Afrocentrism

Afrocentrism is an outlook or worldview which centers on Africa and the descendants of Africans, much in the same way Eurocentrism is centered on Europe and Europeans. It tends to involve a revisionist history that recasts world history, a traditionally Eurocentric paradigm, into an African one – focusing on black civilizations which predate those of ancient Rome and Greece, such the Meroitic civilizations of Nubia and early dynastic Egypt, and on the contributions of people of black African descent throughout history. In its more radical form, Afrocentrism is often associated with the notion of black supremacy.

Historical Afrocentrism

Afrocentric history traces and emphasizes important contributions undertaken by people in ancient Africa (particularly Egypt and Kush), the North African Islamic people of the Middle Ages, especially the Moores in Iberia, and the descendants of African peoples throughout the world, including in Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and the Americas.

Because Afrocentric history approaches the study of history in a manner uncoventional in Western civilization, it is often considered revisionist history in so far that it contrasts with the perceived racial hierarchies which for many centuries dominated the study of history in Europe, and later, its oversea colonies.

Criticism of Afrocentrism

Afrocentrism is often viewed with skepticism or even contempt by many, including descendants of African people educated in, and accustomed to, a traditionally Eurocentric historical framework. The dramatic paradigmatic shift from a view of world history centered around European accomplishments, and arguably, deeply racist assumptions about other peoples and cultures to one which emphasizes the black beginnings of humankind, had resulted in significant attitudinal shifts both in Western culture and beyond.

Multiculturalists, on the other hand, tend to welcome historical Afrocentrism due largely to it re-emphasis on the history and culture of a continent long-neglected, and poses significant challenges to a Eurocentric view of world history. One which, they argue, has devalued and appropriated, or simply ignored achievements by Africans. Moreover, they seek to avoid a reductionism whereby various and varied African cultures are viewed as a monolithic whole, as product of a single "black race." They also oppose the notion that any one culture is superior to another, a premise disputed by the so-called "radical" strain of Afrocentrism.

Some critics assert that Afrocentrism largely consists of myth presented as history, and that it is a projection of modern racial and geographical categories onto ancient cultures in which they did not exist. One such argument maintains that 'Europe' and 'Africa' were not, in fact, oppositional entities to the Greek or Egyptian civilizations, encircling the Mediterranean. Moreover, the concept of race as a biological category has overwhelmingly fallen out of favor among most serious researchers since the mid-20th Century. Within academic circles, Africans are rarely viewed as a distinct and monolithic people or race, but as a number of diverse cultures entailing complex and varied genetic histories.

Since the debates over Afrocentrism often involves disputes over the factual verifiability of certain claims, some scholars such as Mary Lefkowitz, have attempted to establish methodological tools aimed at better addressing these issues.

References

• Lefkowitz, Mary R. Not out of Africa: how Afrocentrism became an excuse to teach myth as history (BasicBooks, NY, c1996).

• Henderson, Errol Anthony. Afrocentrism and world politics: towards a new paradigm (Praeger, Westport, Conn., 1995).

• Terry Kershaw, "Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric method." Western Journal of Black Studies, 1992, 16(3), pp. 160-168.

• Howe, Stephen. Afrocentrism: mythical pasts and imagined homes (Verso, London, 1998).

• Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. Afrotopia: the roots of African American popular history (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

• Asante, Molefi Kete. Kemet, Afrocentricity, and knowledge (Africa World Press, 1990).

• Sniderman, Paul M. and Piazza, Thomas. Black pride and black prejudice (Princeton University Press, 2002).

• Magida, Arthur J. Prophet of rage a life of Louis Farrakhan and his nation (BasicBooks, NY, 1996).

• Spivey, Donald. Fire from the soul: a history of the African-American struggle (Carolina Academic Press, 2003).

• Binder, Amy J. Contentious curricula : Afrocentrism and creationism in American public schools (Princeton University Press, 2002).

• Henke, Holger and Reno, Fred (eds.). Modern political culture in the Caribbean (University of the West Indies Press, 2003).

• Bailey, Randall C (ed.). Yet with a steady beat: contemporary U.S. Afrocentric biblical interpretation (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).

• Lewis, Martin W. The myth of continents: a critique of metageography (University of California Press, 1997).