Socrates and Beethoven were black, and whites are genetic mutants say some Afrocentric scholars. Stephen Howe on an inverted racism
The history of Africa and Africans has probably been subject to more bias,distortion and sheer ignorance than any other major theme in humanity's past. Challenge to those biases has been one of the 20th century's great intellectual revolutions. But, alongside the challenge, has arisen a counter-mythology, "Afrocentrism", which ranges from pseudo-historical romance to full-blown reverse racism.
Afrocentrism, as practised in North American universities, offers a mostly fictional history of Africa and its diaspora, centred on bizarre ideas about ancient Egypt and Nubia. In its looser sense, it may mean little more than pride in shared African origins or interest in African history and culture. But recently a more cohesive, dogmatic and irrational ideology has appropriated the label, an ideology influential mainly in the United States but with offshoots elsewhere, including Britain.
The central tenet of Afrocentrism is that every important feature of "civilisation", everywhere in the world, is of African origin. In ancient Egypt came the fullest flowering of the African cultural system:a system distinct from and superior to that of Eurasian societies in its matriarchal, spiritual, peaceful and humanistic character. Ancient Greece and, hence, all European civilisation took everything of value usually claimed to be theirs from African-Egyptian culture.
Most Afrocentrists also believe that this superior culture has been passed down, undiluted, to diasporic peoples of African descent. Thus, African-Americans are a distinct nationality - with their own civilisation,values, belief system, social practices and language ("Ebonics"). These are superior to those of other groups and especially to those of European-descended peoples.
On the wilder fringes of Afrocentrism, stranger ideas circulate. Not only the ancient Greeks, but also the biblical Jews, were black Africans: modern Jews and Greeks are impostors on a grand scale. The civilisations of India, China, Japan, Europe and the precolonial Americas were created by African voyagers. Ancient Africans had scientific and technological knowledge equal to or far in advance of the modern world. A striking range of figures not usually thought of as "black" - from Socrates or the prophet Mohammed to Beethoven, Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln - were actually Africans.
In the US, such ideas have become central to the furious rows over multiculturalism in education, the media and government policies. Public controversy has centred particularly on the inroads Afrocentrism has made into the American education system. Numerous public school authorities have introduced Afrocentric schools in predominantly black districts. Attempts to introduce Afrocentric perspectives into other schools' curricula has led to political battles at national level. There are dozens of Afrocentric private schools, and Afrocentric perspectives dominate the teaching of African and African-American studies in some major universities.
The issue has generated a mass of polemical literature, most as ill-informed as it is strident, from figures as diverse as art critic Robert Hughes and classicist Mary Lefkowitz, professor of humanities at Wellesley College. The controversies have also reflected a sadly typical kind of US parochialism. Argument has rarely been about what schoolchildren and students should know of the world, but about rival visions of Americanism.
In Europe, the impact has been far less powerful - and romantic Afrocentrism seems to have strikingly limited appeal within Africa itself. But, even in Britain, Afrocentric ideas are taking hold in some quarters - as a glance at bookshop and library shelves in some inner-city areas, or at some local authorities' "black history" materials, testifies.
Africans' innate superiority, some say, comes from the magical powers of melanin, the chemical that pigments skin. People with high melanin levels are physically, mentally and spiritually superior to others: they even have hidden psychic powers. White people's fear of the melanin-rich led Europeans to persecute Africans throughout history, culminating in the present, deliberately created "Aids-Holocaust". Whites are "ice people" and blacks "sun people", their collective personalities determined by long-ago evolutionary pressures. Africans maintained a sociable, life-affirming character from their hospitable, original environment; whereas in the hostile climate and circumstances of the North, whites developed a correspondingly individualistic, selfish, aggressive disposition.
For some of the more extreme Afrocentric publicists, whites are not even fully human, but are genetic mutants or throwbacks to the Neanderthals. Afrocentrists see themselves as opposing western "decadence", upholding the integrity of the black family and family values. There is typically a fierce opposition to feminism and an even fiercer prejudice against homosexuals. In some quarters, anti-Semitism supplements the general hostility to whites; in others, anti-Arabism predominates in this rich but distasteful stew of ideas.
The best-known version of Afrocentric historical revision is that put forward in Martin Bernal's multi-volume work in progress, Black Athena. The first volume was published in 1987, the second in 1991; two more volumes and a general overview of ancient history are promised. Bernal is British-born, of Irish and American parentage, and was long a fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He is now a professor at Cornell University. Bernal does not advocate the wilder theories. His writings proclaim a revolution in views of the ancient world: that "Greek" civilisation was really Egyptian and Phoenician. His is perhaps the most scholarly of these accounts - though specialists have punched huge holes in every aspect of his argument, and many have deplored his apparent obsession with race.
By far the most important influence on Afrocentric thought, however, is the Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop. He studied nuclear physics and Egyptology at the Sorbonne, then was head of Dakar University's radiocarbon laboratory from 1961 until his death in 1986. His work focused on the character of ancient Egypt as a black African civilisation, the continuity of its cultural influences across the continent and the centuries and the African origins of world civilisation. He also tried to prove that ancient Egyptian was the root of all African languages.
Like Bernal, Diop was more rational than most writers in this vein; but his vision of history is no more solidly grounded than Bernal's. He is perhaps best seen as an idiosyncratic and anachronistic metahistorian on the lines of Arnold Toynbee or Oswald Spengler. But for enthusiasts, his authority is absolute.
A mass of other recent writers, most of them Afro-Americans, has pressed Afrocentric claims: prominent exponents include Marimba Ani, John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, George James, Leonard Jeffries, Ron Karenga, Chancellor Williams, the more eccentric (and more nakedly racist) Frances Cress Welsing and Yosef Ben-Yochannan and, the most effective and influential self-publicist of all, Molefi K. Asante. Some of these are serious if eccentric scholars, some are fantasists and monomaniacs, a few are simply charlatans.
The roots of such thinking, however, go back much further. Many of the themes can be found in black American pamphleteering from the past 150 years and more. Others derive from various cranky Victorian, mainly British writers: bizarre figures such as Godfrey Higgins, Gerald Massey and Albert Churchward, long forgotten elsewhere, have their works reprinted, praised and treated as gospel by Afrocentrists.
A surprising amount is taken from Masonic, Hermeticist and Rosicrucian tradition. And a great deal reproduces the fantasies of 19th-century European racial "science", simply reversing the positive and negative values attributed to black and white, Europe and Africa.
Afrocentrism brings to light a long-flourishing intellectual underworld of largely self-taught enthusiasts. Here, impulses of racial uplift, religious or mystical leanings, political activism and autodidact scholarship intermingle. It is a world with striking similarities to that of English plebeian radicalism, delved into by historians such as Christopher Hill, or even the worlds unearthed in Carlo Ginzburg's work on medieval European popular philosophy. The story of Afrocentrism and its ancestors is a fascinating chapter in the history of ideas, whatever else it may be.
Politically and educationally, however, it is a disaster. So far as Afrocentrism provides an impassioned corrective to past American and European disparagement of Africa, it may have some useful, ground-clearing function. But what it offers in replacement is a new myth - an imaginary Africa without a real human history and without a present.
Worse, Afrocentrism has a monomaniac insistence on the centrality of race to all questions about human society. Modern scholarship in all fields since 1945 has questioned, if not flatly denied, the reality of the concept of race. There have only been two real exceptions to this. One is on the ultra-right, with the overtly racist "science" of a handful of scholars. The other is the Afrocentric tradition. What is most disturbing is that so many liberal and radical academics, who rightly scorn the first,express ignorant enthusiasm or condescending indulgence towards the second.
Stephen Howe teaches at Ruskin College, Oxford. His book Afrocentrism is published by Verso in May.
posted
Howe does not know what his talking about. Afrocentrism is a social science, based on the Ancient Model of history.
Howe fails to fulfill the anxious expectations of many readers of his book who had hoped his work would be balanced and situated on the evidence. Howe see the study of ancient Afrocentric historical themes as a tradition of dissent rather than a field of study with its own tradition of normal science.
Howe without supporting evidence devalues ancient Afrocentric historical education. Moreover, the most exasperating aspect of his writing is that it uses Bernal's Black Athena, as an Afrocentric history text, and then proceeds to use criticism of this work to "disconfirm" the Afrocentric ancient history discipline.
In the africalogical social sciences, researchers look at the history and society of African people from an African centered or Afrocentric perspective. The Afrocentrist connects Africans in America and elsewhere to thousands of years of history and civilization.
There are three problems with Howe’s book. These problems are 1) the failure to discuss the research of Afrocentric scholars critically; 2) presenting the Afrocentric study of ancient history as a recent development ; and 3) the major reason proffered for their attacks on Afrocentrism is that the “academy” rejects the discipline.
Howe fails to proffer and outline the major Afrocentric ancient history text. Afrocentric scholars make hundreds of detailed archaeological, historical and linguistic claims, which have not been systematically refuted or discussed by the author. The fact that Howe ignore the historical research of the Afrocentric makes it clear hos work is a book of fiction.
Howe admits that his book was written to defend the modern research university from dissenting voices to “establishment” claims of American intellectuals. The real objective of the books is not a search for a “true” vision of history, or a review of the evidence presented by Afrocentrists supporting their historical claims.
Howe acknowledges the long history of Afrocentric research and provides his readers with a series of negative comments made by critics of Chiek Anta Diop without any concern with checking their accuracy. Then in the next breathe Howe explains that much of the work of Afrocentric scholars like Chiek Anta Diop, cross so many disciplines that he is unable to expertly assess the Afrocentric initiatives/propositions of ancient Afrocentric history. And as a result, he cannot grasp the impressive synthesis of scholarship found in the work of Afrocentric scholars.
This admission negates Howe’s basic premise that Afrocentric research is “untrustworthy”, his lack of expertise in the cross-disciplinary procedures of the Afrocentric scholars makes it clear that he is unable to expertly assess and evaluate the initiatives/propositions of ancient Afrocentric history. Consequently, he cannot grasp the impressive synthesis of scholarship found in the works of Afrocentric scholars.
Howe claims that Afrocentric history is reverse-racism because Afrocentric researchers have used the classical, historical , anthropological and linguistic literature to illustrate the African/Black origin of many of the River Valley and Grecian civilizations (p.48). Yet he fails to provide crucial examples of the falsification of sources by Afrocentric scholars to illegitimately support their Afrocentric claims. This makes the claims of Howe irrelevant and groundless.
Howe’s interpretations of Afrocentric researchers are contradictory and confusing. For example, on the one hand he claims that Dubois’ book the The Negro , “overall, his account avoided the sensationalism and special pleading, being a solid reflection of the state of knowledge at that time” (p.52), and therefore acceptable to the “academy”, yet in general DuBois’ work is romantic.
How can a work be both factual and “romantic”. Clearly, Howe’s opinion about DuBois’ work is based more on his personal bias rather than evidence.
Howe asks us to reject Afrocentric research based on “authority”, the idea that if members of the establishment reject this proposition everyone should reject it.
He makes a number of claims about the inadequacy of the ancient Afrocentric historical memory, but he does not provide critical analysis of the historical claims he disputes. For example, Howe claims that Diop failed to prove his connections between West Africa and Egypt eventhough, Diop provides a 200-page lexicon of cognate Wolof-Egyptian terms.
Howe wrote that:”The basic flaw [ of Parente genetique ]is that in order to trace the history of Languages, to identify shared roots, patterns of evolution and divergence, it is entirely inadequate simply to list similar-sounding or possibly related terms in different languages“ (p.178). .
. This would seem to be a reasonable analysis of one of Diop’s major works. But anyone who has actually read Parente genetique de l’egyptien pharanique et des langues negro-africaines, knows that Diop spent the first 200 plus pages of this book discussing in detail the grammatical and structural affinities of Egyptian and African languages. The failure of Howe to discuss this fact leads one to assume that he purposely avoids mentioning this fact so as to imply that Diop was an incompetent scholar.
A major component of Eurocentrism is the notion of African-American intellectual inferiority. As a result, European scholars can write and research the history of any people on earth. Afro-Americans and Africans on the otherhand, are believed to lack the intellectual capacity to research, let alone write ancient and world history.
Due to the alleged intellectual inferiority of Africans it is believed that they are unsuited to write ancient history, international affairs, or archaeology. This may result from several factors especially racial bias and social position. These factors are important ,because of the fact that formerly persons writing ancient history themes usually came from well-to-do or middle-class families that could provide them with the capital to undertake research activities abroad. This belief has ghettoized many African American scholars and authors , to writing only about slavery, the slave trade and/or the cycle of poverty typified by life in the urban centers of the United States.
Little has changed in the past 100 years, Howe asserts that Afro-Americans should reframe from writing about ancient history because “their ideas, like cultural nationalism in general, quite simply have nothing at all to say about the most central problem facing Afro-Americans: the conditions of economic marginality, insecurity and underprivileged under which most of them exist” (p.14). It is obvious from this statement that establishment historians wish to constrain the intellectual inquiry of Afro-American scholars.
Howe’s major contribution to the study of ancient Afrocentrism is criticism of Diop’s use of dated references in many of his works. But this criticism is nebulas because nowhere in Afrocentrism does Howe disconfirm the sources used by Chiek Anta Diop. The failure to disconfirm the research of Chiek Anta Diop and the other Afrocentric scholars mentioned in his book makes Howe's book Afrocentrism deeply flawed.
In conclusion, the basic function of Howe's work is to silence heterodox voices in the writing of history, without any argument or hypothesis testing. Science relies on observation and hypothesis testing, not rational thought alone. Howe's use of logic solely, to deny the Afrocentric ancient historical memory is unacceptable because the personality, tradition, values and habitual methods of thinking of Eurocentrists and their lackeys can taint the expectations of these historians.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
No one has falsified the research of DuBois and Diop. So Afrocentrism has not been invalidated.
Knowledge is cumulative. In other words we build new knowledge on the research of the giants in our field. From your lack of knowledge about DuBois' it is clear you have no recognition of the fact that what you guys are writing about has already been discussed formerly, and your job should be confirming or disconfirming what these giants wrote.
I teach educational philosophy on occasion. In this class I just don't talk about contemporary educators I also talk about the Greek philosophers.
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 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.
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
The modern foundation of Afrocentrism was begun by W.E.B. DuBois. His book the Negro, was the guiding light of researchers like J.A. Rogers.
DuBois also influenced Anta Diop. His book Africa and the world documented the ancient African Diaspera.
These scholars recognized that the people of ancient Greece, Southeast Asia and Indo-China were African people. When giants in study of Afrocentrism discussed Blacks in Asia they were talking about people of African descent.
These researchers used anthropological, archaeological historical and linguistic evidence to support their conclusions. It is only natural that these well founded hypotheses developed by these scholars can be supported by population genetics.
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___________. (1991). "The Proto-Sahara". The Dravidian Encyclopaedia, (Trivandrum: International School of Dravidian Linguistics) pp.553-556. Volume l.
----------.(1994). Afrocentrism: A valid frame of reference, Journal of Black Studies, 25 (2), 170-190.
_________.(1994b). The Dravidian and African laguages, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 23 (1), 34-52.
________.2007. Afrocentrism Myth or Science.www.lulu.com Here
Woodson, C.G. & Wesley, C.H. (1972). The Negro in Our History. Washington, D.C. Associated Publisher.
In conclusion, due to the Universal Blacks Afrocentrism is a mature social science. A social science firmly rooted in the scholarship of Afro-American researchers lasting almost 200 years. Aluta continua.....The struggle continues.....
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
There are no books that critically falsify Afrocentrism. Like Stephen Howe researchers claim Afrocentrism lack a scientific base but they never provide citations and references proving what they are claiming is valid.
I am sorry to say that there is no book out there that cite works to disconfirm any of the Afrocentric paradigms. The major problem these books have is that the authors of these books do not have the interdisciplinary skills necessary to judge the work of Afrocentrist researchers. As a result, these works depend on authority--the fact that so and so says the field of study is wrong, so it must be wrong.
All the works are written by people who have no first hand knowledge on the subjects they are writing about. For example, Clarence E. Walker in We can't go home Again,cites no sources to support his attacks on Afrocentrism. For example, he claims that Afrocentrism is a form of "black cultural nationalism" and its roots are not historically rigorous" (xvii) yet he fails to produce one example of this allegation.
Another researcher writing about Afrocentrism is Wilson J. Moses, Afrotopia:The roots of African-American popular History, this book purports to discuss Afrocentrism,yet he only discsses "Egyptocentrism" of the nineteenth century Afro-American intellectuals. He fails to discuss the research methods used by these social scientists to produce Afrocentric works.
Moses believes that Afro-Americans should not write history, unless they belong to the "white academie". He believes that it is "guild affiliation" that qualifies one to write history.
In Moses' opinion Afrocentrism was founded by Melville Herskovits. This is absolutely wrong. Afrocentrism was founded by Alexander Crummell. Generally, Moses recognizes Afrocentrism as the ideology of underclass African American youth, especially militant "urban [Black] males".
The fact that none of these books use references to disconfirm the Afrocentric ideas they can not offer provide any insight into Afrocentrism.
If you are interested in the Afrocentric Social Sciences you may want to check out this website where the Afrocentric sciences are discussed:http://olmec98.net/Structure.htm
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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This is one thing I have noticed about critics of Afrocentrism. They never challenge the evidence and reasoning Afrocentric scholars use in support of their views.
Their critiques are usually ad-hominem arguments based on appeal to tradition and convention.
-------------------- The Habsburg Agenda - Defending Western Christian civilization Posts: 890 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2014
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quote:Originally posted by A Habsburg Agenda: This is one thing I have noticed about critics of Afrocentrism. They never challenge the evidence and reasoning Afrocentric scholars use in support of their views.
Their critiques are usually ad-hominem arguments based on appeal to tradition and convention.
Perfect post, just copy and paste this whenever another one of these pathetic topics are posted.
Posts: 310 | From: US | Registered: Jun 2015
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quote:Originally posted by A Habsburg Agenda: This is one thing I have noticed about critics of Afrocentrism. They never challenge the evidence and reasoning Afrocentric scholars use in support of their views.
Their critiques are usually ad-hominem arguments based on appeal to tradition and convention.
This is because the Afrocentric research done by Rogers, DuBois, Jackson, Diop and others is usually based on the latest research in African/Black studies of their day. The major criticism of Afrocentrism is the presence of outdated references in the work.
The references are not outdated, they reflect latest research at the time Afrocentric AA scholars wrote their work. Since these works by J.A. Rogers, DuBois, Parker, Diop, Jackson and etc., were written in the 1930-1960's the references date back to the times they were written. As a result, I have attempted to revisit the major paradigms of Afrocentrism discussed by the Heroes of Afrocentrism and provided up dated references supporting their work.
Trolls have been misled by authors such as Howe to assume they can come to the Dashret Forum and attack Afrocentrism and they leave this site with their tail between their legs because many writers on this site are familiar with the work of the Afrocentric Heroes discussed above.
The attacks on Afrocentrism have been focused on Street Historians,and promoters of Afrocentrism who have not done original research in Afrocentrism.
Trolls have more success at the Egyptology Forum because writers their do not respect AAs unless they have been certified by Europeans, e.g., Keita, Kittles and Gates.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Isn't this like, the 20th instance of a loser making a thread using a Cut and paste of Stephen Howe's opportunist rabbling to make a case against the already verified and validated Afrocentric studies?
It seems this new breed of non-believer does believe in doing an ES search and read before cut and pasting redundant information that has already been debunked dozens of times.
-------------------- Selenium gives real life and true reality Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
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quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: Isn't this like, the 20th instance of a loser making a thread using a Cut and paste of Stephen Howe's opportunist rabbling to make a case against the already verified and validated Afrocentric studies?
It seems this new breed of non-believer does believe in doing an ES search and read before cut and pasting redundant information that has already been debunked dozens of times.
This should not be surprising, persistence is the major strategy how Europeans defeated Blacks in the past. Europeans used a strategy of slow infiltration into the Black lands until they outnumbered the local Blacks and took their lands away from them.
They use Howe in the same way. They post his work or that of Mary Lefkowitz to attack Afrocentrism, not knowing these authors never really criticized Afrocentrism to attempt to chip away at the Afrocentric social science. That is why once Howe and Lefkowitz work is mentioned it should be decimated.
In another thread you mentioned the lack of confidence as a major reason why some people may fail to find success. To write about African history and not know the roots of the field provides one with an inferiority complex. To seek guidance in African studies by Europeans is a hopeless quest. You see the field of African Studies was began by DuBois--not Europeans.
No one could engage in the stupid debates on Egyptology Forum concerning the Black African origins of Egypt, if they had read the work of J.A. Rogers, Diop, George Jackson, Dr. Ben, and DuBois.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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