Runoko Rashidi

Runoko Rashidi
Occupation	historian, researcher, writer, world traveler, activist
Website
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html

Runoko Rashidi (born 1954) is a writer and public lecturer based in Los Angeles. His academic focus is on "the Black foundations of world civilizations". Many of his claims are incorrect, however, as evidenced by various anthropological and DNA studies. He has coordinated educational group tours to India, Aboriginal Australia, the Fiji Islands and Southeast Asia, as well as to Egypt and Brazil.

Early life and education

Rashidi was born in

Countering Eurocentrism

Rashidi rejects the claims by European anthropologists that the Negritos, Australoids, Negroids and Arabian Mediterraneans are separate ethnic groups. He claims that they are all "Africoid" or "Black". He believes European anthropologists have used "unscientific" and "invalid" methods and that their work was "racially motivated" to divide peoples whom he thinks are Africoid in race. He cites Cheikh Diop's statement on race:

A racial classification is given to a group of individuals who share a certain number of anthropological traits, which is necessary so that they not be confused with others...It is the physical appearance which counts...Now, every time these relationships are not favorable to the Western cultures, an effort is made to undermine the cultural consciousness of Africans by telling them, "We don't even know what a race is."...It is the phenotype which as given us so much difficulty throughout history, so it is this which must be considered in these relations."

Since the later 20th and early 21st centuries, academic theorists have generally rejected such definitions of race and define it as a social construct along a continuum, rather than strict biological reality.

Criticism

Theories such as Rashidi's have been refuted by evidence of both mainline anthropologists and linguists, and, in many cases, overturned by DNA analysis of genetic populations. This has shown that, while the above groups are descendants of peoples who migrated out of Africa (as are all humans when traced back far enough), the populations migrated to more distant territories and changed ages ago. They reached their furthest destinations longer ago than did those humanoids who migrated and developed as the "races" or peoples of Europe and Asia. Because of this, the consensus of academic scientists and researchers is that the above groups do not qualify as one racial group to be called Negroid. In addition, DNA analysis has shown that the Negritos and Australoids are more closely related to neighboring populations in East Asia than to descendants of ancient populations still in Africa. The Negritos, for example, lived closely associated with neighboring peoples for milennia in relative isolation from other populations, and intermarried with their neighbors, as shown by DNA analysis.

Activities

From 1981 to 1984, Rashidi taught African history at Compton Community College, Compton, California. From 1985 to 1987 he worked for the National Black Computer Network as history editor. Rashidi has contributed regularly to the Journal of African Civilizations, edited by its founder Ivan Van Sertima from 1979 until his death. In 1987 Rashidi inaugurated the First All-India Dalit Writers Conference in Hyderabad, where he delivered an address on The Global Unity of African People.

Quotes

"History is a light that illuminates the past, and a key that unlocks the door to the future." --Runoko Rashidi

External links

• Articles by Rashidi, The Global African Presence Website (personal website)

Further reading

• van Sertima, Ivan (1989). Egypt Revisited. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-88738-799-3