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{{Short description|African ethnocentrism}}
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{{for-multi|the study of African culture and history|African studies|the academic theory|Afrocentricity|the book|Afrocentricity (book)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Pan-African}}
{{Black Power sidebar}}
'''Afrocentrism''' is a worldview that is centered on the history of people of African descent or a view that favors it over non-African civilizations.<ref>"Recent" here means in the last few thousand years, as opposed to in the [[Stone Age]], for example [[Recent African origin of modern humans|70,000 years ago]]</ref> It is in some respects a response to [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] attitudes about [[Ethnic groups of Africa|African people]] and their historical contributions. It seeks to counter what it sees as mistakes and ideas perpetuated by the racist philosophical underpinnings of Western academic disciplines as they developed during and since Europe's [[Early Renaissance]] as justifying rationales for the enslavement of other peoples, in order to enable more accurate accounts of not only African but all people's contributions to world history.<ref>CC Verharen, "Molefi Asante...”, The Western Journal of Black Studies, (24)4, 2000, pp. 223–238</ref> Afrocentricity deals primarily with [[self-determination]] and African agency and is a [[Pan-Africanism|pan-African]] point of view for the study of culture, [[philosophy]], and history.<ref>[http://www.asante.net/articles/1/afrocentricity/ Asante on Afrocentricity] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123082650/http://www.asante.net/articles/1/afrocentricity/ |date=23 November 2018 }}.</ref><ref name="Africana">[[Henry Louis Gates|Gates, Henry Louis]], and [[Kwame Anthony Appiah]] (eds), ''[[Encyclopedia Africana|Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American]]'' Volume 1, p. 111, Oxford University Press. 2005. {{ISBN|0-19-517055-5}}</ref>
Afrocentrism is a scholarly movement that seeks to conduct research and education on global history subjects, from the perspective of historical African peoples and polities. It takes a critical stance on Eurocentric assumptions and myths about world history, in order to pursue methodological studies of the latter. Some of the critics of the movement believe that it often denies or minimizes European, [[Near East]]ern, and [[Asian culture|Asian]] cultural influences while exaggerating certain aspects of historical African civilizations that independently accomplished a significant level of cultural and technological development. In general, Afrocentrism is usually manifested in a focus on the history of Africa and its role in contemporary African-American culture among others.
What is today broadly called Afrocentrism evolved out of the work of African American intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but flowered into its modern form due to the activism of African American intellectuals in the U.S. [[civil rights movement]] and in the development of [[Black studies|African American studies]] programs in universities. However, following the development of universities in African colonies in the 1950s, African scholars became major contributors to African historiography.<ref>General History of Africa, Vol 1, p41, UNESCO, 1981</ref> A notable pioneer is the professor [[Kenneth Dike]], who became chairman of the Committee on African Studies at Harvard in the 1970s.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/13/obituaries/kenneth-o-dike-dies-in-a-nigerian-hospital.html|title=Kenneth O. Dike Dies in a Nigerian Hospital|date=13 November 1983|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> In strict terms Afrocentrism, as a distinct historiography, reached its peak in the 1980s and 1990s.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} Today{{when|date=December 2017}} it is primarily associated with [[Cheikh Anta Diop]], [[John Henrik Clarke]], [[Ivan van Sertima]] and [[Molefi Kete Asante]]. Asante, however, describes his theories as [[Afrocentricity]].<ref>Molefi Asante, ''The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism: An Afrocentric Response to Critics'', foreword by [[Maulana Karenga]]: "Molefi Asante, the founding and preeminent theorist of Afrocentricity, is one of the most important intellectuals at work today. This work continues his tradition of combining an extraordinary intellectual range with an impressive ability to identify and clarify central issues in the current discourse on Afrocentricity, multiculturalism, race, culture, ethnicity and related themes. Dr. Asante offers an insightful and valuable response to Eurocentric critics of the Afrocentric initiative while simultaneously addressing a wide range of issues critical to understanding this important intellectual enterprise, including African agency, ___location, orientation, centerdness, subject-place and cultural groundedness. The volume is thoughtful, multifaceted and rewarding, and yields a rich sense of the contours and complexity of the Afrocentric project." --Dr. Maulana Karenga, Chair, Department of Black Studies, California State University, Long Beach."</ref>
Proponents of Afrocentrism support the claim that the contributions of various Black African people have been downplayed or discredited as part of the legacy of [[colonialism]] and slavery's [[pathology]] of "writing Africans out of history".<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/pss/3819303 |jstor=3819303 |last1=Andrade |first1=Susan Z. |title=Rewriting History, Motherhood, and Rebellion: Naming an African Women's Literary Tradition |journal=Research in African Literatures |date=1990 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=91–110 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Woodson|first=Carter Godwin|author-link=Carter G. Woodson|title=The Mis-education of the Negro|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zF6J8Zge4XgC&pg=PA7|year=1933|publisher=ReadaClassic.com|page=7|id=GGKEY:LYULWKX4YJQ}}</ref>
Major critics of Afrocentrism include [[Mary Lefkowitz]], who dismiss it as [[pseudohistory]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Howe|first=Stephen|title=Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes|url=https://archive.org/details/afrocentrism00step|url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=[[Verso Books]]|isbn=978-1-85984-228-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/afrocentrism00step/page/10 10]}}</ref> reactive,<ref>{{cite book|last=Bracey|first=Earnest N.|title=Prophetic Insight: The Higher Education and Pedagogy of African Americans|url=https://archive.org/details/propheticinsight0000brac|url-access=registration|date=1 January 1999|publisher=[[University Press of America]]|___location=[[Lanham, Maryland]]|isbn=978-0-7618-1384-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/propheticinsight0000brac/page/7 7]}}</ref> and obstinately therapeutic.<ref name="autogenerated192">{{cite book|last=Marable|first=Manning|author-link=Manning Marable|title=Beyond Black and White: Transforming African-American Politics|url=https://archive.org/details/beyondblackwhite00mara|url-access=registration|year=1995|publisher=[[Verso Books]]|isbn=978-1-85984-924-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/beyondblackwhite00mara/page/192 192]}}</ref> Others, such as [[Kwame Anthony Appiah]], believe that Afrocentrism defeats its purpose of dismantling unipolar studies of world history by seeking to replace Eurocentricity with an equally ethnocentric and hierarchical curriculum, and negatively essentializes European culture and people of European descent. [[Clarence E. Walker]] claims it to be "Eurocentrism in [[blackface]]".<ref name="Banner-haley2003"/>
==Terminology==
The term "Afrocentrism" dates to 1962.<ref>{{cite book|last=Moses|first=Wilson Jeremiah|title=Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hx0LGNxO_mAC&pg=PA44|date=13 September 1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-47941-7|pages=44–}}</ref> The adjective "Afrocentric" appears in a typescript proposal for an entry in ''[[Encyclopedia Africana]]'', possibly due to [[W. E. B. Du Bois]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Elegant Inconsistencies: Race, Nation, and Writing in Wilson Jeremiah Moses's Afrotopia|last=Levine|first=Robert|doi=10.1093/alh/ajn016|year=2008|journal=American Literary History|volume=20|page=497|issue=3|s2cid=143005947}}</ref> The abstract noun "Afrocentricity" dates to the 1970s,<ref>{{cite book|author=Thairu, Kihumbu|title=The African Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yOk_AAAAYAAJ|year=1975|publisher=[[East African Literature Bureau]]}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi K.|title=An Afrocentric Manifesto|publisher=Polity Press|year=2007|isbn=978-07456-4102-7|___location=Cambridge, UK|pages=6}}</ref> and was popularized by [[Molefi Asante]]'s ''Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change'' (1980). Molefi Kete Asante's theory, Afrocentricity, has been one developed in academic settings and may incorporate the terms Afrocentric to describe scholarship and Afrocentrists to describe scholars, but does not use Afrocentrism. According to Asante, though the two terms are often confused to mean the same, Afrocentrists are not adherents of Afrocentrism.<ref name=":0" /> This has caused confusing notions about who is considered an Afrocentrist, as various scholars who may or may not be associated with Asante and his works have been erroneously given the title, even by other academics.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi K.|title=The Afrocentric Idea|publisher=Temple University Press|year=1998|isbn=1-56639-595-X|___location=Philadelphia, PA|pages=ix-xiii}}</ref> Asante has written that Afrocentricity and Afrocentrism are not the same and neither do they share the same origin:
<blockquote>By way of distinction, Afrocentricity should not be confused with the variant Afrocentrism. The term “Afrocentrism” was first used by the opponents of Afrocentricity who in their zeal saw it as an obverse of Eurocentrism. The adjective “Afrocentric” in the academic literature always referred to “Afrocentricity.” However, the use of “Afrocentrism” reflected a negation of the idea of Afrocentricity as a positive and progressive paradigm. The aim was to assign religious signification to the idea of African centeredness. However, it has come to refer to a broad cultural movement of the late twentieth century that has a set of philosophical, political, and artistic ideas which provides the basis for the musical, sartorial, and aesthetic dimensions of the African personality. On the other hand, Afrocentricity, as I have previously defined it, is a theory of agency, that is, the idea that African people must be viewed and view themselves as agents rather than spectators to historical revolution and change. To this end Afrocentricity seeks to examine every aspect of the subject place of Africans in historical, literary, architectural, ethical, philosophical, economic, and political life.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi K.|title=An Afrocentric Manifesto|publisher=Polity Press|year=2007|isbn=978-07456-4102-7|___location=Cambridge, UK|pages=17}}</ref> </blockquote>
==History==
[[File:bois.jpg|thumbnail|A 1911 copy of the [[NAACP]] journal ''[[The Crisis]]'' depicting "Ra-Maat-Neb, one of the kings of the Upper Nile", a copy of the relief portraying [[Amanitenmemide|Nebmaatre I]] on [[Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah)|Meroe pyramid 17]]]]
Afrocentrism has its origins in the work of African and [[African diaspora]] intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following social changes in the United States and Africa due both to the end of [[slavery]] and the decline of [[colonialism]]. Following the [[American Civil War]], African Americans in the [[Southern United States|South]] gathered together in communities to evade white control, established their own church congregations, and worked hard to gain education. They increasingly took more active public roles despite severe racial discrimination and segregation.<ref>Du Bois, W. E. B., ''Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880''. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935; reprint New York: The Free Press, 1998.</ref> American and African intellectuals looked to the African past for a re-evaluation of what its civilizations had achieved and what they meant for contemporary people.<ref>"[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556642_2/Reconstruction_(U_S_history).html Reconstruction]". Accessed 19 November 2007. [https://web.archive.org/web/20091021023758/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556642_2/Reconstruction_(U_S_history).html Archived] 2009-10-31.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/moweb/unity.htm |title=Afrocentricity as a Quest for Cultural Unity: Reading Diop in English |access-date=13 November 2007 |last=Moses |first=Greg |publisher=National Association for African American Studies |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212071725/http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/moweb/unity.htm |archive-date=12 December 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
{{Blockquote|The combination of the European centuries gives us about four to five hundred years of solid European domination of intellectual concepts and philosophical ideas. Africa and Asia were subsumed under various headings of the European hierarchy. If a war between the European powers occurred it was called a World War and the Asians and Africans found their way on the side of one European power or the other. There was this sense of assertiveness about European culture that advanced with Europe's trade, religious, and military forces.<ref>[http://www.asante.net/articles/51/de-westernizing-communication-strategies-for-neutralizing-cultural-myths/ De-Westernizing Communication: Strategies for Neutralizing Cultural Myths].</ref>|Molefi Asante|"De-Westernizing Communication: Strategies for Neutralizing Cultural Myths"}}
As an ideology and political movement, Afrocentrism had its beginnings in activism among black intellectuals, political figures, and historians in the context of the US American [[civil rights movement]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Olaniyan, T.
|year=2006
|title=From Black Aesthetics To Afrocentrism (or, A Small History of an African And African American Discursivepractice)
|journal=West Africa Review
|issn = 1525-4488}}
</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2015}} According to U.S. professor Victor Oguejiofor Okafor, concepts of Afrocentricity lie at the core of disciplines such as [[African American studies]].<ref>Victor Oguejiofor Okafor, "The Place of Africalogy in the University Curriculum", ''Journal of Black Studies'', vol. 26 no. 6, July 1999, pp. 688–712.</ref> But [[Wilson J. Moses]] claims that Afrocentrism roots are not exclusively African:
{{Blockquote|Despite the fulminations of ethno-chauvinists and other prejudiced persons, it remains a fact that the contributions of white scholars, like Boas, Malinowski, and Herskovits, were fundamental to that complex of ideas that we designate to days as Afrocentrism...Students of African and African American history have long appreciated the irony that much of what we now call Afrocentrism was developed during the 1930s by the Jewish American scholar [[Melville Herskovits]]{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}|Wilson J. Moses|''Historical Sketches of Afrocentrism''
}}
In 1987, [[Martin Bernal]] published his ''[[Black Athena]]'', in which he claims that ancient Greece was colonized by northern invaders mixing with a colony established by [[Phoenicia]] (modern Lebanon). A major theme of the work is the alleged denial by Western academia of the African and (western) Asiatic influence on ancient Greek culture.
==
===Afrocentricity book===
{{main|Afrocentricity (book)}}
In 2000, African American Studies professor [[Molefi Kete Asante]], gave a lecture entitled "Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding of African Thought in this Millennium,"<ref>Kete Asante, Molefi, [http://www.asante.net/articles/Liverpool-Address.html "Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding of African Thought in this Millennium"], University of Liverpool, 2 August 2000, accessed 11 February 2009 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302025412/http://www.asante.net/articles/Liverpool-Address.html |date=2 March 2009 }}.</ref> in which he presented many of his ideas:
* Africa has been betrayed by international commerce, by [[missionaries]] and [[imams]], by the structure of knowledge imposed by the Western world, by its own leaders, and by the ignorance of its own people of its past.
* [[Philosophy]] originated in Africa and the first philosophers in the world were Africans.
* Afrocentricity constitutes a new way of examining data, and a novel orientation to data; it carries with it assumptions about the current state of the African world.
* His aim is "to help lay out a plan for the recovery of African place, respectability, accountability, and leadership."
* Afrocentricity can stand its ground among any ideology or religion: Marxism, [[Islam]], [[Christianity]], [[Buddhism]], or [[Judaism]]. Your Afrocentricity will emerge in the presence of these other ideologies because it is from you.
* Afrocentrism is the only ideology that can liberate African people.
Asante also stated:
{{blockquote|As a cultural configuration, the Afrocentric idea is distinguished by five characteristics:
# an intense interest in psychological ___location as determined by symbols, motifs, rituals, and signs.
# a commitment to finding the subject-place of Africans in any social, political, economic, or religious phenomenon with implications for questions of sex, gender, and class.
# a defence of African cultural elements as historically valid in the context of art, music, and literature.
# a celebration of centeredness and agency and a commitment to lexical refinement that eliminates pejoratives about Africans or other people.
# a powerful imperative from historical sources to revise the collective text of African people.}}
However, Wilson J. Moses, said of Asante: "His second book, ''The Afrocentric Idea'' (1987), was a creative and in some respects brilliant but rambling theoretical work, much influenced by the revolution in "[[critical theory]]" that occurred in American intellectual life during the late 1970s and early 1980s." Some also assert that the definition of Afrocentricity has never sat still long enough to be properly described and accurately critiqued.{{Citation needed|date=September 2015}}
===Afrocentric education===
{{Main|Afrocentric education}}
Afrocentric education is education designed to empower peoples of the African diaspora. A central premise behind it is that many Africans have been subjugated by limiting their awareness of themselves and indoctrinating them with ideas that work against them.<ref>Woodson, Dr. Carter G. (1933). ''The Mis-Education of the Negro''. Khalifah's Booksellers & Associates.</ref> To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-determination in relationship to others.<ref>Akbar, Dr. Na'im (1998).</ref> Like [[Paulo Freire|educational leaders of other cultures]], proponents assert that what educates one group of people does not necessarily educate and empower another group–so they assert educational priorities distinctly for the Africans in a given context.
===Afrocentric theology===
{{Further|Black theology|Black church}}
The [[black church]] in the United States developed out of the [[creolization]] of African spirituality and European-American [[Christianity]]; early members of the churches made certain stories their own{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}. During the [[American Civil War|antebellum]] years, the idea of deliverance out of [[slavery]], as in the story of [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], was especially important{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}. After [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] and the restoration of [[white supremacy]], their hope was based on deliverance from segregation and other abuses{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}. They found much to respond to in the idea of a personal relationship with [[Jesus]], and shaped their churches by the growth of music and worship styles that related to African as well as European-American traditions.{{citation needed|date=September 2011}}
Twentieth-century "Africentric approaches" to Christian [[theology]] and preaching have been more deliberate. Writers and thinkers emphasize "Black presence" in the [[Christian Bible]], including the idea of a "[[Race of Jesus|Black Jesus]]".<ref>Peters, Ronald Edward (ed.), ''Africentric Approaches to Christian Ministry: Strengthening Urban Congregations in African American Communities'', University Press of America (2006), {{ISBN|978-0-7618-3264-5}}.</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2015}}
===Kwanzaa===
In 1966 [[Maulana Karenga]] of the black separatist [[US Organization]] created [[Kwanzaa]]; which became the first specifically African American holiday to be widely observed amongst African Americans.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Jaynes, Gerald D.|title=Encyclopedia of African American society|date=2005|publisher=[[SAGE Publications]]|___location=[[Thousand Oaks, California]]|isbn=1452265410|page=420|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UZx2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT520|access-date=26 September 2015}}</ref><ref name="Kwanzaa Date">{{cite news|url=https://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00B1EFD395C0C738FDDAB0994DB484D81|work=[[The New York Times]]"|title=The Evening Hours|date=30 December 1983 |access-date=15 December 2006 | first=Ron | last=Alexander}}</ref> Karenga rejected liberation theology and considered the practice of Christianity anti-thetical to the creation of an African-American identity independent from white America.<ref>Karenga, Maulana (1967). "Religion". In Clyde Halisi, James Mtume. The Quotable Karenga. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press. pp. 25. 23769.8.</ref> Karenga said his goal was to "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society."<ref name="Mugane2015">{{cite book|last=Mugane|first=John M.|title=The Story of Swahili|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zIwNCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA255|date=15 July 2015|publisher=[[Ohio University Press]]|___location=[[Athens, Ohio]]|isbn=978-0-89680-489-0|page=255}}</ref>
===Race and Pan-African identity===
{{anchor|race}}
{{Further|Ancient Egyptian race controversy|Pan-Africanism}}
Many Afrocentrists{{Who|date=October 2015}} seek to challenge concepts such as [[white privilege]], [[Color blindness (race)|color-blind]] perspectives, and race-neutral pedagogies. There are strong ties between Afrocentricity and [[Critical race theory]].<ref>Leonardo, Zeus (2005). ''Critical Pedagogy and Race'', p. 129 {{ISBN|1-4051-2968-9}}.</ref>
Afrocentrists agree with the current scientific consensus that holds that Africans exhibit a range of types and physical characteristics, and that such elements as wavy hair or aquiline facial features are part of a continuum of African types that do not depend on admixture with Caucasian groups. They cite work by Hiernaux<ref name=Hiernaux>{{cite book
|author=Hiernaux, J.
|year=1974
|title=The People of Africa
|publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson
}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2015}} and Hassan<ref name="Hassan1988">{{cite journal|author=Hassan, F.A.|year=1988|title=The Predynastic of Egypt|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|volume=2|issue=2|pages=135–185|doi=10.1007/BF00975416|jstor=25800540|s2cid=153321928}}</ref> that they believe demonstrates that populations could vary based on micro-evolutionary principles ([[climate change adaptation|climate adaptation]], drift, selection), and that such variations existed in both living and fossil Africans.<ref name=Keita1992>{{cite journal
|author=Keita, S.
|year=1992
|title=Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions
|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology
|volume=87
|pages=245–54
|doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330870302
|pmid=1562056
|issue=3
|bibcode=1992AJPA...87..245K
}}</ref>
Afrocentrists have condemned what they consider to be attempts at dividing African peoples into racial clusters as new versions of discredited theories, such as the [[Hamitic#Hamitic hypothesis|Hamitic hypothesis]] and the [[Dynastic Race Theory]]. These theories, they contend, attempted to identify certain African ethnicities, such as Nubians, Ethiopians and Somalis, as "Caucasoid" groups that entered Africa to bring civilization to the natives. They believe that Western academics have traditionally limited the peoples they defined as "Black" Africans to those south of the [[Sahara]], but used broader "Caucasoid" or related categories to classify peoples of Egypt or North Africa. Afrocentrists also believe strongly in the work of certain anthropologists who have suggested that there is little evidence to support that the first North African populations were closely related to "Caucasoids" of Europe and western Asia.<ref name="Hiernaux"/>
In 1964 Afrocentric scholar [[Cheikh Anta Diop]] expressed a belief in such a double standard:
{{blockquote|But it is only the most gratuitous theory that considers the Dinka, the Nouer and the Masai, among others, to be Caucasoids. What if an African ethnologist were to persist in recognising as white only the blond, blue-eyed Scandinavians, and systematically refused membership to the remaining Europeans, and Mediterraneans in particular—the French, Italians, Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese? Just as the inhabitants of Scandinavia and the Mediterranean countries must be considered as two extreme poles of the same anthropological reality, so should the Negroes of East and West Africa be considered as the two extremes in the reality of the Negro world. To say that a Shillouk, a Dinka, or a Nouer is a Caucasoid is for an African as devoid of sense and scientific interest as would be, to a European, an attitude that maintained that a Greek or a Latin were not of the same race.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}}}
French historian Jean Vercoutter has claimed that [[archaeological]] workers routinely classified Negroid remains as Mediterranean, even though they found such remains in substantial numbers with ancient artefacts.<ref>Jean Vercoutter, ''The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering Meroitic Script''. Paris: UNESCO, 1978, pp. 15–36.</ref>
Some Afrocentrists{{Who|date=October 2015}} have adopted a [[Pan-Africanism|pan-Africanist]] perspective that people of color are all "African people" or "[[diaspora|diasporic]] Africans," citing physical characteristics they exhibit in common with Black Africans. Afrocentric scholar [[Runoko Rashidi]] writes that they are all part of the "global African community." Some Afrocentric writers include in the [[African diaspora]] the [[Dravidians]] of India, "[[Negrito]]s" of Southeast Asia ([[Thailand]], the [[Philippines]] and [[Malaysia]]); and the [[Indigenous peoples|aboriginal]] peoples of Australia and Melanesia.{{Citation needed|date=October 2015}}
===Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas theories===
{{Main|Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories}}
In the 1970s, [[Ivan van Sertima]] advanced the theory that the complex civilizations of the Americas were the result of trans-oceanic influence from the Egyptians or other African civilizations. Such a claim is his primary thesis in ''They Came Before Columbus'', published in 1978. The few [[Trans-cultural diffusion|hyper-diffusionist]] writers seek to establish that the [[Olmec]] people, who built the first highly complex civilization in [[Mesoamerica]] and are considered by some to be the mother civilization for all other civilizations of Mesoamerica, were deeply influenced by Africans. Van Sertima said that the Olmec civilization was a hybrid one of Africans and Native Americans. His theory of pre-Columbian American-African contact has since met with considerable and detailed opposition by scholars of Mesoamerica. Van Sertima has been accused of "doctoring" and twisting data to fit his conclusions, inventing evidence, and ignoring the work of respected Central and South American scholars to advance his own theory.<ref name="Ortiz1997"/> Mainstream historians of Mesoamerica overwhelmingly reject that view with detailed rebuttals.<ref name="Ortiz1997">{{cite journal
|author1=Ortiz de Montellano, Bernardo
|author-link=Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano
|author2=Gabriel Haslip Viera
|author3=Warren Barbour
|year=1997
|title=They were NOT here before Columbus: Afrocentric hyper-diffusionism in the 1990s
|journal=Ethnohistory
|pages=199–234
|volume=44
|doi=10.2307/483368
|issue=2
|jstor=483368
}}</ref>
Claims have been also forwarded contending that African civilizations were founding influences on the Chinese [[Xia dynasty|Xia]] cultures.<ref name=Ortiz1997/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://dcn.davis.ca.us/~gizmo/2001/clarence.html |title=Clarence Walker encourages black Americans to discard Afrocentrism |access-date=13 November 2007 |last=Sherwin |first=Elisabeth |publisher=Davis Community Network | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071017065428/http://dcn.davis.ca.us/~gizmo/2001/clarence.html| archive-date= 17 October 2007 | url-status= live}}</ref>
===Afrocentrism and Ancient Egypt===
{{Main|Ancient Egyptian race controversy}}
Several Afrocentrists have claimed that important cultural characteristics of ancient [[Egypt]] were indigenous to Africa and that these features were present in other early African civilizations<ref name=Diop1964>{{cite journal
|author=Diop, C.A.
|year=1964
|title=Evolution of the Negro world'
|volume=23
|issue=51
|pages=5–15
}}</ref> such as the later [[Kingdom of Kerma|Kerma]] and the [[Meroe|Meroitic]] civilizations of [[Nubia]].<ref>Bruce Williams, "The lost pharaohs of Nubia", in Ivan van Sertima (ed.), ''Egypt Revisited'' (New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction, 1993).</ref> Scholars who have held this view include [[Marcus Garvey]], [[George James (writer)|George James]], [[Martin Bernal]], [[Ivan van Sertima]], [[John Henrik Clarke]], and [[Molefi Kete Asante]] as well as the Afrocentrist writers [[Cheikh Anta Diop]] and [[Chancellor Williams]]. The claim has also been made by many Afrocentric scholars that the Ancient Egyptians themselves were [[Black African]] (sub-saharan African) rather than North African/Maghrebi, and that the various invasions on Egypt resulted in the "Africanity" of Ancient Egypt becoming diluted, resulting in the modern diversity seen today.<ref name="Ivan van Sertima 1994">{{cite book|author=Van Sertima, Ivan|title=Egypt, Child of Africa|author-link=Ivan van Sertima|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7KmBTz2vUoC|year=1994|publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=1-56000-792-3}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2015}} Examining this view, Egyptologist [[Stuart Tyson Smith]], wrote that "Any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depends on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study. Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterise the Egyptians as 'black', while acknowledging the scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans". Smith, however, expressed criticism of Egyptologists and Afrocentrists that defined ancient Egyptians "as members of an essentialist racial category" with perceived "Caucasoid" or "Negroid/Africoid" phenotypes".<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Stuart Tyson |date=2001 |title=The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt |volume=3 |editor-first=Donald |editor-last=Redford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=27–28}}</ref>
As historian [[Ronald H. Fritze]] argued, mainstream [[Egyptology|Egyptologists]] and other scholars strongly object to Afrocentric Egyptology, viewing it as "theurapetic mythology" for black people, since it fails to provide sufficient evidence or persuasive interpretations to back up its claims.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fritze |first=Ronald H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkSkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA333 |title=Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy |date=2021-02-04 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1-78023-685-8 |pages=333 |language=en |quote=Mainstream Egyptologists and other scholars strongly object to Afrocentric Egyptology. It is viewed as a 'therapeutic mythology' that is not based on convincing evidence or persuasive interpretations.}}</ref>
Stephen Howe, professor in the history and cultures of colonialism at Bristol University,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Author Page |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/author/stephen-howe/|website=openDemocracy|date=23 June 2012 |access-date=2020-05-07}}</ref> writes that contrary to "Afrocentric speculation, depending on undocumented assertions that the relatively light-skinned people of the lower Nile today descend from [[Muslim conquest of Egypt|Arab conquerors]] rather than earlier residents". Howe also cited a 1995 publication which stated "the latest major synthetic work on African populations is firmly of the opinion that "It was not the Arabs physically displaced Egyptians. Instead the Egyptians were transformed by relatively small number of immigrants bringing in new ideas, which, when disseminated, created a wider ethnic identity".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Howe|first=Stephen|title=Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes|publisher=Verso|year=1998|isbn=9781859848739|pages=137}}</ref>
S.O.Y. Keita, a [[biological anthropologist]] and research affilitate at the [[Smithsonian Institution]] who has been described as sympathetic to Afrocentrism,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRdJAAAAYAAJ&q=shomarka+keita+afrocentrist |title=Cornell University Courses of Study |date=1996 |publisher=Cornell University |pages=423 |language=en |quote=We shall then read from the works of "Afrocentrist" writers of history including Chancellor Williams, Yosef ben Yochanen and Chiekh Anta Diop as well as those of sympathetic scholars such as St. Clair Drake and Shomarka Keita.}}</ref> but defined his position as that "it is not a question of “African” “influence”; Ancient Egypt was organically African. Studying early Egypt in its [[Africa]]n context is not “Afrocentric,” but simply correct".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kamugisha |first1=Aaron |title=Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko |journal=Race & Class |date=July 2003 |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=31–60 |doi=10.1177/0306396803045001002 |s2cid=145514370 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396803045001002 |language=en |issn=0306-3968|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Finally in Africa? Egypt, from Diop to Celenko |url=https://wasalaam.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/finally-in-africa-egypt-from-diop-to-celenko/ |website=SEYFETTİN |language=en |date=16 January 2007}}</ref> Keita has argued that the original inhabitants of the Nile Valley were primarily a variety of indigenous Northeast Africans from the areas of the desiccating Sahara and more southerly areas. He reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and described the skeletal morphologies of early dynastic Egyptian remains as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". He also noted that over time gene flow from the Near East and Europe added more genetic variability to the region.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keita |first1=S. O. Y. |title=Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships |journal=History in Africa |date=1993 |volume=20 |pages=129–154 |doi=10.2307/3171969 |jstor=3171969 |s2cid=162330365 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171969 |issn=0361-5413|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In 2022, Keita argued that some genetic studies have a "default racialist or racist approach" and should be interpreted in a framework with other sources of evidence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keita Shomarka. |title="Ancient Egyptian "Origins and "Identity" In Ancient Egyptian society : challenging assumptions, exploring approaches |date=2022 |isbn=978-0367434632 |___location=Abingdon, Oxon |pages=124–135}}</ref> Several other academics, including [[Christopher Ehret]], [[Fekri Hassan]],
Bruce Williams, [[Frank Yurco]], [[Molefi Kete Asante]], Lanny Bell and A.J. Boyce across various disciplines have contended that Ancient Egypt was fundamentally an African civilization, with cultural and biological connections to Egypt's African neighbors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Celenko |first1=Theodore |title=Egypt in Africa |date=1996 |publisher=Indianapolis Museum of Art |isbn=0936260645 |___location=Indianapolis, Ind. |pages=1–134}}</ref>
Scholars have challenged the various assertions of Afrocentrists on the cultural and biological characteristics of Ancient Egyptian civilization and its people. At a [[UNESCO]] Symposium in the 1970s, some of the participants, including [[Jean Vercoutter]], [[Serge Sauneron]], [[Gunnar Säve-Söderbergh]] and [[Jean Leclant]] expressed "profound" disagreement with the "Black", homogeneous hypothesis.<ref>UNESCO, "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script; Proceedings", (Paris, 1978), pp. 3–134.</ref> Despite contestations, [[UNESCO]] decided to include his "Origin of the ancient Egyptians" in the General History of Africa, with an editorial comment mentioning the disagreement. However, Diop's chapter was credited as a "painstakingly researched contribution"<ref name="auto">{{cite book |title=Ancient civilizations of Africa |date=1990 |publisher=J. Currey |___location=London [England] |isbn=0852550928 |pages=43–46 |edition=Abridged}}</ref> in the general conclusion of the symposium report by the International Scientific Committee's Rapporteur, Professor Jean Devisse,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mokhtar |first1=Gamal |title=Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Unesco International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa) |date=1990 |publisher=Currey |isbn=978-0-85255-092-2 |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZWuVAL2GooC |language=en}}</ref> which nevertheless lead to a "real lack of balance" in the discussion among participants.<ref>{{cite book |title=The peopling of ancient Egypt and the deciphering of Meroitic script : proceedings of the symposium held in Cairo from 28 January to 3 February 1974. |date=1978 |publisher=Unesco |isbn=92-3-101605-9 |___location=Paris |pages=86, 93–94, 99}}</ref> The ancient world did not employ racial categories such as "Black" or "White" as they had no conception of "race", but rather labeled groups according to their land of origin and cultural traits. However, Keita studying the controversy, finds simplistic political appellations (in the negative or affirmative) describing ancient populations as "black" or "white" to be inaccurate and instead focuses on the ancestry of ancient Egypt as being a part of the native and diverse biological variation of Africa, which includes a variety of phenotypes and skin gradients.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1525/an.2007.48.9.19 |volume=48 |title=Advancing Biocultural Perspectives: Optimism from a Workshop |year=2007 |journal=Anthropology News |pages=19–20 |last1=Agustà |issue=9}}; see also "Forensic Misclassification of Ancient Nubian Crania: Implications for Assumptions About Human Variation", Frank L'Engle Williams, Robert L. Belcher, George J. Armelago's, Current Anthropology. (2005); An Analysis of Crania From Tell-Duweir Using Multiple Discriminant Functions, S. O. Y. Keita, ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology'', 75: 375–390 (1988); "Interpreting African Genetic Diversity, S. O. Y. Keita & Rick Kittles, ''African Archaeological Review'', Vol. 16, No. 2 (1999); "Race": Confusion About Zoological and Social Taxonomies, and Their Places in Science", S. O. Y. Keita, A. J. Boyce, Field Museum of Chicago Institute of Biological Anthropology, Oxford University, ''American Journal of Human Biology'', 13: 569–575 (2001).</ref>
Egyptian Egyptologist [[Zahi Hawass]] has gone on record as saying that the Ancient Egyptians were not black and “We believe that the origin of Ancient Egyptians was purely Egyptian based on the discovery made by British Egyptologist [[Flinders Petrie]] at Naqada, and this is why the Ancient Egyptian civilisation did not occur in [[Africa]], it occurred only here”.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Samil |first=Nehar |date=2021 |title=Claims that Ancient Egyptians were black untrue: Zahi Hawass |url=https://dailynewsegypt.com/2021/04/14/claims-that-ancient-egyptians-were-african-untrue-zahi-hawass/ |access-date=2022-09-08 |website=Daily News Egypt}}</ref> In 2022, Hawass reiterated his view that "Africans have nothing to do with the pyramids [[science|scientifically]]"<ref>{{cite web |title=Egyptians Create Viral Hashtag Against Kevin Hart's Cairo Performance |date=14 August 2024 |url=https://egyptianstreets.com/2022/12/19/egyptians-create-viral-hashtag-against-kevin-harts-cairo-performance/amp/}}</ref> and stated that Africans "ruled in Egypt in the late Era, at the time of the 25th dynasty". Hawass also accused some international figures of African descent that promoted Afrocentrism of [[racism]] and [[data fabrication|fabrication]] of Egyptian history.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}
In 2008, Stuart Tyson Smith expressed criticism of a facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun as "very light-skinned" which reflected "bias" and "predictably and justifiably, it has provoked protests from Afrocentrists" as "Egyptologists have been strangely reluctant to admit that the ancient Egyptians were rather dark-skinned Africans, especially the farther south one goes".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Stuart Tyson |title=Review of From Slave to Pharaoh: The Black Experience of Ancient Egypt by Donald Redford. |url=https://www.academia.edu/43275262 |website=Near Eastern Archaeology 71:3 |date=1 January 2008}}</ref>
In 2011, [[Stephen Quirke]], professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology argued that the UNESCO-sponsored conference on the General History of Africa in 1974 "did not change the Eurocentric climate of research" and of the need to incorporate both African-centred studies and White European, academic perspectives. He later outlined that "research conferences and publications on the history and language of Kemet [Egypt] remain dominated ... by those brought up and trained in European, not African societies and languages (which include Arabic)".<ref>{{cite book |title=Egypt in its African context : proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2–4 October 2009 |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |___location=Oxford |isbn=978-1407307602 |pages=7–9}}</ref>
=== African-American Afrocentric "hoteps" and the far-right ===
{{main|Hoteps}}
[[African-Americans]] who use the Black Egyptian hypothesis as a source of [[black pride]] have been called "the [[hoteps]]" (after the Egyptian word ''[[hotep]]'').<ref name="Lovett">{{cite journal |last1=Lovett |first1=Miranda |title=Reflecting on the Rise of the Hoteps |journal=Sapiens |date=July 21, 2020 |url=https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hotep/ |access-date=July 7, 2021}}</ref> The term has often been used disparagingly by non-hotep African-Americans,<ref name="Damon">{{cite news |last1=Young |first1=Damon |url= https://www.theroot.com/hotep-explained-1790854506 |title=Hotep, Explained |work=The Root |access-date=July 7, 2021 |date=2016-03-05}}</ref> some of whom have linked the ideology of the hotep community – which is [[anti-feminist]], [[Societal attitudes toward homosexuality#Anti-homosexual attitudes|anti-gay]] and [[anti-Semitic]] – to the [[far-right]].<ref name="Sheffield">{{cite news |last1=Sheffield |first1=Matthew |title=Laura Ingraham meets the Afrocentric "alt-right" — and it's every bit as weird as it sounds |url=https://www.salon.com/2018/04/23/laura-ingraham-meets-the-afrocentric-alt-right-and-its-every-bit-as-weird-as-that-sounds/ |access-date=July 7, 2021 |work=Salon |date=April 23, 2018}}</ref> Hoteps have been described as promoting [[Pseudohistory|false histories]] and [[misinformation]] about black people and black history.<ref name="Lovett" /> Some have argued hotep beliefs are too narrow-minded (focusing only on Egypt as opposed to other aspects of [[African history]]),<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bastién |first1=Angelica Jade |title='Insecure' Season 1, Episode 2: Failure to Change |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/arts/television/insecure-season-1-episode-2-failure-to-change.html |access-date=July 7, 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=October 17, 2016}}</ref> and [[black feminists]] argue that hoteps perpetuate [[rape culture]] by policing women's sexuality and not criticizing predatory black men.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bowen |first1=Sesali |title=What Dear White People Got Right About Hoteps |url=https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/05/198583/hotep-meaning-dear-white-people-slang |access-date=July 7, 2021 |work=refinery29 |date=May 8, 2018}}</ref>
===Alkebulan===
Among Afrocentrists the name 'Alkebulan' (also spelled 'Al Kebulan' or 'Alkebu Lan') is sometimes used a replacement for 'Africa.' Users often erroneously claim that it derives from the [[Arabic language|Arabic]] for 'Land of the Blacks' (in reality ''[[Bilad as-Sudan]]''), or alternatively that it comes from one or more indigenous African languages and means 'Garden of Life' or 'Motherland'.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maku |first1=Bright |title=Alkebulan: Understanding the origins behind Africa's original name |url=https://www.skabash.com/alkebulan-africas-original-name/ |website=Skabash! |date=6 February 2023 |access-date=10 May 2024}}</ref> The earliest record of the term 'Alkebulan' is the introduction to an 1813 Spanish poem celebrating the [[Second siege of Zaragoza|defenders of Zaragoza]], in which the author claimed an Arabic origin of the term. In the 20th century it was popularized by [[Yosef Ben-Jochannan]], though this is sometimes incorrectly credited to [[Cheikh Anta Diop]] in a non-existent book called “The Kemetic History of Afrika”.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ancient Name for Africa was "Alkebulan" meaning "Mother of Mankind" |url=https://theafricanhistory.com/770 |website=The African History |date=3 July 2020 |access-date=10 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Alkebulan: The Original Name Of Africa And How To Pronounce It |url=https://africaglobalradio.com/alkebulan-the-original-name-of-africa-and-how-to-pronounce-it/ |website=Africa Global Radio |date=15 March 2022 |access-date=10 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Jacobs |first1=Frank |title=Africa, uncolonized: a detailed look at an alternate continent |url=https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/africa-uncolonized/ |website=Big Think |date=11 November 2014 |access-date=10 May 2024}}</ref>
==Reception==
Afrocentrism has encountered opposition from mainstream scholars who charge it with historical inaccuracy, scholarly ineptitude, and racism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Early |first=Gerald |author-link=Gerald Early |date=17 May 2002 |title=Afrocentrism |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Afrocentrism |access-date=2022-08-02 |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |language=en}}</ref>
[[Yaacov Shavit]], a critic of the movement, summarises its goals in the preface to his book ''[[History in Black]]'',<ref name="ReferenceA">Yaacov Shavit, ''History in Black: African-Americans in Search of an Ancient Past'', Frank Cass Publishers, 2001, pp. vii.</ref> in which he states:
{{blockquote|Thus, if historical myths and legends, or an invented history, play such a major role in the founding of every national reconstruction, the question that should concern us here is the nature of the distinct style in which black Americans imagine their past. The answer to this question is that radical Afrocentrism, the subject of this study, which plays a central role in shaping the modern historical world-view of a large section of the African-American (or Afro-American) community, is far more than an effort to follow the line taken by many [[ethnic]] groups and nations in modern rewriting, inventing or developing collective identity and national history. Rather, it is a large-scale historical project to rewrite the history of the whole of humankind from an Afrocentric point of view. The result is a new reconstruction of world history: it is a universal history.}}
Other critics, such as [[Mary Lefkowitz]], contend that the Afrocentric historical approach is entrenched in myth and fantasy.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Stearns |first=Peter N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qx4ZAQAAIAAJ |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World: 1750 to the Present |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-517632-2 |pages=59 |quote=Opponents of Afrocentrism claim that this approach is entrenched in myth and fantasy. Mary Lefkowitz, in ''Not Out of Africa'', argues that Afrocentrism is grounded in identity politics and not in sound scholarship. |language=en}}</ref> She argues that Afrocentrism is grounded in [[identity politics]] and [[mythology|myth]] rather than sound scholarship.<ref name=":3" /> In ''[[The Skeptic's Dictionary]]'',<ref name=":4">*[http://skepdic.com/afrocent.html ''Afrocentrism''] by [[Robert Todd Carroll]], ''[[Skeptic's Dictionary]]''.</ref> philosophy professor [[Robert Todd Carroll]] labeled Afrocentrism "[[pseudohistorical]]". He argued that Afrocentrism's prime goal was to encourage [[black nationalism]] and ethnic pride in order to effectively combat the destructive consequences of cultural and universal racism.<ref name=":4" /><ref>Robert Todd Carroll (2003), ''The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions'', New York: John Wiley & Sons, {{ISBN|0-471-27242-6}} (paperback). p. 148</ref> Professor of history [[Clarence E. Walker]] has described Afrocentrism as "a mythology that is racist, reactionary, essentially therapeutic" and "Eurocentrism in black face."<ref name="Banner-haley2003">{{cite journal
|author=Banner-haley, C.P.
|year=2003
|title=We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism
|journal=Journal of Southern History
|volume=69
|issue=3
|pages=663–665
|url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5002551537
|access-date=13 November 2007
|doi=10.2307/30040016
|jstor=30040016
|last2=Walker
|first2=Clarence E.|url-access=subscription
}}</ref>
Classicist [[Mary Lefkowitz]] rejects [[George James (writer)|George James]]'s theories about Egyptian contributions to Greek civilization as being faulty scholarship. She writes that ancient Egyptian texts show little similarity to Greek philosophy. Lefkowitz states that [[Aristotle]] could not have stolen his ideas from the great [[Library at Alexandria]] as James suggested, because the library was founded after Aristotle's death. On the basis of such errors, Lefkowitz calls Afrocentrism "an excuse to teach myth as history."<ref>Lefkowitz 1996, pp. 125–126, 137–141</ref> Mary Lefkowitz in 1997 whilst criticising elements of Afrocentrism had acknowledged that the origins of the ancient Egyptians were more clear due to the "recent evidence on skeletons and DNA [which] suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lefkowitz |first1=Mary R. |title=Not out of Africa : how Afrocentrism became an excuse to teach myth as history |date=1996 |___location=New York |isbn=046509838X |pages=242}}</ref>
In 2002, Ibrahim Sundiata wrote in the ''[[American Historical Review]]'' that:
{{blockquote|The word "Afrocentric" has been traced by Derrick Alridge to the American historian W.E.B. Du Bois, who employed it in the early 1960s. During the 1970s, Molefi Kete Asante appropriated the term, insisting that he was the only person equipped to define it, and asserting that even the holy archangels Du Bois and [[Cheikh Anta Diop]] had an imperfect and immature grasp of a concept that finds ultimate expression in his own pontifications. Subsequently, it became a catchall "floating signifier," nebulous, unstable, and infinitely mutable.<ref>[http://way.net/dissonance/sundiata.html Ibrahim Sundiata, "The Argument We Are Really Having"], ''American Historical Review'', (1996).</ref>}}
Literature and languages scholar [[Cain Hope Felder]], a supporter of Afrocentric ideas, has warned Afrocentrists to avoid certain pitfalls,<ref name="cain">{{cite journal | last1 = Hope Felder | first1 = Cain | year = 1994 | title = Afrocentrism, the Bible, and the Politics of Difference | url = http://www.nathanielturner.com/twoscholarsdiscussafrocentrism.htm | journal = The Princeton Seminary Bulletin | volume = XV | issue = 2 }}</ref> including:
* Demonizing categorically all white people, without careful differentiation between persons of goodwill and those who consciously perpetuate racism.
* Adopting [[multiculturalism]] as a curricular alternative that eliminates, marginalizes, or vilifies European heritage to the point that Europe epitomizes all the evil in the world.
* Gross over-generalizations and using factually or incorrect material is bad history and bad scholarship.<ref name="cain"/>
[[Nathan Glazer]] writes that although Afrocentricity can mean many things, the popular press has generally given most attention to its most outlandish theories.<ref name="Glazer1997">Nathan Glazer, ''We Are All Multiculturalists Now'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997 {{ISBN|0-674-94836-X}}.</ref> Glazer agrees with many of the findings and conclusions presented in Lefkowitz's book ''Not Out of Africa''. Yet he also argues that Afrocentrism often presents legitimate and relevant scholarship.<ref name="Glazer1997"/> The late [[Manning Marable]] was also a critic of Afrocentrism. He wrote:
{{Blockquote|Populist Afrocentrism was the perfect social theory for the upwardly mobile black petty bourgeoisie. It gave them a sense of ethnic superiority and cultural originality, without requiring the hard, critical study of historical realities. It provided a philosophical blueprint to avoid concrete struggle within the real world... It was, in short, only the latest theoretical construct of a politics of racial identity, a world-view designed to discuss the world but never really to change it.<ref name="autogenerated192"/>}}
Some Afrocentrists{{Who|date=October 2015}} agree in rejecting those works which critics have characterized as examples of bad scholarship. Adisa A. Alkebulan states that the work of Afrocentric scholars is not fully appreciated because critics use the claims of "a few non-Afrocentrists" as "an indictment against Afrocentricity."<ref name="DefendingtheParadigm">Adisa A. Alkebulan, "Defending the Paradigm", ''Journal of Black Studies'', Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 410–427 (2007).</ref>
In 1996, the historian [[August Meier]] critically reviewed the new work of Mary Lefkowitz on Afrocentrism as "Eurocentric". He criticized her book ''Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History'' for what he saw as her neglect of the African-American historic literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Meier believes she fails to take the African-American experiences into account, to the extent that she "fails to answer the question raised in this book's subtitle."<ref>Meier, August, [https://www.jstor.org/pss/2945660 "Review: Mary Lefkowitz, ''Not out of Africa: How Afrocentrism became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History''"], ''Journal of American History'', December 1996.</ref>{{Irrelevant citation|reason=This is a section on Afrocentrism's reception. Not Lefkowitz's works.|date=August 2022}}
[[Maghan Keita]] describes the controversy over Afrocentrism as a [[cultural war]]. He believes certain "epistemologies" are warring with each other: the "epistemology of blackness" argues for the "responsibilities and potential of black peoples to function in and contribute to the progress of civilization."<ref>Maghan Keita, ''Race and the Writing of History: Riddling the Sphinx'', p. 7.</ref>
==List of prominent authors==
* [[Marimba Ani]],<ref>[http://www.africawithin.com/ani/ani_bio.htm Africawithin.com].</ref>{{Better source needed|date=January 2021}} professor, author and activist: ''Yurugu: An Afrikan-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior'' (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994).
* [[Molefi Kete Asante]], professor, author: ''Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change''; ''The Afrocentric Idea''; ''The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten''
* [[Jacob Carruthers]], Egyptologist; founding director of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization; founder and director of the Kemetic Institute, [[Chicago]]
* [[Cheikh Anta Diop]],<ref>{{cite web|last1=Clarke|first1=John Henrik|author-link1=John Henrik Clarke|title=Cheikh Anta Diop and the New Light on African History|url=http://nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JHClarke/Contemporaries/CheikhAntaDiop.html|website=nbufront.org|publisher=National Black United Front|access-date=15 October 2015|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219211731/http://nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JHClarke/Contemporaries/CheikhAntaDiop.html|archive-date=19 February 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Cheikh Anta Diop, The Pharoah [sic] of Knowledge|url=http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara/antadiop.html|access-date=15 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613205716/http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara/antadiop.html|archive-date=13 June 2007}}</ref> author: ''The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality''; ''Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology''; ''Precolonial Black Africa''; ''The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity''; ''The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script''
* [[Yosef Ben-Jochannan]], author: ''African Origins of Major "Western Religions"''; ''Black Man of the Nile and His Family''; ''Africa: Mother of Western Civilization''; ''New Dimensions in African History''; ''The Myth of Exodus and Genesis and the Exclusion of Their African Origins''; ''Abu Simbel to Ghizeh: A Guide Book and Manual''
* {{Cite book |last = Jones
|first = Gayl
|author-link = Gayl Jones
|title = The Healing
|publisher = Beacon Press
|year = 1998
|___location = Boston
|url = https://archive.org/details/healing00jone
|isbn = 978-0-8070-6314-9
}} The protagonist of this novel describes her ongoing daily experiences in the US using a consistently Afrocentric perspective.
* [[Runoko Rashidi]],<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rashidi|first1=Runoko|author-link1=Runoko Rashidi|title=The Global African Presence|url=http://www.cwo.com/%7Elucumi/runoko.html|website=cwo.com|access-date=15 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114134424/http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html|archive-date=14 January 2012}}</ref> author: ''Introduction to African Civilizations''; ''The global African community: The African presence in Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific''
* [[Joel August Rogers|J.A. Rogers]], author: ''Sex and Race: Negro-Caucasian Mixing in All Ages and All Lands: The Old World''; ''Nature Knows No Color Line''; ''Sex and Race: A History of White, Negro, and Indian Miscegenation in the Two Americas: The New World''; ''100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof: A Short Cut to the World History of the Negro''
* [[Ivan van Sertima]], author: ''They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America'', ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=p0jXzU1pT3YC African Presence in Early Europe ] {{ISBN|0-88738-664-4}}''; ''Blacks in Science Ancient and Modern''; ''African Presence in Early Asia''; ''African Presence in Early America''; ''Early America Revisited''; ''Egypt Revisited: Journal of African Civilizations''; ''Nile Valley Civilizations''; ''Egypt: Child of Africa (Journal of African Civilizations, V. 12)''; ''The Golden Age of the Moor (Journal of African Civilizations, Vol. 11, Fall 1991)''; ''Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern''; ''Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop''<ref>{{cite web|last1=Sertima|first1=Ivan Van|author-link1=Ivan Van Sertima|title=Journal of African Civilizations|url=http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/sertima.html|website=cwo.com|access-date=15 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060426084454/http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/sertima.html|archive-date=26 April 2006}}</ref>
* [[Chancellor Williams]], author: ''The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.''
* [[Théophile Obenga]], author: ''Ancient Egypt and Black Africa: a student's handbook for the study of Ancient Egypt in philosophy, linguistics, and gender relations''
* [[Asa Hilliard]], III, author: ''SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind''; ''The Teachings of Ptahhotep''
* [[Charles S. Finch III]] an American physician, author, cultural historian, researcher African history, traditional medicine.
==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Recent African origin of modern humans|"Out of Africa" theory]]
* [[African-American culture]]
* [[African philosophy]]
* [[African Renaissance]]
* [[Anti-Europeanism]]
* [[Americentrism]]
* [[Asiacentrism]]
* [[Basking in reflected glory]]
* [[Black orientalism]]
* [[Black supremacy]]
* [[Ethnocentrism]]
* [[Nationalism and archaeology]]
* [[Négritude]]
* [[Nuwaubian Nation]]
* [[Pseudohistory]]
* [[Race and ethnicity in the United States]]
* [[Reverse discrimination]]
* [[Blaxit]]
{{div col end}}
==References==
{{reflist}}
==Literature==
===Primary===
* {{cite book|last=Ani|first=Marimba|title=Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Thought and Behavior|year=1994|publisher=Africa World Press|___location=Trenton, N.J.|isbn=0-86543-248-1}}
* {{cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi Kete|author-link=Molefi Kete Asante|title=Afrocentricity|year=1988|edition=rev.|publisher=Africa World Press|___location=Trenton, N.J.|isbn=0-86543-067-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi Kete|title=Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge|year=1990|publisher=Africa World Press|___location=Trenton, N.J.|isbn=0-86543-188-4}}
* {{cite book|last=Asante|first=Molefi Kete|title=The Afrocentric Idea|year=1998|publisher=Temple University Press|___location=Philadelphia|isbn=1-56639-594-1|url=https://archive.org/details/afrocentricidea00asan}}
*Asante, Molefi Kete (2007). An Afrocentric Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity Press. {{ISBN|978-07456-4102-7}}
* {{cite book|last=Karenga|first=Maulana|author-link=Ron Karenga|title=Introduction to Black Studies|year=1993|edition=2nd|publisher=University of Sankore Press|___location=Los Angeles|isbn=0-943412-16-1|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontobl00kare}}
* {{cite journal|author=Kershaw, Terry|title="Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric method." ''Western Journal of Black Studies'' |year=1992 |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=160–168}}
===Secondary===
* Adeleke, Tunde. (2009). The Case Against Afrocentrism. University Press of Mississippi. {{ISBN|978-1-60473-293-1}}
*{{cite book |editor=Bailey, Randall C.|title=Yet With a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation|publisher=Society of Biblical Literature|year=2003}}
* {{cite book |author=Berlinerblau, Jacques|title=Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals|url=https://archive.org/details/heresyinuniversi00berl|url-access=registration|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=1999}}
* {{cite book |author=Binder, Amy J.|title=Contentious curricula: Afrocentrism and creationism in American public schools|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2002}}
* {{cite book |author=Browder, Anthony T.|title=Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization: Exploding the Myths, Volume 1|___location=Washington, DC |publisher=Institute of Karmic Guidance|year=1992}}
* {{cite book |author=Henderson, Errol Anthony|title=Afrocentrism and World Politics: towards a new paradigm|publisher=Praeger|___location=Westport, Connecticut|year=1995}}
* {{cite book |editor1=Henke, Holger |editor2=Reno, Fred|title=Modern political culture in the Caribbean|publisher=University of the West Indies Press|year=2003}}
* {{cite book |author=Howe, Stephen|title=Afrocentrism: mythical pasts and imagined homes|url=https://archive.org/details/afrocentrism00step|url-access=registration|publisher=Verso|___location=London|year=1998|isbn=9781859848739 }}
* Konstan, David. "Inventing Ancient Greece: [Review article]", ''History and Theory'', Vol. 36, No. 2. (May 1997), pp. 261–269.
*{{cite book |last=Lefkowitz |first=Mary |title=History Lesson: A Race Odyssey |author-link=Mary Lefkowitz |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1996 |isbn=0-300-12659-X}}
*{{cite book |last=Lefkowitz |first=Mary |title=Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History |year=1996 |publisher=Basic Books |___location=New York |isbn=0-465-09837-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/notoutofafricaho00lefk_1 }}
* {{cite book |editor1=Lefkowitz, Mary R. |editor2=Guy MacLean Rogers|title=Black Athena Revisited|url=https://archive.org/details/blackathenarevis00lefk_0 |url-access=registration |publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=1996|isbn=0-8078-4555-8}}
* {{cite book |author=Moses, Wilson Jeremiah|author-link=Wilson Jeremiah Moses|title=Afrotopia: the roots of African American popular history|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1998}}
* {{cite book |author1=Sniderman, Paul M.|author2=Piazza, Thomas|title=Black Pride and Black Prejudice|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2002}}
* {{cite book |author=Walker, Clarence E.|title=We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2000|isbn=0-19-509571-5}}
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
*[http://www.asante.net/articles/1/afrocentricity/ Afrocentricity] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123082650/http://www.asante.net/articles/1/afrocentricity/ |date=23 November 2018 }} by [[Molefi Kete Asante]], asante.net
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110104111247/http://www.city-journal.org/article01.php?aid=1426 "The Afrocentric Hustle"] [[Stanley Crouch]] comments on the emergence of Afrocentric thought in the African American community.
*[http://way.net/dissonance/sundiata.html ''Afrocentrism: The Argument We're Really Having'' by Ibrahim Sundiata]
*[http://www.ankhonline.com/ ankhonline.com]{{in lang|fr}}
{{Pan-Africanism}}
{{Influential geocultural perspectives of history & geography}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:
[[Category:African-American culture]]
[[Category:Black Power]]
[[Category:Ethnocentrism]]
[[Category:Geocultural perspectives]]
[[Category:Pan-Africanism]]
[[Category:Political neologisms]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Historical revisionism]]
[[Category:African-American-related controversies]]
[[Category:Anti–Middle Eastern sentiment]]
[[Category:Africana philosophy]]
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