The Case Against Afrocentrism

Author : Tunde Adeleke
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2011-01-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1604732946

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The Case against Afrocentrism by Tunde Adeleke Pdf

Postcolonial discourses on African Diaspora history and relations have traditionally focused intensely on highlighting the common experiences and links between black Africans and African Americans. This is especially true of Afrocentric scholars and supporters who use Africa to construct and validate a monolithic, racial, and culturally essentialist worldview. Publications by Afrocentric scholars such as Molefi Asante, Marimba Ani, Maulana Karenga, and the late John Henrik Clarke have emphasized the centrality of Africa to the construction of Afrocentric essentialism. In the last fifteen years, however, countervailing critical scholarship has challenged essentialist interpretations of Diaspora history. Critics such as Stephen Howe, Yaacov Shavit, and Clarence Walker have questioned and refuted the intellectual and cultural underpinnings of Afrocentric essentialist ideology. Tunde Adeleke deconstructs Afrocentric essentialism by illuminating and interrogating the problematic situation of Africa as the foundation of a racialized worldwide African Diaspora. He attempts to fill an intellectual gap by analyzing the contradictions in Afrocentric representations of the continent. These include multiple, conflicting, and ambivalent portraits of Africa; the use of the continent as a global, unifying identity for all blacks; the de-emphasizing and nullification of New World acculturation; and the ahistoristic construction of a monolithic African Diaspora worldwide.

Author : Clarence E. Walker
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2001-06-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780195357301

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We Can't Go Home Again by Clarence E. Walker Pdf

Afrocentrism has been a controversial but popular movement in schools and universities across America, as well as in black communities. But in We Can't Go Home Again, historian Clarence E. Walker puts Afrocentrism to the acid test, in a thoughtful, passionate, and often blisteringly funny analysis that melts away the pretensions of this "therapeutic mythology." As expounded by Molefi Kete Asante, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and others, Afrocentrism encourages black Americans to discard their recent history, with its inescapable white presence, and to embrace instead an empowering vision of their African (specifically Egyptian) ancestors as the source of western civilization. Walker marshals a phalanx of serious scholarship to rout these ideas. He shows, for instance, that ancient Egyptian society was not black but a melange of ethnic groups, and questions whether, in any case, the pharaonic regime offers a model for blacks today, asking "if everybody was a King, who built the pyramids?" But for Walker, Afrocentrism is more than simply bad history--it substitutes a feel-good myth of the past for an attempt to grapple with the problems that still confront blacks in a racist society. The modern American black identity is the product of centuries of real history, as Africans and their descendants created new, hybrid cultures--mixing many African ethnic influences with native and European elements. Afrocentrism replaces this complex history with a dubious claim to distant glory. "Afrocentrism offers not an empowering understanding of black Americans' past," Walker concludes, "but a pastiche of 'alien traditions' held together by simplistic fantasies." More to the point, this specious history denies to black Americans the dignity, and power, that springs from an honest understanding of their real history.

Author : M. Lefkowitz
Publisher : Рипол Классик
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : History
ISBN : 9785872965046

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Not Out of Africa by M. Lefkowitz Pdf

Author : Yaacov Shavit
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 445 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2013-11-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317791843

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History in Black by Yaacov Shavit Pdf

The development of Afrocentric historical writing is explored in this study which traces this recording of history from the Hellenistic-Roman period to the 19th century. Afrocentric writers are depicted as searching for the unique primary source of "culture" from one period to the next. Such passing on of cultural traits from the "ancient model" from the classical period to the origin of culture in Egypt and Africa is shown as being a product purely of creative history.

Author : Ama Mazama
Publisher : Africa Research and Publications
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015056675526

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The Afrocentric Paradigm by Ama Mazama Pdf

Author : James L. Conyers, Jr.
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2015-09-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786483259

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Afrocentricity and the Academy by James L. Conyers, Jr. Pdf

Afrocentricity is a philosophical and theoretical perspective that emphasizes the study of Africans as subjects, not as objects, and is opposed to perspectives that attempt to marginalize African thought and experience. Afrocentricity became popular in the l980s as scores of African American and African scholars adopted an Afrocentric orientation to information. The editor of this collection argues that as scholars embark upon the 21st century, they can no longer be myopic in their perceptions and analyses of race. The seventeen essays examine a wide range of variations on the Afrocentric paradigm in the areas of history, literature, political science, philosophy, economics, women’s studies, cultural studies, ethnic studies and social policy. The essays, written by professors, librarians, students and others in higher education who have embraced the Afrocentric perspective, are divided into four sections: “Pedagogy and Implementation,” “Theoretical Assessment,” “Critical Analysis,” and “Pan Africanist Thought.”

Author : Amy Binder
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2009-01-10
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781400825455

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Contentious Curricula by Amy Binder Pdf

This book compares two challenges made to American public school curricula in the 1980s and 1990s. It identifies striking similarities between proponents of Afrocentrism and creationism, accounts for their differential outcomes, and draws important conclusions for the study of culture, organizations, and social movements. Amy Binder gives a brief history of both movements and then describes how their challenges played out in seven school districts. Despite their very different constituencies--inner-city African American cultural essentialists and predominately white suburban Christian conservatives--Afrocentrists and creationists had much in common. Both made similar arguments about oppression and their children's well-being, both faced skepticism from educators about their factual claims, and both mounted their challenges through bureaucratic channels. In each case, challenged school systems were ultimately able to minimize or reject challengers' demands, but the process varied by case and type of challenge. Binder finds that Afrocentrists were more successful in advancing their cause than were creationists because they appeared to offer a solution to the real problem of urban school failure, met with more administrative sympathy toward their complaints of historic exclusion, sought to alter lower-prestige curricula (history, not science), and faced opponents who lacked a legal remedy comparable to the rule of church-state separation invoked by creationism's opponents. Binder's analysis yields several lessons for social movements research, suggesting that researchers need to pay greater attention to how movements seek to influence bureaucratic decision making, often from within. It also demonstrates the benefits of examining discursive, structural, and institutional factors in concert.

Author : Molefi Kete Asante
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Social Science
ISBN : STANFORD:36105111946534

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Afrocentricity by Molefi Kete Asante Pdf

The author has written this book entitled 'Afrocentricity' especially for those Africans still in a confused state in order to show them the way to peace. Further he indicates that the book has created its own supporters and detractors and has also been at the core of intense debates about the de-colonizing of the African mind, the dismantling of America, and the destabilizing of the Eurocentric hegemony. This book is not meant to be unread, un-remarked upon, or unheard. Afrocentrists have multiplied in the theaters, universities, unions, political organizations, schools, and corporations. The challenge to the white racial hierarchy has been intense and severe; there can be no hiding from the agency of awakened Africans. In the next few decades it is anticipated that a mighty revolution of values, symbols, and actions might bring about a more equitable society. This revolution for justice and liberty shall be led by the aroused black nation committed to a world of peace.

Author : Stephen Howe
Publisher : Verso
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1999-08-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1859842283

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Afrocentrism by Stephen Howe Pdf

For centuries, racist, colonial, and Eurocentric bias has blocked or distorted knowledge of Africans, their histories and cultures, resulting in a counter mythology claiming the innate superiority of African-descended peoples. In this provocative study, historian Stephen Howe challenges this Afrocentric rewriting of African history. 16 photos. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Author : Algernon Austin
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006-04-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780814707074

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Achieving Blackness by Algernon Austin Pdf

Achieving Blackness offers an important examination of the complexities of race and ethnicity in the context of black nationalist movements in the United States. By examining the rise of the Nation of Islam, the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the “Afrocentric era” of the 1980s through 1990s Austin shows how theories of race have shaped ideas about the meaning of “Blackness” within different time periods of the twentieth-century. Achieving Blackness provides both a fascinating history of Blackness and a theoretically challenging understanding of race and ethnicity. Austin traces how Blackness was defined by cultural ideas, social practices and shared identities as well as shaped in response to the social and historical conditions at different moments in American history. Analyzing black public opinion on black nationalism and its relationship with class, Austin challenges the commonly held assumption that black nationalism is a lower class phenomenon. In a refreshing and final move, he makes a compelling argument for rethinking contemporary theories of race away from the current fascination with physical difference, which he contends sweeps race back to its misconceived biological underpinnings. Achieving Blackness is a wonderful contribution to the sociology of race and African American Studies.

Author : Molefi Kete Asante
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2013-05-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780745654980

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An Afrocentric Manifesto by Molefi Kete Asante Pdf

Molefi Kete Asante's Afrocentric philosophy has become one of the most persistent influences in the social sciences and humanities over the past three decades. It strives to create new forms of discourse about Africa and the African Diaspora, impact on education through expanding curricula to be more inclusive, change the language of social institutions to reflect a more holistic universe, and revitalize conversations in Africa, Europe, and America, about an African renaissance based on commitment to fundamental ideas of agency, centeredness, and cultural location. In An Afrocentric Manifesto, Molefi Kete Asante examines and explores the cultural perspective closest to the existential reality of African people in order to present an innovative interpretation on the modern issues confronting contemporary society. Thus, this book engages the major critiques of Afrocentricity, defends the necessity for African people to view themselves as agents instead of as objects on the fringes of Europe, and proposes a more democratic framework for human relationships. An Afrocentric Manifesto completes Asante's quartet on Afrocentric theory. It is at the cutting edge of this new paradigm with implications for all disciplines and fields of study. It will be essential reading for urban studies, philosophy, African and African American Studies, social work, sociology, political science, and communication.

Author : Mary R. Lefkowitz
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2008-10-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780300145199

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History Lesson by Mary R. Lefkowitz Pdf

In the early 1990s, Classics professor Mary Lefkowitz discovered that one of her faculty colleagues at Wellesley College was teaching his students that Greek culture had been stolen from Africa and that Jews were responsible for the slave trade. This book tells the disturbing story of what happened when she spoke out. Lefkowitz quickly learned that to investigate the origin and meaning of myths composed by people who have for centuries been dead and buried is one thing, but it is quite another to critique myths that living people take very seriously. She also found that many in academia were reluctant to challenge the fashionable idea that truth is merely a form of opinion. For her insistent defense of obvious truths about the Greeks and the Jews, Lefkowitz was embroiled in turmoil for a decade. She faced institutional indifference, angry colleagues, reverse racism, anti-Semitism, and even a lawsuit intended to silence her. In History Lesson Lefkowitz describes what it was like to experience directly the power of both postmodernism and compensatory politics. She offers personal insights into important issues of academic values and political correctness, and she suggests practical solutions for the divisive and painful problems that arise when a political agenda takes precedence over objective scholarship. Her forthright tale uncovers surprising features in the landscape of higher education and an unexpected need for courage from those who venture there.

Author : Delores V. Mullings
Publisher : Fernwood Publishing
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2021-05-31T00:00:00Z
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781773634593

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Africentric Social Work by Delores V. Mullings Pdf

This edited collection focuses on Africentric social work practice, providing invaluable assistance to undergraduate students in developing foundational skills and knowledge to further their understanding of how to initiate and maintain best practices with African Canadians. In social work education and field practice, students will benefit from the depth and breadth of this book’s discussions of social, health and educational concerns related to Black people across Canada. The book’s contributors present a broad spectrum of personal and professional experiences as African Canadian social work practitioners, students and educators. They address issues that African Canadians confront daily, which social work educators and potential practitioners need to understand to provide racially and culturally relevant services. The book presents students with an invaluable opportunity to develop their practical skills through case studies and critical thinking exercises, with recommendations for how to ethically and culturally engage in African-centred service provision.

Author : Mary R. Lefkowitz,Guy MacLean Rogers
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 545 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2014-03-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469620329

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Black Athena Revisited by Mary R. Lefkowitz,Guy MacLean Rogers Pdf

Was Western civilization founded by ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians? Can the ancient Egyptians usefully be called black? Did the ancient Greeks borrow religion, science, and philosophy from the Egyptians and Phoenicians? Have scholars ignored the Afroasiatic roots of Western civilization as a result of racism and anti-Semitism? In this collection of twenty essays, leading scholars in a broad range of disciplines confront the claims made by Martin Bernal in Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. In that work, Bernal proposed a radical reinterpretation of the roots of classical civilization, contending that ancient Greek culture derived from Egypt and Phoenicia and that European scholars have been biased against the notion of Egyptian and Phoenician influence on Western civilization. The contributors to this volume argue that Bernal's claims are exaggerated and in many cases unjustified. Topics covered include race and physical anthropology; the question of an Egyptian invasion of Greece; the origins of Greek language, philosophy, and science; and racism and anti-Semitism in classical scholarship. In the conclusion to the volume, the editors propose an entirely new scholarly framework for understanding the relationship between the cultures of the ancient Near East and Greece and the origins of Western civilization. The contributors are: John Baines, professor of Egyptology, University of Oxford Kathryn A. Bard, assistant professor of archaeology, Boston University C. Loring Brace, professor of anthropology and curator of biological anthropology in the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan John E. Coleman, professor of classics, Cornell University Edith Hall, lecturer in classics, University of Reading, England Jay H. Jasanoff, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Linguistics, Cornell University Richard Jenkyns, fellow and tutor, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and university lecturer in classics, University of Oxford Mary R. Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Wellesley College Mario Liverani, professor of ancient near eastern history, Universita di Roma, 'La Sapienza' Sarah P. Morris, professor of classics, University of California at Los Angeles Robert E. Norton, associate professor of German, Vassar College Alan Nussbaum, associate professor of classics, Cornell University David O'Connor, professor of Egyptology and curator in charge of the Egyptian section of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania Robert Palter, Dana Professor Emeritus of the History of Science, Trinity College, Connecticut Guy MacLean Rogers, associate professor of Greek and Latin and history, Wellesley College Frank M. Snowden, Jr., professor of classics emeritus, Howard University Lawrence A. Tritle, associate professor of history, Loyola Marymount University Emily T. Vermeule, Samuel E. Zemurray, Jr., and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor Emerita, Harvard University Frank J. Yurco, Egyptologist, Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago

Author : Andrea C. Abrams
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2014-03-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780814705247

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God and Blackness by Andrea C. Abrams Pdf

"Offers an ethnographic study of blackness as it is understood within a specific community--that of the First Afrikan Church, a middle class Afrocentric congregation in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, Andrea C. Abrams examines how this community has employed Afrocentrism and black theology as a means of negotiating the unreconciled natures of thoughts and ideals that are part of being both black and American. Specifically, Abrams examines the ways in which First Afrikan's construction of community is influenced by shared understandings of blackness and probes the means through which individuals negotiate the tensions created by competing constructions of their black identity. This book examines questions of political identity, religious expression, and gender dynamics through the lens of a unique black church"--From back cover.