "what if?" Did "if what" stop the likes of Diop? What Diop published about indigenous Nile Valley populations, wasn't something that Europeans of the day necessarily agreed with; if anything, it was largely the contrary. Is this stopping Keita from disseminating what he sees as facts of Africa and Africans? Are people like Keita, for example, intent on pleasing European publishers or on educating every interested party on what they see as facts? What about Celenko, or Fekri Hassan, Obenga and the like? Are they fooling their readership about their own belief in the work that they, themselves, set out to publish?
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quote: NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Kenya does not have enough food aid to last through the month, endangering the lives of 3.5 million people, relief officials said Wednesday.
Officials said Kenya needs $245 million to provide food, water and other assistance to those people hit by a drought that has affected parts of the country for a fifth year running.
Malnutrition had reached emergency levels in the most affected areas, according to Tesema Negash, country director for the United Nations' World Food Program.
Failure to quickly provide money for the Kenyan aid effort could lead to large-scale loss of life and the worst humanitarian crisis since the country gained independence from Britain in 1963, according to the British charity Oxfam.
The January assessment by Kenya's government, U.N. and other aid agencies showed that 396,500 metric tons of food aid worth about $221 million will be required to provide food to the 3.5 million people, Tesema said. Since January, the U.N. food aid agency has received 60,000 metric tons of cereals from Kenya's government as well as 14,400 metric tons of maize and 10,800 metric tons of other commodities from the U.S. government, Tesema said.
"We are now looking for cash to move the food," Tesema said. "And it is critical that WFP be able to respond immediately to the food needs of Kenyans who have depleted their own resources."
The areas hit hardest by the drought-induced food shortages are in the arid and semi-arid northern, northeastern and eastern Kenya, John Munyes, minister of state for special programs, told U.N. officials, diplomats, aid workers and journalists. The crisis hit as Kenya forecast a surplus harvest of 62,500 metric tons of maize, mainly from western Kenya. However, those in the eastern and northern drought-stricken areas cannot afford to buy food from other regions.
Farmers struggling to find better prices for their surplus harvests in western Kenya were exporting the food to neighboring countries. (Full story)
The livelihoods of cattle-herding communities across Kenya "are severely threatened as the very basis of their food security system, livestock, are dying in unprecedented numbers due to lack of water, browse and pasture," according to the assessment report. "Thousands of head of cattle have already died and many thousands more may succumb, as the effects of drought intensify."
Farmers in eastern Kenya have seen crops wilt and die. "In some locations, seeds never germinated because not one drop of rainfall fell," according to the report.
"Families have depleted most of their disposable resources such as maize and livestock, among others. They are now more vulnerable to food insecurity," Munyes said.
Drought has also hit neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania, making it increasingly difficult for Kenyans to find water and pasture in those areas, he said.
"International and regional response to the drought has therefore to consider a regional perspective to avoid large-scale population movements from areas where there is no response to areas where assistance is being provided," Munyes said.
"Our analysis suggests that in some areas aid is only getting to a third of those who need it. What is crystal clear is that if donors don't rapidly fund the new U.N. appeal, the situation which is already critical, will get much worse," said Gezahegn Kebede, head of Oxfam in Kenya.
This is because the cows are in terrible shape as a result of food and water shortages. Also, people in the region are too poor to pay for the animals, which makes local demand weak.
In Belgium, the European Union said it was giving a further $6 million in emergency humanitarian aid to millions of victims affected by drought in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. The EU was also readying another $48 million for use if suffering intensifies in the region.
The aim of the aid is to help provide water, food and health care to 5.6 million people in the Horn of Africa, the commission said Wednesday.
"The 'long rains' are due in May, but if they don't come, we could be facing a terrible situation, for which we must be prepared," EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.
Two points:
1) Kenya GAVE 60,000 tons of grain to the U.N., without DISTRIBUTING it to ITS OWN PEOPLE. Now there is a crisis, with the U.N. WAITING for transportation. Why cant the Kenyan government do it? THAT should be the first priority, making the government the PRIMARY relief giver, with all OTHER organizations providing support. But NO, the UN has to be the primary relief agency, thereby condeming the people to starve while WAITING for the U.N. to get transportation
2) Kenya had a surplus harvest of 62,500 tons of corn in the west, but the farmers are EXPORTING it for cash. Now I bet any amount of money that MOST of these farmers are NOT African.
C.A.I.D.S. cant even FEED YOURSELF, when you have it right in front of you, have to wait for the Europeans to provide assistance in putting food in your OWN mouth when the food is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU......... ridiculous. Also a perfect example of what happens when you allow food and resources to be used AGAINST you by following Eurocentric economic and agricultural policies (money, land and agriculture FOR Europe) as opposed to policies FOR Africa.
And in another few years the same thing will happen AGAIN and the government will seem SHOCKED and be as UNPREPARED as at any other time. As if this doesnt happen EVERY FEW YEARS......
Posts: 8895 | Registered: May 2005
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Lamin quote _____________________________________________________ Everybody who has eyes can see that it's a "black-black" conflict--yet people like Morris and the pro-Israeli media keeping pushing that sly disingenuous line. _______________________________________________________
You are probably right, it is hard for Afro-Americans to look at the combatants in the Sudan and not recognize that it appears to be two groups of blacks fighting each other.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Doug and Lamin you both present three very good cases of CAIDS, the inability of Kenyan officials to recognize they should feed themselves first, the lack of publishing in Africa, and the lack of world view among most African people. All three instances show that African people and African governments must begin to recognize that they should allow their own self interests to determine many of their actions.
It also highlights the important role education plays in shaping the outlook of the learner. The education of African people today is dominated by European institutions and ideas. This domination comes from the fact that most African leaders, having been educated in the West believe education is neutral. This is untrue, cultural values and worldview, and eben cultural outlooks are associated with the education you possess.
I really respect the Japanese. When the Japanese opened up their country to the West, they made a deliberate decision to make sure that Western ideational constructs were not imported into Japan.
They did this by sending the brightest students to Europe to learn the sciences, but they made sure that when these students returned they taught what they knew to Japanese students. But the Japanese who had been "contaminated" by the West were not put on a pedestal because they were educated in the West.
In this way Japanese leaders were able to modernize Japan without allowing Western ideas to be situated in Japan. It was only after WWII that Western cultural influences have been able to enter Japan as a result of Japan's lost of the War.
African countries were colonized. The leaders of these countries were educated in the West so they could work for the colonial powers. In the West, many of these leaders had to learn a new language and often adopted the cultural mores associated with learning the new langauges. Blinded by Western "liberalism", they felt that the education they were getting was neutral and they were being prepared to take their countries into the modern world.
But they were wrong. They were taught economic ideas which benefited their former Masters. This is why they continue to grow "cash crops", instead of growing enough food to feed themselves.
Lamin, living in the West knows that one's knowledge base will determine one's outlook about themselves and other people in the world. Your knowledge base is formed by the books you read. As a result if you don't publish books in your own country, about your own culture, archaeology and history you will not create the nationalist feelings necessary to marshal the efforts of your people to be form a unified and self-sufficient Nation.
By supporting your nationals in their effort to research and write about their own culture, archaeology and history you can then have the material to write textbooks outlining your own National history. This history could then be taught in the schools and the people would have pride in their national heritage and seek unity to further the nation, instead of the establishment of revolutionary movements to destablize the country and in the end just establish a new dictator that runs to the West to get foreign exchange ,to steal for themselves and let their country rot.
This is why,I believe that so many Western countries are trying to destablize Zimbabwe. They are afraid that if Zimbabwe can become self-sufficient, even feed its own people by its own resources and land management systems, other African countries might learn they can do the same.
After reading the post of Lamin,I believe that if more African countries did use their Universities in the interest of the Nation and supported the research of their National scholars--research that is published in Africa--we might see greater economic develop since Africans in the various nations would know their history and hopefully gain greater self esteem.
It is also interesting to note that most of the books published by Afrocentric scholars from the Caribbean and West Africa, are mainly published in France. Lamin presents compelling evidence that the creation of African publishing firms can help fight CAIDS.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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While it's of utmost importance that continental African scholars be published, whereever, so that they can be read and kept handy for ready personal reference and available in libraries, it's likewise important to build an infrastructure on the continent for publishing and internationally distributing their books, journals, etc., so that accountability and profit remain in African hands.
posted
We don' need any type of centrisms or ideologies, what we need to discuss is the plain honest to God truth. Anytime you mix science with *ANY* particular brand the end result is always going to be off the mark, no matter the intent. Just leave the lame ideologies out of science and stick to discussing science.
posted
TSD I must differ, we do need ideologies because they allow us to act. In addition they provide a frame of reference from which we may look at a problem and find a possible solution.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:We don' need any type of centrisms or ideologies
this is correct.
history and science *must* aspire to ideological neutrality, and must seek to transcend jingoism and petty ethnocentrisms - which are really only crutches to prop up poor scholarship anyway.
My suggestion for Dr. Winters is the he work towards publishing/presenting a complete translation of Olmec to English, so that we can better assess his language ideas.
If I sincerely believed I had deciphered Olmec - that's what I would do.
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: TSD I must differ, we do need ideologies because they allow us to act. In addition they provide a frame of reference from which we may look at a problem and find a possible solution.
Incorrect, when you approach *SCIENCE* with an ideology you already hamper your position. One does not need to favor a particular ideology to arrive at the ruth or something approximating it. Look at the neutral approach Keita takes. Only ideologues call Keita an Afrocentrist.
Posts: 285 | From: Mississippi | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: Hi In this thread we are not discusing science per se, we're discussing CAIDS, and how African people can remediate this illness.
You're suggesting using ideology to fight another ideology which does ZERO ofr science. Ideologies are nothing more than opinions and half-truths.
Posts: 285 | From: Mississippi | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
In the realm of science truth or evidence is the goal.
In the realm of human existence ideology--which is just the interpretation of what humans experience according to a system of operational value judgments.
In this regard, capitalism is an ideology. So too the idea of racial supremacy, so too all the world's religions. So too the ideas of democracy, socialism, communism, etc.
In other words humans operate in the world only according to some ideology. But they may appeal to certain facts to support that ideology.
Ultimately the purpose of ideology is to create the optimal conditions for human welfare--material and psychological--for those who embrace such.
But what happens is that because of false consciousness individuals or peoples often embrace an ideology which is detrimental to their material and/or psychological welfare.
False consciousness arises when humans embrace certain values but mistake them for facts or see those values as optimal for human welfare--when they are not.
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It's impossible to write objectively even without clearly being an ideologue, no one has and no one ever will, unless addressing a hard science directly minus its application.
The best one can hope to do is not to be unduly swayed by one's personal ideologies and ethnocentrism when writing "truth" based on fact for the general public.
Let's take genetics for an example. The mechanics of lab work is unbiased and unobjective. But both before and after actual lab work the research team is beset with the ideologies of its members from the initial choice of subject all the way through to the integration of non hard science interdisciplinary reference materials used throughout a letter or report, especially its synthesis and conclusion sections. Thus the team leader or text writer may refer to an NRY or mtDNA gene as being, let's say, Caucasian (not geographically but in the socially constructed racial sense) when its coalescence may preceed any proposed time for raciation.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Triple Stage Darkness: We don' need any type of centrisms or ideologies, what we need to discuss is the plain honest to God truth.
Hey, that's not bad for an agenda!
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: Hi In this thread we are not discusing science per se, we're discussing CAIDS, and how African people can remediate this illness.
You're suggesting using ideology to fight another ideology which does ZERO ofr science. Ideologies are nothing more than opinions and half-truths.
Not quite. What Dr. Winters is saying is that what we are discussing is the IDEAOLOGY that led to the oppression, murder and enslavement of millions of black Africans and other native people of color worldwide. He is trying to point out how a world view based on self hatred can be adopted when one tries to mold themselves into the image of a culture and mindset that is entirely AGAINST their interests. Likewise, he is talking about how such an ideaology can be used to JUSTIFY bias in history, education and literature in order to maintain the ideaology of oppression and genocide against BLACK Africans. No one should DOUBT that the oppression of black people worldwide is based on an ideology and Eurocentrism and white supremacy ARE ideaologies.
Posts: 8895 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Not quite. What Dr. Winters is saying is that what we are discussing is the IDEAOLOGY that led to the oppression, murder and enslavement of millions of black Africans and other native people of color worldwide. He is trying to point out how a world view based on self hatred can be adopted when one tries to mold themselves into the image of a culture and mindset that is entirely AGAINST their interests. Likewise, he is talking about how such an ideaology can be used to JUSTIFY bias in history, education and literature in order to maintain the ideaology of oppression and genocide against BLACK Africans. No one should DOUBT that the oppression of black people worldwide is based on an ideology and Eurocentrism and white supremacy ARE ideaologies.
...which is why it makes no sense to pick up or emulate discredited constructs of "such ideology", as an effort or tool to fight against "such ideology". Otherwise, you unwittingly become the 'mirror-image', as someone put it earlier, of what it is that you are supposedly fighting against.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: The best one can hope to do is not to be unduly swayed by one's personal ideologies and ethnocentrism when writing "truth" based on fact for the general public.
I almost agree with the above, however there's something unecessarily passive in the verbiage, when assertiveness might be more accurate.
You don't *hope* not to be unduly swayed - you must make a *concerted effort* not to be.
To abandon any effort at objectivity is to abandon scholarhip, for ideology sake - it seems that is really what this thread is promoting.
To me, it's slightly embarrassing to even have explain and argue on behalf of principals that should come naturally to and editor of a public school newspaper.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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