AFROCENTRICISM

1
AFROCENTRICISM
2
Afrocentricism

• Afrocentrism, is a world view that considers
  African peoples, their cultures, histories,
  collective struggles, needs and aspirations, to
  be central to the interpretation and utilization
  of data.
• Afrocentrists commonly contend that approaching
  knowledge from a Eurocentrist perspective, as
  well as certain mainstream assumptions in the
  application of information in the West, has led
  to injustices and inadequacies in meeting the
  needs of African peoples, meaning indigenous,
  Black Africans and the peoples of the African
  diaspora.

• Molefi Kete Asante Temple University

3
Ron Karenga
4
Afrocentricism

• As a result, the Afrocentrist paradigm is one
  which seeks to discover and also reinterpret
  information through African eyes, utilizing it in
  ways that inure to the benefit of Black people.
• As an ideology and scholarly and social movement,
  the Afrocentrist paradigm has its beginnings
  among Black intellectuals, political figures and
  historians in the practice of history and social
  and political activism.

5
Black Athena

• Black Athena The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical
  Civilization is a work by Martin Bernal. It
  expounds a hypothesis that ancient Greece, and
  hence Western civilization, derived much of its
  cultural roots from Afroasiatic (Egyptian and
  Phoenician) cultures.
• The work was published in three volumes.

6
Martin Bernal

• Martin Bernal is Professor Emeritus of Ancient
  Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Cornell
  University.
• Martin Bernal (b. 1937) claims classical
  civilization in Ancient Greece was founded on
  Afroasiatic and Semitic cultures, and not
  indigenous.

7
Cheikh Anta Diop

• Cheikh Anta Diop (19231986) was a Senegalese
  historian and anthropologist who studied the
  human race's origins and pre-colonial African
  culture.
• He has been considered both one of the greatest
  African historians of the 20th century, and a
  racialist scientist. On 7 February 1986, Diop,
  who was called a "modern pharaoh" of African
  studies, died in his sleep in Dakar.

8
The African Origin of Civilization

• Diop's first work, The African Origin of
  Civilization Myth or Reality, was published in
  1974. He argued that ancient Egypt had in fact
  been a Black African culture.
• He claimed that archaeological and
  anthropological evidence supported his
  Afrocentric view that Pharaohs were of Negroid
  origin.

9
Criticism of Afrocentricism

• Some Western mainstream scholars have assessed
  some Afrocentric ideas as pseudohistorical,
  especially claims regarding Ancient Egypt as
  contributing directly to the development of Greek
  and Western culture.

10
Critic Clarence Walker