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part one

Karenga Chapter Three: Black History: African Background Discussion & Questions

Define Sankofa?

What are the factors which complicate the study of African history?

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part two

Karenga Chapter 3 cont and Discussion

The major contributions of Moorish Empire on European and world civilizations?

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write a one-page response paper for one question. All written work should follow MLA format, 7th or 8th edition.

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DEVELOPMENTAL
CHAPTER
2.1.
i
INITIATIVES
|
INTRODUCTION
f the 60s marked the definitive founding of the discipline of Black Studies,
the 70s, 80s and 90s represent a multidimensional thrust toward consolidation and expansion (Young, 1984; Turner, 1984; Aldridge, 1988; Harris,
1990; Anderson, 1990; Harris, Hine and McKay, 1990; Conyers, 1997; Hall,
1999). And as current literature demonstrates, this development and the con-
stant critical self-questioning and intellectual production it requires continue
within Black Studies (Reid-Merritt, 2010; Christian and Evans, 2010; BankoleMedina, 2008; Okafor, 2007; Hudson- Weems, 2007; Anderson-Stewart, 2007;
Asante and Karenga, 2006; Christian, 2006; Asante and Mazama, 2005;
Conyers, 2003). In this multifaceted process several developments emerged
early to define the course and character of the discipline. Among these were
the emergence of and focus on: (1) professional organizations of the discipline;
(2) the Afrocentric initiative; (3) Black Women’s Studies; (4) Multicultural
Studies; and (5) Classical African Studies.
Subsequently, various additional thrusts have emerged as a part of the discipline’s internal thrust to constantly expand and develop new lines of research
and respond creatively and effectively to new intellectual and social challenges
in the academy, society and the world. Among these new emerging areas of
Black Studies, one of the most important is African Diaspora Studies which
seeks to expand the study of various peoples of the African diaspora.
ot
INTRODUCTION
2.2
PROFESSIONAL
TO BLACK STUDIES
ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE DISCIPLINE
AFRICAN HERITAGE STUDIES ASSOCIATION
(AHSA)
he founding of the African Heritage Studies Association evolved in the
of the general thrust toward self-determination of the Freedom
le
the 60s and the parallel efforts of Black Studies scholars within
in
Movement
the Africana Studies movement to do likewise in the academy. The AHSA
emerged from a year of discussions within the Black Caucus of the African
Studies Association (ASA), the major professional organization of African
Studies at that time, and simultaneous negotiations with the leadership of
this organization. During the 11th Annual Convention of ASA held in Los
Angeles in 1968, Black members met to discuss grievances against ASA and
to list demands for it to change its Eurocentric treatment of both the subject
matter of Africa and of them (Rowe, 1970:4). Moreover, they decided to form
“a new organization to cater to Black scholars and to correct the teaching of
Euro-Africa rather than Africa in U.S. colleges and universities.”
In addition to the decision to form a new organization “to serve Black
scholars and Black communities,” several other decisions were made. Among
them was the decision that the new organization act as a clearing house and
liaison among Black scholars all around the world, “exchanging information,
and establishing networks to correct the present monopoly of information
about Black cultures and histories in White hands.” Thirdly, it was decided
that members of the new organization would “link with Africanists in Africa
through embassies.” Fourthly, the new organization was to “encourage active
participation of its members in all Black conferences at home or abroad.” And
finally, a decision was made to meet in December of that year in New York to
consolidate agreements reached in Los Angeles.
After a follow-up meeting in December 1968, AHSA held its first convention in June 1969 at Federal City College in Washington, D.C. However,
AHSA still maintained its links with ASA, defining its relationship with ASA
as one “of a symbiotic nature.” Thus, at ASA’s conference in Montreal, October
1969, its Black Caucus petitioned ASA for equal representation in all decisionmaking committees, an equitable number of ASA fellowships, adequate representation at all national and international conferences relating to African
or Black Studies, and encouragement of the involvement of Black scholars in
various roles according to their expertise and interests. ASA, however, rejected
these requests. John Henrik Clarke (1976:8), the founding president of AHSA,
read the rejection as resistance of the White majority to giving Blacks “the
means of changing the ideological and structural bases of the African Studies
Association.” According to AHSA members, ASA had become accustomed to
CHAPTER
2: DEVELOPMENTAL
INITIATIVES
its monopoly on the interpretation of African history and culture, resisted the
stress on the pan-Africanist perspective and was threatened by the intellectual
and practical challenge posed by African Americans claiming a special relationship with Africa and independent grounding in African Studies.
The Montreal conference was for Black Caucus members of the ASA a
decisive point of rupture. They left the conference convinced that the leadership of ASA did not wish collaboration but monopoly and that only a totally
independent African organization could do the practical and intellectual work
necessary to serve the interests of Black scholars and Black people. Thus,
they formed AHSA as an indispensable “association of scholars of African
descent…committed to the preservation, interpretation and creative presen-
tation of the historical and cultural heritage of African people, both on the
ancestral soil of Africa and in the Diaspora in the Americas and throughout
the world” (Clarke, 1976:11).
Within this context, according to Clarke (1976:3ff), the pan-Africanist
scholars and activists set for themselves several fundamental goals. Among
these were: (1) “to examine every aspect and approach to the history and
culture of African people in this country and throughout the world;” (2) “to
project (AHSA) influence into every organization that relates to Africans and
the people of African descent;”(3) “to challenge and question all who claim
authority on African life and history;” (4) “to use African history to effect a
world union of African people;” (5) to establish “a new frame of reference in
all matters relating to Africa,” i.e., a critical pan-Africanist perspective which
stresses especially the inter-relatedness of African peoples and the linkage of
the intellectual with the practical; and finally, (6) to define African heritage
and “to put components of (this) heritage together to weld an instrument of
liberation.”
Since its formation, AHSA has essentially served several functions. First,
and foremost, it has served as a ground and context for scholarly encounter
and exchange. Its annual conferences bring together scholars from all over
the world African community in fruitful exchanges and creative challenge.
Secondly, AHSA has served through its individual members, an organizational
role for other professional organizations. In her inaugural presidential address
in 1989 titled “Agenda for AHSA: 21st Century,” Charshee McIntyre (1989:3)
listed several organizations in which AHSA members played a founding role,
i.e., TransAfrica, a lobby for African interests, the National Council for Black
Studies, the National Association of Black Educators, the Association for the
Study of Classical African Civilizations and the National Congress of Black
Faculty. Thirdly, AHSA has been an advocacy organization for Black interests
in education in general as well as on larger social issues organizing forums,
engaging in demonstrations and participating in governmental and institu-
INTRODUCTION
TO BLACK STUDIES
tional policy discussions. It has been also a major participant
in the overall thrust to link African peoples intellectually and
practically in ongoing projects.
Finally, McIntyre (1989:5ff) has noted several other ongoing projects to which AHSA is committed. These include:
(1) focus on transnational
and international African world
interests and cooperative relations among scholars throughout
the African world as outlined in Locksley Edmondson’s 1985
memo “Redefining the Role of AHSA;” (2) strengthening and
Dr. Charshee Mcintyre
expanding the AHSA student commission to mentor and support young scholars; (3) a publishing project to aid Africana
Studies scholars in publishing their work and produce regular organization literature; (4) sustaining and expanding the AHSA newsletter; and (5) building
a pan-African research institute dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the reaffirmation of African heritage.
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR BLACK STUDIES (NCBS)
The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) was founded in 1976 and
has since become the preeminent discipline organization. The process which
led to its founding was initiated in 1975 by Bertha Maxwell, who was then the
chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte (Atwater and Gyant, 2004b). Calling on Black scholars
around the country to engage in dialog on critical issues of Black Studies, she
created the interest and opportunity for the building of NCBS and played a
central role in its formation and development. In 1976 at the founding conference, women and men of the discipline developed programs and strategies
for organizational and discipline development and Maxwell became NCBS’
founding chairperson. She was followed by a series of strong chairpersons whose
leadership helped develop the discipline and the scholarly relations within it.
It is important to note here that since its inception NCBS has not only had a
balance of female and male officers, but also of the key players in its founding
and development. This has helped produce, as argued below, a positive and productive male/female dialog and exchange and has thus expanded and enriched
the organization and the discipline.
In a paper titled “A Synoptic History of NCBS and Its Future Direction”
and presented at the NCBS Summer Faculty Institute in June 1991 at Ohio
State University, then president Selasé Williams outlined the role of the organization in defining, defending and developing Black Studies. He (1991:1)
noted the unique role of NCBS as a professional organization for a discipline
which “always insisted on the inclusion of both the intellectual and political
4,
CHAPTER
2: DEVELOPMENTAL
INITIATIVES
dimensions of the Black Experience in its curriculum,
its research and other professional responsibilities.”
Thus, he (1991:2) calls attention to Article II of the
NCBS Constitution which shows its commitment to
both academic excellence and social responsibility,
building on and drawing from not only educators but
‘
|)
also students, interested citizens and other profes-
gf
ag
sionals. “The purpose of this Council,” the Article
reads, “is to promote and strengthen academic and
community programs in the area of Black Studies.
The Council believes that Black Studies academic
Dr. Bertha Maxwell Roddy
programs should include any subject area that has the
Black experience as the principle object and content of study.”
Under successive administrations, NCBS has continuously developed
and expanded. Having established its national office at Indiana University,
Bloomington under the auspices of Herman Hudson, Dean of Afro-American
Studies, it proceeded to produce its organizational voice, Voices in Black
Studies and to expand its regional structures. Moreover, it began in the early
80s to produce a series of documents which defined its goals and informed its
practice. Among these are: The Black Studies Core Curriculum, (The Hall
Report) 1981; The Black Studies 4-Year College and University Survey (The
Daniel and Zike Report) 1983; and The Short-Range and Long-Range Goals
Report (The Williams Report) 1984. In addition, NCBS chairpersons Carlene
Young and Delores Aldridge produced special issues of Black Studies journals
on the state, future and direction of the discipline. Young (1984) edited a special issue of the Journal of Negro Education and Aldridge (1988) edited a special
issue of Phylon, both of which contributed to the ongoing dialog on the scope
and direction of Black Studies. And together, they edited a collection of essays
on the development of Black/Africana Studies (Aldridge and Young, 2000).
Important also to NCBS’ development has been its establishment of a
process for Black Studies programs, its creation of specialty caucuses, its workshops on multicultural education and Black women issues, its joint activities
with AHSA, the Congressional Black Caucus and other academic, professional
and community organizations; and its establishment of two official discipline
journals, International Journal of Africana Studies (IJAS), which was formerly
titled The Afrocentric Scholar and Black Women, Gender and Families (BWGF),
as well as its maintenance of The Voice of Black Studies newsletter . In addition, NCBS, in its continuing stress on mutually beneficial relations between
campus and community, has established the NCBS Community Education and
Civic Engagement Grants Program through the National Black United Fund/
Federation of Charities. Its programs to provide developmental opportunities
INTRODUCTION
TO BLACK STUDIES
for professionals and students include the foundation-funded Cutting Edge
Gender Research Grants for Junior Scholars Program; the Dr. Tsehloane C.
Keto Student Leadership Development and Mentorship Program; and the
Ankh Maat Wedjau Honor Society which facilities networking on the national
level and recognition for excellence.
Also, among its most essential programs are the foundation-funded projects
such as the Summer Faculty Institute, the Administrative Institute, curriculum
development and data collection, and its programs of international linkages.
Especially central is the Summer Faculty Institute which introduces new Black
Studies faculty to the history, philosophy and varied discourses of the discipline,
and provides them with a context of creative challenge and exchange with
peers as well as major scholars in the discipline.
Finally, NCBS identifies its current and ongoing activities as programs
and projects to: (1) facilitate the recruitment of Black scholars for all levels
of teaching and research in universities and colleges; (2) assist in the creation
and implementation of multicultural education programs and materials for
K-12 schools and higher education institutions; (3) promote scholarly Africancentered research on all aspects of the African world experience; (4) increase
and improve informational resources on pan-African life and culture to be
made available to the general public; (5) provide professional advice to policy
makers in education, government and community development; (6) maintain
international linkages among Africana Studies; and (7) work for the empowerment of African people” (National Council for Black Studies, 2009).
CHEIKH ANTA Diop INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
The Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference was
founded in 1988 by Molefi Kete Asante, professor of African
American Studies at Temple University, along with his wife
Ana Yenenga and colleagues, as a parallel initiative to his
establishment of the first doctoral program in African American
Studies earlier the same year (Lundy, 2005; Temple and Jeffries,
2008). Asante, in strengthening the discipline of Black Studies,
moved to reaffirm the intellectual and institutional status and
value of the discipline by the creation of its first Ph.D. program.
However, as Mazama (2008:74) notes, Asante was at the same
time interested in reaffirming Afrocentric scholarship as the
defining feature of the discipline. And to do this, he needed “a
community of practitioners which creation of the first Ph.D.
program at Temple University brought . . . into existence.” These students and
the faculty, which trained and mentored them, came to be known as the Temple
CHAPTER
2: DEVELOPMENTAL
INITIATIVES
School or Temple Circle of Africana Studies, “a group of Afrocentric scholars
gathered at Temple University in the late 1980s and early 1990s around the
intellectual ideas articulated by Molefi Kete Asante” (Asante, 2005b; Karenga,
2008:33-34).
But Asante also needed, as part of his intellectual and institutional strat-
egy, a larger community of Afrocentric scholars to demonstrate and deepen the
pan-African and international reach and relevance of the discipline and break
beyond the limited conception of Black/African Studies the academy sheltered.
It is in this context of expanding the institutional space and status of the discipline that Asante founds both the first Ph.D. program in African American
Studies and the Cheikh Anta Diop Conference.
Garvey Lundy (2005:183) states that The Cheikh Anta Diop International
Conference “had three objectives: (1) introduction of the new discipline; (2)
professional and collegial networking among students and faculty in Black
Studies; and (3) advancement of disciplinary knowledge around the Afrocentric
idea” (Asante, 1998; Mazama, 2008b:75-77). The conference is named after the
Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop (DISA, 2010), whose vast knowledge in
many fields earned him the honorific title of being an Imhotepian man. This
term means one well-versed in many fields and is derived from the name of the
ancient Egyptian scholar, Imhotep, who was a philosopher, architect, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, priest, prime minister, teacher, father of medicine,
and builder of the first pyramid (see below in ancient African history).
Diop challenged African intellectuals to return to Egypt in all domains
and use ancient Egyptian civilization as a fundamental source for paradigms of
excellence, achievement and possibilities in all the disciplines of human knowledge (Diop, 1981:12) (see below Classical African Studies). Accepting Diop’s
charge and challenge, Asante moved not only to preserve and advance Diop’s
legacy in his work, but also to create a community of scholars around which
Diop’s work could serve as a framework and foundation for the Afrocentric initiative in Africana Studies (Asante, 2005b; Asante and Mazama, 2005).
Writing on the varied meaning and value of the Cheikh Anta Diop
Conference, Christel N. Temple and Bayyinah Sharief Jefferies (2008:27)
discuss how its formation and functioning provide “a radical aspect of landmark mentoring, affirmation, and rites of passage for the discipline of Africana
Studies, its scholars and the community at large.” They (Ibid:28) list among its
most important features: (1) “curriculuar integrity”, i.e., “each session is a constituent part of the whole conference,” essential to functioning and success; (2)
the “elder leadership model” of senior scholars’ presenting, mentoring and offering creative challenge to young scholars; (3) an intellectual “rites of passage” for
young and emerging scholars presenting and exchanging with peers and senior
scholars; (4) “community base,” i.e., global, national and local community par-
INTRODUCTION
TO BLACK STUDIES
ticipation—scholars, activists, teachers, leaders, and others; (4) “fusion of the
academic and practical enterprises,” and (5) “International Pan-Africanism”
with African scholars, activists and laypersons from around the world meeting
and exchanging in mutually beneficial and enhancing ways.
Temple and Jefferies pose the Diop Conference not only as an academic
conference of the highest excellence, but as also a distinctly African-centered,
that is culturally grounded, conference which conducts itself in more people-
oriented and community-building ways than standard academic conferences. It
is, they contend, not only an academic exercise, but also an annual celebration,
an intellectual unfolding, international Afrocentric community-building, and
a Maatian moral community framed by the Seven Cardinal Virtues—truth,
justice, propriety, harmony, balance, reciprocity and order” (Karenga, 2006:10).
Moreover, both its reaffirmation and renewal is reflected in all its plenary sessions for maximum sharing, drumming, libation and aesthetic representations
of various kinds (Temple and Jeffries, 2008:33ff).
In 1996, Asante moved the conference from university sponsorship and
placed it under the auspices of the Association of Nubian Kemetic Heritage
(ANKH) to make it independent and give it more flexibility in functioning and
development. In 2009, the leadership of the conference was transferred to the
Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement (DISA), “coordinated by DISA’s
executive Council” (DISA, 2010). These new leaders were from the Temple
School of Africana Studies and share Asante’s commitment to Afrocentric
scholarship and social engagement and to Diop’s legacy and challenge.
Moreover, it is important to note that women, professors and graduate
students, have also played a key role in the founding and development of the
Diop Conference and DISA. Ana Yenenga, Asante’s wife and co-worker, was
the coordinator of the Conference from its inception to 2009 when sponsorship
was transferred to DISA. Also, Ama Mazama, co-author with Asante on several
texts (2002, 2005, 2008), a fellow colleague at Temple and a major Afrocentric
theorist in her own right (Mazama, 2003, 2008), has also played a central role
in the founding, development and international outreach of the Conference. In
addition, she has translated Asante’s seminal work, Afrocentricity, into French
and wrote a major work in French on Afrocentricity, The Afrocentric Imperative,
contributing definitively to the international discourse in Afrocentricity
and Africana Studies. And the founding role other women professors and
graduate students played in the early years of the Conference continue in the
Conference through DISA, whose executive council is equally divided in male/
female representation with a slight majority of women scholars. As with the
other professional organizations, this equal and active representation has been
indispensable, not only to the shaping and developing of the organization, but
also to the discipline of Black Studies itself.
CHAPTER
2: DEVELOPMENTAL
INITIATIVES
y work has increasingly constituted a radical critique of the
Eurocentric ideology that masquerades as a universal view . . .
Yet the critique is radical only in the sense that it suggests a turnabout, an alternative perspective on phenomena. It is about taking the
globe and turning it over so that we see all the possibilities of aworld
where Africa, for example, is subject and not object……..
My objective has always been to present a critique that propounds
a cultural theory of society by the very act of criticism. In other
words, to provide a radical assessment of a given reality is to create
among other things, another reality…
The crystallization of this critical perspective | have named Afrocentricity, which means, literally, placing African ideas at the center
of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior.
If we have lost anything, it is our cultural centeredness; that is, we
have been moved off our own platform. This means that we cannot
truly be ourselves or know our potential since we exist in borrowed
space…. Our existential relationship to the culture that we have bor-
“Towed defines what and who we are at any given moment. By regain-
Dr. Molefi Kete Asante
ing our own platform, standing in our own cultural spaces, and believing
that our way of viewing the universe is just as valid as any, we will achieve the kind of transformation that we need
to participate fully in a multicultural society. However, without this kind of centeredness, we bring almost nothing to
the multicultural table, but a darker version of whiteness.
There is therefore nothing strange about the Afrocentric idea. All distorted or otherwise negative understandings
of it are rooted in the society’s manner of viewing Africans . . We have, however, arrived at a point at which the
entire process of human knowledge is being assessed and reassessed in order to help us discover what we know
about each other. As we open the doors to return to our own platform, we greatly enrich the world.
Source: pp. 1, 2, 8 in
Molefi Asante, (1998) The Afrocentric Idea
Philadelphia: Temple University Press
2.3.
THE AFROCENTRIC INITIATIVE
learly one of the most important developments in Black Studies is the
major conceptual framework within the discipline. As an intellectual category,
Afrocentricity is relatively new, emerging
in the late 70s and finding its theo-
retical foundation in a work by Molefi Asante titled Afrocentricity: The Theory
of Social Change and published in 1980. With this initial work Asante (1980:66)
introduced Afrocentricity as the indispensable perspective of the Black Studies
project and initiated a wide-ranging discourse which had both academic and
social implications and consequences (Bankole-Medina, 2008; Mazama, 2008,
; Karenga, 2008c; Alkebulan, 2004; Conyers, 2003).
INTRODUCTION
TO BLACK STUDIES
As I (2008c:18) argued elsewhere, “Indeed, few scholars have had the kind
of intellectual impact on discourse in the academy joined with attendant influence in the larger society as he has had in our time.” This is due to his intellectual work and the impact of his Afrocentric theory and it is reflected in how
the categories of “Afrocentricity” and “Afrocentric” appear in scholarly and
popular literature and discourse. As Patricia Reid-Merritt (2008:262) states in
her important study on the popularization of Afrocentricity, this “theoretical
concept developed in the academy primarily for scholarly investigation, has
made a giant leap into popular culture.” This dual strong presence in the academy and the Black community has in turn drawn attention from the larger
society and created a varied discourse on its meaning and value.
One could argue that the Afrocentric emphasis in Black studies is not new
and that it reaches back to much earlier periods in Black intellectual history
(Morgan, 1991). For example works on education by W.E.B. DuBois (1975),
Anna Julia err (1892) and especially, Carter G. Woodson’s (1969) Mis-
education of eeNegro could certainly be called in part or whole Afrocentric
works. But it (Rete
i
(0,1998, 1990, 2007a) who provided the category
Afrocentricity andan accompanying literature which contributed definitively
to establishing the concept as a central element in Black Studies discourse and
practice. And it is Asante who energized Black Studies discourse and gave a
fresh and added thrust to the pursuit of new research directions in Black Studies
with his insistence on African location or centeredness, African agency, and
an African frame of reference in research methodology and intellectual production. Also, his role as the founder of the oe Ph.D. program in Black Studies
around the world whose searnitions heloed shape and gered Black Studies
discourse and development on an international level (Mazama, 2003; 2008;
Bankole-Medina, 2008).
oe t
NNN:
As the Afrocentric initiative spread beyond the campus to the African
American community, the larger society and the international context, Asante
became a much sought after lecturer and commentator, lecturing and appearing
regularly in the media to answer questions concerning the meaning and implications of the Afrocentric initiative in the academic and social context. Also
other scholars participated fully in this initiative and Afrocentricity began to
emerge as both an academic and popular approach to African social and human
issues. This latter occurrence caused concern among some Afrocentric scholars
that the popular version of Afrocentricity not become the defining understanding of the concept. For in its popular version, Afrocentrism, Afrocentricity
included a wide-range of problematic assertions and approaches.
CHAPTER
2: DEVELOPMENTAL
INITIATIVES
| 41 |
In an important article on the direction of Black Studies and the role of
the Afrocentric initiative in it, Stewart (1992:3) has pointed out early that
a popular Afrocentrism” has emerged which “is being confused increas-
|
“
ingly with systematic intellectual approaches in the field.” He adds that “this
confusion has contributed to a distorted view of the state of the field and is
fueling uneasiness in some circles about the intellectual credibility of Black/
Africana Studies.” Here one can draw a distinction between Afrocentricity and i
Afrocentrism (Karenga, 1995:44).
Asante
(2007a) has also called attention to this difference, stating that
“By way of distinction, Afrocentricity should not be confused with the vari&
ant Afrocentrism.” He defines Afrocentrism ‘as a term used to negate and Acs
miscast Afrocentricity by its opponents. In addition, it can also be a more
popular form of Afrocentricity. In fact, Afrocentrism appears more often in
ideological discourse between Afrocentric advocates and critics especially in
popular pieces on the subject. What Asante and Stewart rightly call attention
to is the popular appropriation of the category, Afrocentricism, by some of its
advocates, critics and the media who use it for purposes which tend to define «
it as an ideological posture rather than an intellectual category. Its transfor-~
mation from Afrocentricity to Afrocentrism is indicative of this. For the use
of “ism” tends to suggest that it is seen as more of a political posturé than a
methodology or orientation in intellectual work. Afrocentrism,
then, is favor”
able position-taking on African people and issues concerning them without sufficient
intellectual grounding. It is also a labeling attached to Afrocentricity by its critics toa
miscast and misdirect it.
(Afrocentricity isp thus, used in this work rather than Afrocentrism for
several reasons (Karenga, 1995:44ff). First, it is to stress its intellectual value
as distinct from its ideological use. For in the final analysis, it must prove its
value as an intellectual category regardless of the ideological use advocates
‘and critics make of it. Second, Afrocentricity_is preferable to Afrocentcism
to clearly distinguish it from Eurocentricism.| Eurocentrism) is defined here
as an ideology and practice of domination and exclusion based on the fundamental
assumption that all relevance and value are centered in European culture and peoples
and that all other cultures and peoples are at best marginal and at worse irrelevant.
Afrocentricity is not built on or conceived as a denial of worth and values to
others. On the contrary, it conceptually includes both a particular (African)
and universal (human) dimension as indicated below. As Asante (2003:51) has
stated, “Afrocentricity’s response certainly is not to impose its own particularity
as a universal as Europe has done. But hearing the voice of African culture with
all its attendant parts is one way of creating a more sane society and one model _/
for a more humane world.”
INTRODUCTION
TO BLACK STUDIES
Thirdly, Afrocentricity is preferred to establish it as a quality of thought
and practice rather than thought and practice themselves. In a word, it is used
to focus on the cultural and human quality of African thought and practice
rather than on thought and practice as an ideological conception and conduct.
Rejecting the “ism” becomes a way to avoid being labeled as simply another
ideological posture. In a similar view, the category African-centeredness is also
used to escape ideological associations (Keto, 1994).
Having made-such-distinctions,
one is still compelled to concede that
there is a rich diversity of approaches to the definition and application of
Afrocentricity (Gray, 2001; Hamlet, 1998; Ziegler, 1995). Nevertheless, Molefi
he
Asantethat(1998:2) has given us the essential elements of the definition. He
states
“Afrocentricity.? -means literally, placing African ideals
at the center of
_any analysisthat involves African culture and behavior.” Clearly, the-concept of
“centeredness” iskey to Asante’s definition. And by centeredness he (1990:12)
means “the groundedness of observation and behavior in one’s own histori| experiences.” Secondly, Asante (1998:44ff) argues that Afrocentricity is a
theoretical framework or methodology which stresses African agency, and thus, treats
| Africans as active subjects of history rather than objects or passive victims. Indeed,
sante (2007a: 109) states that “The Afrocentric idea isunthinkable without
ein agency.”
=
Accepting these insights as a reaffirmation of the Kawaida insistence since
its inception on a “Black frame of reference” in Black Studies and social practice (Karenga, 1969:43ff; Asante, 1980:23ff), Afrocentricity is defined here in
a similar way. From a Kawaida perspective, Afrocentricity is a methodology,
orientation or quality of thought and practice rooted in the cultural image
nd human interest of African people (Karenga, 1988:403; 1995:45). To be
rooted in the cultural image of African pe