Afrocentrism is a worldview or perspective that is centered on Africa and Africans. Afrocentric scholars typically claim that Western accounts of world history and civilization have neglected or systematically denied the contributions of native African peoples. The term "Afrocentrism" thus implies an opposition to Eurocentrism. Its particular emphasis on Africa rather than other non-European cultures is historically tied to black civil rights movements and anti-imperialist ideologies in America and the Caribbean. In modern America it is associated with anti-racist and African-centred education policies.
Central to Afrocentrism is the fundamental reorientation of historical scholarship. Afrocentrism shifts the study and evaluation of world history and civilization from a traditionally Western, Eurocentric paradigm — that is, one which treats primarily white or European contributions and posits Greco-Roman beginnings of Western civilization — to one that treats primarily black Africa and black contributions and posits black Egyptian beginnings of Western civilization.
Afrocentrists claim that early dynastic Egypt should be interpreted as an African civilization because, they argue, its most significant features are indigenous to Africa, and these features are present in other African civilizations. In addition, the study of its culture should emphasise connections to other early African civilizations such as Kerma and the Meroitic civilizations of Nubia, as archaeology clearly indicates the Nilotic cultural relationships. It is claimed that these made important contributions to ancient Greek and Roman civilizations that traditionally have been either overlooked or appropriated by the West.
Afrocentrism, however, finds itself in direct opposition to the views of mainstream historians, such as British historian Arnold Toynbee, who regarded the ancient Egyptian cultural sphere as having died out without leaving a successor and who derided as a "myth" the idea that Egypt was the "origin of all civilization."
Afrocentrism has been charged by one prominent critic as being "a mythology that is racist, reactionary, and essentially therapeutic." Afrocentrists, however, level similar charges at the perceived Eurocentrism in mainstream historical works, countering that the Afrocentrist approach merely attempts to set the historical record straight by overturning a false paradigm, the basis of which is scholarship that is often slanted by conscious or unconscious racist attitudes.
History of Afrocentrism
The beginnings of Afrocentric scholarship can be found in the work of African-American and Caribbean intellectuals early in the twentieth century. Publications such as The Crisis and the Journal of Negro History sought to counter the prevailing view in the West that Africa had contributed nothing to human cultural history that was not the result of incursions by Europeans and Arabs. These journals sought to stress the blackness of some Egyptian pharaohs and to investigate Sub-Saharan African history. The editor of The Crisis W.E.B. DuBois went on to research West African culture and to attempt to construct a pan-Africanist value system based on West African traditions. DuBois later became editor of the Encyclopedia Africana. Some aspects of DuBois's approach is evidenced in the work of the Senegalese anthopologist Cheikh Anta Diop, who claimed to have identified a pan-African language and to have proved that ancient Egyptians were indeed black-skinned.
However, Diop also drew on the ideas of George M. James, a follower of the Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who emphasised the importance of Ethiopia as a great Black civilization and who argued that Black peoples should develop pride in African history. James's book Stolen Legacy (1954) is often cited as one of the foundational texts of modern Afrocentrism. James claimed that Greek philosophy was "stolen" from Ancient Egyptian mystery traditions and that these had developed from distinctively African cultural roots. For James, the works of Aristotle and other Greek thinkers were in fact poor synopses of some aspects of Ancient Egyptian wisdom. The Greeks were violent and quarrelsome people, unlike the Egyptians, and were not naturally capable of philosophy.
These ideas were not wholly new, but date back to eighteenth century Masonic texts that drew on ancient writings that claimed Greek thinkers studied in Egypt. The poet William Blake had also attacked "the stolen and perverted writings of Homer and Ovid, of Plato and Cicero," asserting that they were copies of more ancient Semitic wisdom. Such views were associated with radical and Romantic thought that rejected classical Greco-Roman culture as the model for civilization. James's distinct contribution was to tie these claims to an opposition between white European and Black African identity, associating these alleged ancient appropriations of Black wisdom with white imperialist exploitation of Black peoples and thefts of artifacts from Black African cultures. By claiming that the Greeks were barbaric and were innately incapable of philosophy, he also inverted normative Imperialist racial hierarchies, which made the same claims about Black Africans.
James's approach was copied by a number of other writers and has had an influence on many books that claim to prove that Black Africans originated intellectual or technological achievements that were later claimed by whites. Some of these books are not considered to be serious scholarship. However, several later writers have abandoned James's more extreme claims to concentrate on the notion that modern Black peoples should center their understanding of culture and history on Africa. The most influential of these writers is Molefi Kete Asante, whose book Afrocentricity (1988) directly connected Afrocentrism to radical black civil-rights politics, arguing that Black Americans should look to African cultures "as a critical corrective to a displaced agency among Africans."
Other authors have adapted James's assertion that Egyptian culture's influence on the Greeks has been underestimated. Among such scholars the most influential is Martin Bernal, whose book Black Athena stressed influence of what he called Afroasiatic and Semitic civilizations on the classical ones. Yet other writers have abandoned the claim that Europeans stole African culture, but concentrate on the study of native African civilizations and peoples as a corrective to emphasis on European and Arabic influence on the continent. Such Afrocentric scholars maintain that a paradigm shift from a view of world history centered around European accomplishments and racist assumptions about other peoples and cultures to one that emphasizes the Black beginnings of humankind and Black contributions to world history, would result in significant attitudinal shifts both in Western culture and beyond. Indeed, many claim that a dramatic shift has already occurred. This, then, they argue, challenges the Eurocentric view of world history which for so many centuries devalued and appropriated, or simply ignored achievements by Africans.
Criticisms of Afrocentrism
Critics of Afrocentrism counter that much historical Afrocentric research simply lacks scientific merit and that it actually seeks to supplant and counter one form of racism with another, rather than attempt to arrive at the truth. Among scholarly critics, Mary Lefkowitz's Not out of Africa is widely regarded as the foremost critical work. In it, she contends Afrocentric historical claims are grounded in identity politics and erroneous myth rather than sound scholarship. Like most other classical scholars she rejects James's views on the grounds that his sources predate the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Actual Ancient Egyptian texts show little similarity to Greek philosophy. She also contends that Bernal underestimates the distinctiveness of Greek intellectual culture. Molefi Kete Asante disputes her conclusions.
Some multiculturalists express a certain sympathy towards Afrocentrism due largely to its re-emphasis on the history and cultures of a continent long-neglected. This, however, does not mean that the generally controversial areas of Afrocentric scholarship are accepted by most or even many multiculturalists.
Afrocentrists tend to emphasise the racial and cultural unity of Africa as a whole as the home of Black, or Negroid (hereinafter "Africanoid") peoples. However, critics assert that Afrocentrism relies on a projection of modern racial and geographical categories onto ancient cultures in which they simply did not exist as such. It is argued that in ancient Western culture, the distinction between Europe and Africa was not as important as the notion that civilized peoples encircled the Mediterranean sea. The further from the Mediterranean they were, the more alien they were considered to be. This applied to both white and black peoples. The equation of "African" with Black identity has also been criticized, partly because movement of populations around the Mediterranean in ancient times make any rigid distinctions between North African, Asian, and European peoples of the area problematic, and partly because the notion of a unified "black" or Africanoid race is itself considered to be unsustainable by many modern geneticists. Diop's claim to have discovered a pan-African proto-language is rejected by almost all linguists.
Afrocentrists, however, contend that race as a social and political construct still exists and that the purported appropriation or whitewashing of history by mainstream historians, in fact, has made race an important issue. People think of themselves as belonging to races defined by skin color and physiognomy and link this to their ancestry. One of the impacts of this is that historical achievements are ascribed to races with which modern people identify themselves. Opponents insist that this approach violates the fundamental demand of history as a discipline, which should aspire to understand events as they occurred, not as they affect the self-esteem of modern people. Crucial to this aspect of the debate are arguments about whether the Ancient Egyptians can reasonably be considered to be Black and about the extent of significant cultural or racial links between sub-Saharan and North African peoples.
Egypt and Black Identity
Many Afrocentrists insist that ancient Egyptians were black African peoples, often emphasising that this black identity was strongest in early Egyptian history, but was diluted later. Among Afrocentrist authors, it is common to refer to Egypt as "Kemet," the indigenous term for the country, which means "black land." Traditionally, mainstream scholars contend this term refers to the dark, fertile soil beside the Nile, in contrast to the desert beyond it, labelled the "red land" by Egyptians. Afrocentrists, however, associate the term with Egyptian racial identity, pointing out that ancient Egyptians also called themselves "Kmemeu," or "the black people" and their subjects "Kemetu," or "the blacks' people." They also cite the archaeological evidence, particularly that of temple statuary, and the writings of Herodotus and other ancient authors, who refer to the dark skin and woolly hair of Egyptians. Opponents would argue that indigenous Egyptian terminology is best translated as "people of the black land," and that Western classical writers usually described Egyptians as a mid-tone between black Ethiopians and pale Europeans. Herodotus himself is clear that Egyptians look different from Ethiopians. Marcus Manilius states that "the Ethiopians stain the world and depict a race of men steeped in darkness. Less sun-burnt are the natives of India. The land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields: it is a country nearer to us and its moderate climate imparts a medium tone."
Afrocentrists typically also connect ancient Egypt with various other African peoples. For example, Diop claims that the ancient Egyptian language has vocabulary in common with Wolof, while Théophile Obenga links it with Mbochi. These writers, like some other Afrocentrists, try to make the connections between Egypt and their own ethnic background. For example, Diop was a native Wolof-speaker, while Obenga came from a Mbochi-speaking background. In contrast, most linguists consider that Egyptian is a typical example of an Afro-Asiatic language, the language group that covers North Africa, Ethiopia, Israel, and the Arabian peninsula. It is not known to be related to sub-Saharan African languages. Mainstream scholars contend that it is inadequate simply to list similar-sounding or possibly related terms in different languages and they can provide little more than an a priori case for investigating the possibility of common origins.
Afrocentrists also cite the results of Diop's forensic tests of melanin content in Egyptian mummies and of forensic reconstruction of skulls to prove their contention that the early dynastic Egyptians were black Africans and remained so in predominant part for millennia. Opponents question the validity of Diop's tests, contending that reliable evidence about melanin levels cannot be easily extracted from mummies because of the chemical treatment to which they have been subjected. Likewise, reconstructions of faces from skulls relies on assumptions concerning ethnicity, and such results as have been obtained are ambiguous. However, supporters of Diop's claims assert that similar tests for determining the melanin content in bones have been used by police departments in the gathering of forensic evidence around the world.
Opponents of Afrocentrism often argue that Egyptians belong among the Semitic peoples of the Middle-East, pointing to the fact that Egypt is at the extreme north eastern edge of the African continent, close to both Israel and Arabia. However Egypt also extends south into areas occupied by undeniably black-skinned people. It is commonly accepted that the actual population of Egypt was a mixture of black African, Mediterranean, Semitic and, later European peoples, however these very categories are disputable and indeterminate. In typical portrayals of Egyptians in their own art, from the Old Kingdom onwards they appear as brown-skinned (using a Red ochre pigment). The tomb of Tutankhamun contained a box on which the king was depicted riding a chariot over black-skinned people, presumably representing Nubia. There were also walking sticks, the handles of which depicted both black-skinned and pale-skinned prisoners, representing defeated Nubian and Asiatic enemies. Sometimes such depictions of skin tones were symbolic and the details of this imagery have yet to be fully explained.
However, skin color among various populations of indigenous Africans differs naturally. Today, a brown-skinned Mandingo is generally considered no less a black African than a very dark-skinned Nubian. Afrocentrists argue that the same can be said of Nubians and Egyptians. There are numerous representations in Egyptian sculpture and murals spanning more than three millennia of individuals with dark skin, of faces which are broad across the cheekbones, with full lips and pronounced prognathisms. These features are generally characteristic of a "Negroid" phenotype. In fact, prognathism— a forward-slanting facial profile— is a key indicator used by forensic experts today to determine racial identity. It is important to note, however, that the standard Negroid phenotype does not apply to all black peoples, as with the Nilotic peoples of, say, present-day Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia, many of whom have relatively straight hair, narrow facial features or less prominent or nonexistent prognathisms. Paradoxically, while these peoples have a wide range of skin tones and diverge from the classically Negroid phenotype in some respects, they generally are considered no less "Negro," no less black, than other autochonous peoples of the African continent. Further, these indigenous, black, African peoples of all three regions comprised in part— and Afrocentrists believe in predominant part— the ethnically diverse kingdoms of ancient dynastic Egypt.
Further, 1500 years after the founding of the first dynasty and after centuries of miscegenation among various ethnic groups, Tutankhamun's father and others of the 18th dynasty show facial similarities to Negroid, black Africans (see image of Queen Tiye above). Tutankhamun's death mask also exhibits similar Negroid features. Recent documentaries by the Discovery Channel in the U.S. have provided strikingly black, Africanoid images of both Tutankhamun[1] and Nefertiti[2] based on forensic reconstruction of mummified remains.
Ethnographic murals of the New Kingdom
There are numerous other images in which Egyptians are contrasted with non-Egyptian peoples. Like other peoples throughout history, the Egyptians seem to have identified themselves as an ideal or norm of sorts among other populations. Further, there is evidence the ancient Egyptians thought in terms of national identity and ethnicity; the modern Western concept of "race" was alien to them. During the New Kingdom, Egyptian suzerainty extended to the north as far as the Hittite empire and into Nubia to the south. At this time, Egyptian sacred literature and imagery commented systematically on differences based on these two criteria. This is evident in Akhenaton's "Great Hymn to the Aten", in which it is said that the peoples of the world are differented by God: "Their tongues are separate in speech/And their natures as well;/ Their skins are distinguished./The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,/ You set every man in his place."
This differentiation of peoples is later refined in the Book of Gates, a sacred text that describes the passage of the soul though the underworld. This contains a description of the distinct peoples known to the Egyptians: Egyptians themselves, plus Asiatics, Nubians and Libyans. These peoples are illustrated in several tomb decorations, in which they are differentiated by skin-color and clothing. These depict Egyptians ("Ret," or "men," often used as "ret na romé," meaning "we men above mankind"); Asiatics/Semites ("AAMW" or "Namu,": "travelers" or "wanderers," often used as "namu sho," or "people who travel the sands," meaning nomads or Bedu/Bedouin); other Africans ("Nahasu," or "strangers"); and, finally, Libyans, ("TMHHW", or Tamhu," a term for which several etymologies have been proposed). In most cases the Egyptians are depicted as red-brown, wearing lion cloths. Uniquely, in the tomb of Ramesses III a label identifies figures identical to Nubians as Egyptians. Quite strikingly, these images of the Ret and the Nahasu are identical in every way, including dress. Afrocentrists use this as evidence that Egyptians were identical to other Africans. Other Egyptologists take the view that the artists mislabelled the images because the labels are reversed for TMHHW (Libyans) and AAMW (Asiatics/Semites) as well.
Black-centered history and Africa
The relationship among racial, cultural and continental identities is one of the more difficult problems in Afrocentic thought. Despite the problems with a Eurocentric approach to history, there has been a common European cultural identity for many centuries. It is more difficult to make the same claim for Africa, in which diverse cultures often were unaware of one another's existence. For this reason, some Afrocentrists have been accused of manufacturing "African" cultural values by cherry-picking from wholly different peoples.
In other instances, the concept of black racial identity has been used to include among "African" peoples populations generally thought of as non-Africans, such as the Dravidians, or Tamils, of south India; Australian aborigines and (speculatively) the Olmec peoples of what is now Mexico. Interestingly, in 2002, geneticist Spencer Wells completed a study of human out-migrations from Africa utilizing the DNA of San Bushmen of the Kalahari who, according to Wells have the oldest human DNA on earth. Wells' extensive DNA testing provided an unequivocal and direct genetic link from the San to the Tamils of India and then to the Australian Aborigines. Wells concluded from analysis of DNA specimens that the earliest human emigration from Africa of which there is definitive proof was that of San bushmen to southern India and then along coastal routes to Australia.
Afrocentrists who adopt this approach contend that such peoples are African in a racial sense, just as non-aboriginal inhabitants of Australia may be said to be European. Critics would argue that such peoples were not recent emigrants from Africa, and the entire population of the world might as reasonably considered to be part of an African race according to the Out of Africa model of human migration.
Rastafari and Africa
The Rastafari movement that came out of 1930's Jamaica is an African centered religion that came out of the Garveyism of Marcus Garvey, and believes that Haile Selassie is both Almighty God, and the true king of African people, who one day will return the black diaspora to Africa. In the meantime they call to be repatriated. An early member, Leonard Howell, was charged with sedition for his disloyalty to King George V of England because of his loyalty to Selassie. They adopted the red, gold and green colors of the Ethiopian flag. In a society in which blacks were considered inferior they took pride in being black and African. They believe their culture was stolen from them when they were brought to the New World in the holds of slave ships, and that they must do what they can to reclaim and recover all things African. Their music began with African drums, and has evolved into reggae, which they see as African style music. The dreadlocks signify a close to nature and a rejection of the artificial razor, scissors and comb that they feel has been imposed on them by what they call Babylon system.
List of notable Afrocentric historians
- Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, professor, author: Afrocentricity: The theory of Social Change; The Afrocentric Idea; The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient African Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten
- Dr. Ishakamusa Barashango, college professor and lecturer; founder, Temple of the Black Messiah, School of History and Religion; co-founder and creative director, Fourth Dynasty Publishing Company, Silver Spring, Maryland
- Dr. Martin Bernal, author: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1); Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, the Linguistic Evidence;
- Dr. Jacob Carruthers, Egyptologist; founding director of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization; founder and director of the Kemetic Institute, Chicago
- Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, 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
- Dr. 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
- Dr. Runoko Rashidi, author: Introduction to African Civilizations; The global African community: The African presence in Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific
- 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
- Dr. Ivan van Sertima, author: They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient Amerca, African Presence in Early Europe; Blacks in Science Acient 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
- Dr. Chancellor Williams, author: The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.
- Dr. Théophile Obenga, author: Ancient Egypt and Black Africa : a student's handbook for the study of Ancient Egypt in philosophy, linguistics, and gender relations
- Dr. Asa Hilliard, III, author: SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind; The Teachings of Ptahhotep
External Links
- Building Bridges to Afrocentrism by Ann Macy Roth, for the University of Pennsylvania's African Studies Center
- Fallacies of Afrocentrism by Grover Furr, for the Montclair State University
- "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa," by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, a critical assessment of Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa.
- Abstract of "The effects of negative racial stereotypes and afrocentricity on black couple relationships" from The Journal of Family Psychology
- Afrocentrism in Rastafari
- Pride and prejudice By Dinesh D'Souza
- Afrocentrism from The Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll
- Afrocentrism: The Argument We're Really Having by Ibrahim Sundiata
- Safari Scholarship Reinvents History by Ilana Mercer
- Afrocentrist multicultural pseudo-history by The Association for Rational Thought
References
- Asante, Molefi Kete. Kemet, Afrocentricity, and knowledge (Africa World Press, 1990).
- Bailey, Randall C (ed.). Yet with a steady beat: contemporary U.S. Afrocentric biblical interpretation (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).
- Berlinerblau, Jacques. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals (Rutgers University Press, 1999)
- Binder, Amy J. Contentious curricula : Afrocentrism and creationism in American public schools (Princeton University Press, 2002).
- Henderson, Errol Anthony. Afrocentrism and world politics: towards a new paradigm (Praeger, Westport, Conn., 1995).
- Henke, Holger and Reno, Fred (eds.). Modern political culture in the Caribbean (University of the West Indies Press, 2003).
- Howe, Stephen. Afrocentrism: mythical pasts and imagined homes (Verso, London, 1998).
- Terry Kershaw, "Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric method." Western Journal of Black Studies, 1992, 16(3), pp 160-168.
- Lefkowitz, Mary R. Not out of Africa: how Afrocentrism became an excuse to teach myth as history (BasicBooks, NY, c1996).
- Lewis, Martin W. The myth of continents: a critique of metageography (University of California Press, 1997).
- Magida, Arthur J. Prophet of rage a life of Louis Farrakhan and his nation (BasicBooks, NY, 1996).
- Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. Afrotopia: the roots of African American popular history (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
- Sniderman, Paul M. and Piazza, Thomas. Black pride and black prejudice (Princeton University Press, 2002).
- Spivey, Donald. Fire from the soul: a history of the African-American struggle (Carolina Academic Press, 2003).
- Walker, Clarence E. We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism (Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Wells, Spencer. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Princeton University Press, 2002).