LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Afrocentrism: History
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Anti-racist activists are angry at Afrocentrists (whether radical or not) because they feel that the fundamental principles of Afrocentrism are a web of tangled lies. Do Afrocentrists purposefully use these lies or exaggerations about the past to keep feelings of animosity stirred up between the races? Many scholars believe that Afrocentrism is nothing but a pseudo-historical political movement that allows or enables racism to spread and justifies the denial of opportunity to the inferior group. But does either side have solid, fact-based proof about history or is it up to the individual to decide?
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In Afrocentrism, Howe traces the sources and ancestries of the movement, and closely analyses the writings of its leading proponents including Molefi Asante and the legendary Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop. Martin Bernal“s contribution is ... assessed. Hard-hitting yet subtle and scholarly in its appraisal of Afrocentic ideas, and based on wide-ranging research in the histories both of Afro-America and of Africa itself, Afrocentrism not only demolishes the mythical “history” taught by black ultra-nationalists but suggests paths towards a true historical consciousness of Africa and its diaspora.
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Afrocentrism is just a manifestation of black racism. It is a mythology created for the purpose of denigrating white people and elevating black people. Aside from being factually and demonstrably wrong in almost every aspect of its theology (I'm leaving open the remote possibility that there might be something accurate contained within it somewhere, therefore the use of the word "almost"), it is not merely a benign misinterpretation of history, or a mildly offensive invention of a history that is pleasing to some who are acutely race-conscious and bigoted, but it is truly sinister in that it invents an entire scenario of happenings that never occurred in order to vilify another race of people. Ranging from the idiocy about white people chipping off the allegedly Negroid noses of the Egyptian statues, to the invention of the Stolen Legacy, and even insane beliefs that there has been a conspiracy to keep the "true" racial identiy of the Egyptians a secret, Afrocentrism is rife with anti-white propaganda that is very similar to the vilification of the Jews by the Nazis. Afrocentrism is racism. It should be acknowledged as such and treated as such, and its adherents should be placed on the same strata as Nazis and Klansmen, for their ideologies are remarkably similar and identically evil.
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According to these anti-racists, the problem with Afrocentrism is that it is corrupting young blacks in America, with false stories and myths intended to create feelings of black pride because of black achievements. However these achievements are nothing more than fabricated stories invented to promote black institutions and funding. They claim that Afrocentrists are not concerned with learning the truth about history, but rather rewriting it and exploiting it to create their own distinctive world view about the way that things really happened.
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Tejumola Olaniyan writes that Chinua Achebe easily might have included Afrocentrism in his list of "props." In this context, ethnocentric Afrocentrism was not intended to be essential or permanent. It was a consciously fashioned strategy of resistance to the Eurocentrism of the time.[11] Afrocentric scholars adopted two approaches: a deconstructive rebuttal of what they called "the whole archive of European ideological racism" and a bold reconstructive act of writing new, authentic, self-constructed histories.[11] Afrocentricity gained an international forum when Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop attacked the long history of biased scholarship at a 1974 UNESCO symposium in Cairo. The several-day symposium on "The Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Script" brought together scholars of Egypt from around the world.[13]
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This week's lesson provides you with examples of the most eggregious politically motivated rewriting of history at the College level - "Afrocentrism". The dividing line between propaganda and serious inquiry has blurred.
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