Black people created everything?
Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is like
“therapeutic mythology”, a way to promote the self-esteem of African Americans
“by creating a past that never was.” The origins of Afrocentrism lay in black nationalism and is NOT factual history. Were Afrocentrism a means of creating African American community and thus empowering a minority, it would be comparable to such mythologies used by other minorities. Such mythologies, however, have been grounded in historical thought, while Afrocentrism is factually errant and theoretically flawed.
By urging black Americans to seek empowerment in a misconstructed Egyptian history, Afrocentrists not only mislead, opening their students to ridicule, but they also assert that culture is “transhistoric”–that is, it can be transferred through time and space intact. Culture is always changing and will be different as a result of any transfer, willing or unwilling, on the part of those living it. African Americans have created a culture of their own – a culture of which to be proud, but not an Egyptian or African culture.
Afrocentrism turns African Americans into helpless victims whose ancestors created a glorious culture and then for thousands of years accomplished little. They became the dupes and victims of Europeans, enslaved and exploited, and now their descendants must look to a mythical African past for purpose and meaning.
Afrocentrism in a nutshell: The ancient Egyptians were black, Cleopatra was black, the ancient Greeks stole Africa’s culture (philosophy, medicine) and claimed it as their own, Africans invented writing, had many architectural achievements, developed electricity and “early planes.” They believe that Africa is one homogeneous culture, despite the fact that many cultures exist on the continent, and that all ancient civilizations were either black or stole ideas from blacks.
Here’s the kicker: Jesus was black. Yes, despite the fact he was born in the Middle East of a Jewish mother, he was in fact a black man. Therefore, Jews and Christians hijacked Judaism and Christianity from Africans.
This bogus history (which “scholars” say was destroyed by whites to downplay Africa’s greatness) is apparently
designed to raise the self-esteem of black kids, which some surmise is the reason for their poor performances in school. Again, at first glance, it’s obvious that lack of parental involvement and home environments not conducive to learning (no books, too much TV viewing), coupled with unqualified teachers and the indoctrination of politically correct tripe like afrocentrism, are major reasons black children underperform in school. Why black parents allow their precious gifts from God to be experimented on by quacks is beyond me.
For more on the absurdity of afrocentrism, check out scholar Mary Lefkowitz, who wrote an excellent book,
Not Out of Africa. Dinesh D’Souza wrote a good article about afrocentrism.
Additionally, University of California history professor Clarence Walker has written extensively on the subject. He says, “
Afrocentrism is a mythology that is racist, reactionary, and essentially therapeutic. If blacks want to study myth, legend and outright lies, they should do so on their own time with their own money. But they cross the clear line of rationality when they want to poison young black minds with this garbage and make you pay for it.
While the grown-ups are puffing themselves up about so-called African accomplishments,
these poor children are taught distortions and lies in the name of “ethic pride.” The result? White students, who study real accomplishments by Western cultures, including the black American sub-culture, will continue to outperform black students. Afrocentrism is just another way to divert the blame for black failures to someone or something else. As usual, it’s the kids who suffer. But at least they’ll feel good about themselves.
Mary Lefkowitz author of "Not out of Africa" on Afrocentrism
She sees the Afrocentrists as living in a sealed off intellectual ghetto, impervious to outside information, where they pay no attention to the truth of their propositions but are
purely concerned with the “feel good” factor and boosting the low self-esteem of African-Americans.
Book Review
Not Out of Africa How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History
What is offensive about Afrocentrism is not that its advocates assert such things as that Socrates and Cleopatra were black Africans or that Aristotle stole his ideas from the library at Alexandria when he visited Egypt. What is offensive is not that they claim that the ancient Greeks took everything they are known for from the Egyptians, and that those Egyptians were black Africans.
What is offensive is that these claims are put forth as articles of faith. Any challenge to them is seen as racist. What is offensive is that these claims are not based on scholarly research, evidence and argument from evidence. Nor are they based on a sincere desire to discover historical truth. They are based on unsubstantiated opinions of mythmakers and fiction writers.
They are based on the possibility they are true. They are based on a desire for them to be true. They are based on a preconceived notion that white scholars have conspired from time immemorial to repress the truth that everything good about Western civilization came out of black Africa. They are based on the desire to give African-American children self-esteem and pride.
To an Afrocentrist the fact that we do not know who Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was is sufficient evidence to justify believing that Cleopatra was a black African. The fact that she was a member of the Ptolemaic line, recognized by all as Macedonian, which for generations had practiced incestual marriages to keep the bloodline pure, is of little importance.
It is politically important that young African-American children believe that they descend from Queens like Cleopatra.
"All history was a palimpset, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary"
- George Orwell, 1984