Afrocentrism - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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class="container"> <div class="header"> <div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#W">w</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#X">x</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>Afrocentrism</h1> <blockquote> <span class="quote">Afrocentrism is a mythology that is racist, reactionary, and essentially therapeutic. It suggests that nothing important has happened in black history since the time of the pharaohs and thus trivializes the history of black Americans. Afrocentrism places an emphasis on Egypt that is, to put it bluntly, absurd.</span> --<a href="http://dcn.davis.ca.us/~gizmo/2001/clarence.html">Clarence E. Walker</a> </blockquote> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Afrocentrism is a <a HREF="pseudohs.html">pseudohistorical </a>political movement that erroneously claims that African-Americans should trace their roots back to ancient Egypt because it was dominated by a race of black Africans. Some of Afrocentrism's other claims are: the ancient Greeks stole their main cultural achievements from black Egyptians; Jesus, Socrates and Cleopatra, among others, were black; and Jews created the slave trade of black Africans. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The main purpose of Afrocentrism is to encourage black nationalism and ethnic pride as a psychological weapon against the destructive and debilitating effects of universal racism. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Some of Afrocentrism's leading proponents are <a href="http://www.asante.net/articles/1/afrocentricity/">Professor Molefi Kete Asante</a> of Temple University; Professor Leonard Jeffries of City University of New York; and Martin Bernal, author of <i>Black Athena</i>. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">One of the more important Afrocentric texts is the pseudo-historical <i>Stolen Legacy</i> (1954) by George G. M. James. Mr. James claims, among other things, that Greek philosophy and the mystery religions of Greece and Rome were stolen from Egypt; that the ancient Greeks did not have the native ability to develop philosophy; and that the Egyptians from whom the Greeks stole their philosophy were black Africans. Many of James' ideas were taken from Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), who thought that white accomplishment is due to teaching children they are superior. If blacks are to succeed, he said, they would have to  teach their children that they are superior. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">James's principal sources were Masonic, especially <i>The Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry</i> (1909) by the Rev. Charles H. Vail. The Masons in turn derived their misconceptions about Egyptian mystery and initiation rites from the eighteenth century work of fiction<i> Sethos, a History or Biography, based on Unpublished Memoirs of Ancient Egypt</i> (1731) by the Abb茅 Jean Terrasson (1670-1750), a professor of Greek. Terrasson had no access to Egyptian sources and he would be long dead before Egyptian hieroglyphics could be deciphered. But Terrasson knew the Greek and Latin writers well. So he constructed an imaginary Egyptian religion based upon sources which described Greek and Latin rites as if they were Egyptian (Lefkowitz). Hence, one of the main sources for Afrocentric Egyptology turns out to be Greece and Rome. The Greeks would have called this <i>irony. </i>I don't know what Afrocentrists call it. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">James's pseudo-history is the basis for other Afrocentric pseudo-histories such as <i>Africa, Mother of Western Civilization</i> by Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannnan, one of James's students, and <i>Civilization or Barbarism</i> by Cheikh Anta Diop of Senegal. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Afrocentrism is being taught in many universities, colleges, and public schools.<a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/9111/minority.html">* </a> </font> </p> <hr width="25%" align="left" noshade> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b><a HREF="comments/afrocom.html">reader comments</a></b> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font size="3">books</font></b><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0807845558/roberttoddcarrolA/">Lefkowitz, Mary (Editor) and Guy MacLean Rogers (Editor) <i>Black Athena Revisited</i> (University of North Carolina Press, 1996)</a></font><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=046509838X/roberttoddcarrolA/">Lefkowitz, Mary. <i>Not Out of Africa - How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History</i> (New York: Basic Books, 1996).</a> See my<a href="refuge/lefko.html"> review.</a></font><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0875862225/roberttoddcarrolA/"> Najovits, Simson. (2003).  <i>Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Vol. 1: The Contexts </i></a> and <i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=087586256X/roberttoddcarrolA/"> Vol. II: The Consequences</a></i>. Algora Publishing.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0195095715/roberttoddcarrolA/">Walker, Clarence E. <i>We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism </i>(Oxford University Press, 2001). </a> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font size="3">websites</font></b> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Articles_Gen/afrocent_roth.html">Building Bridges to Afrocentrism by Egyptologist Ann Macy Roth</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://way.net/dissonance/sundiata.html">Afrocentrism - The Argument We're Really Having by Ibrahim Sundiata</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font size="3" face="Arial"><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0511_050511_kingtutface.html">Was King Tut a Black African?</a></font></p> <p></webContent> Last updated 07-Nov-2015</p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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Afrocentrism - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com