Afrocentrism


Book Description

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.




Not Out of Africa


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We Can't Go Home Again


Book Description

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.




Afrocentric Thought and Praxis


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Achieving Blackness


Book Description

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.




Living the Intersection


Book Description

Womanism and Afrocentrism are the two most influential currents in contemporary African American culture. Yet are the two compatible? Social ethicist Cheryl Sanders marshals some leading womanist thinkers to take the measure of the Afrocentric idea and to explore the intricate relationship between Afrocentric and womanist perspectives.




Afrocentric Idea Revised


Book Description

This new edition of The Afrocentric Idea boldly confronts the contemporary challenges that have been launched against Molefi Kete Asante's philosophical, social, and cultural theory. By rendering a critique of some post-modern positions as well as the old structured Eurocentric orientations discussed in the first edition, this new edition contains lively engagements with views expressed by Mary Lefkowitz, Paul Gilroy, and Cornel West. Expanding on his core ideas, Asante has cast The Afrocentric Idea in the tradition of provocative critiques of the established social order. This is a fresh and dynamic location of culture within the context of social change.




Afrocentricity


Book Description

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.




Afrocentricity and the Academy


Book Description

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."




Afrocentric Traditions


Book Description

Ever since the first contacts between Europe and Africa, African people have operated from the fringes of Eurocentric experience in the Western mind. Much of what we have studied in African history and culture, or literature and linguistics, or politics and economics, has been orchestrated from the standpoint of Europe's interests. Whether it is a matter of economics, history, politics, geographical concepts, or art, Africans have been seen as peripheral. This volume reviews the past in order to evaluate the present and move ahead with appropriate policies for the future. The articles in this volume, the first in a new serial publication in Africana studies, cover a broad range of subject matter and methodology. Topics range from the W.E.B. DuBois-Booker T. Washington schism that led to the formation of the Niagara movement, to the popular dissemination of black hip-hop culture. It opens with a description of Afrocentricity by Molefi K. Asante. Kobi K.K. Kambon and Reginald Rackley discuss the construct, that produces European cultural "misidentification" among Africans. Nell Irvin Painter, in discussing the Shoah and Southern history, parallels the rhetoric of hate that permeated the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German diatribes against Jews with that of the Southern white supremacists against blacks. Anthony B. Pinn notes similarities that tie together slavery and colonialism in a bond of existential and ontological destruction. Anthony J. Lemelle, Jr., examines critical issues about black masculinity. James B. Stewart elaborates on the development of Africana studies. Julius E. Thompson explores the historical importance of the African-American writer in Mississippi history. Cary DeCordova Wintz the basis of the conflict between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington in an effort to expose its underlying causes. James L. Conyers, Jr. summarizes social and cultural movements, in particular the popular black hip-hop culture. Rounding out the pres