How We Should React to the "New Afrocentrism"

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Hi everyone. Remember when I was a regular PPR poster in 2011 and 2013? Those were the days eh?
Anyways, back then I made a thread about Afrocentrism. I feel the need to bring this topic back because Afrocentrism seems has ballooned in popularity over the last few years. This is likely a byproduct of Black Lives Matter.

The "New Afrocentrism" has spawned quite a few pseudohistorical lies. The main lie of the "New Afrocentrism" is that Africa was entirely ruled by black people until the Muslims conquered north Africa. In reality, the people who lived in northern Africa during ancient times looked like modern North Africans ... who look Middle Eastern for the most part.

This happened because the Sahara was practically a barrier back in ancient times. Crossing it was possible ... but hardly anyone wanted to do that. Thus, the people of north Africa are closely related to the people of the Middle East. Sub-Saharan African countries are the only countries where black people are the majority. Africa has been this way for all of recorded history.

Thus, Facebook is flooding up with pics which "prove" that the Ancient Egyptians and Carthaginians were black. Many of these pics get reposted of r/cringe and related subreddits ... and not without good reason.

Of course, the right-wing reaction to the New Afrocentrism has been disgusting. The phrase "WE WAS KANGZ!" is frequently used by alt-right Trump supporters who want to degrade the New Afrocentrists ... by comparing them to dumb teenagers who are appropriating Afro-American Vernacular English incorrectly. You aren't helping bros.

In my opinion, this rise of New Afrocentrism is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to learn about real African history and teach people about it. There were black civilizations in old Africa. Egypt just wasn't one of them. Almost nobody talks about the old Ghana Empire. That was a real black civilization. Additionally, Benin was civilized before the European colonization of Africa began.

It is true that most of sub-Saharan Africa was relatively uncivilized before European colonization of Africa. That was mainly because they had poor resources. It's hard to raise farm animals when you are surrounded by tsetse flies. Jared Diamond basically proved this in Guns, Germs and Steel.

Another Thing: Even the uncivilized Africans were human beings with religions, history, music and culture. For some reason, tribal Africans are frequently portrayed as simple-minded savages in the media. That's how Native Americans were portrayed until recently.

I totally get the mentality of the New Afrocentrists. They want to learn their family history because they never learned about it in school. The public schools usually avoid the topic of African history because they see it as unimportant. That is what has caused this rebirth of pseudohistory. The schools need to start teaching kids more about the real history of sub-Saharan Africa or else this worrying trend will persist indefinitely.

If I read your piece correctly the new afrocentrism when it comes to pseudo history is the same as the old one. In that case I would recommend this book. And the pseudo history you mentioned was for a time taught as fact in African studies on (mostly) American universities and with practically no academic resistance. This was either out of an unwillingness for confrontation because it would take time away that could be spend on discovering new things, or for various political motives. Or maybe it might that some just got tired from having to point out the flaws in those 'theories' that their students have learned from Afrocentrists.

I respond to any form of "Afro-Centrism" with little more than bemused indifference; much the same as I respond to claims by Kim Jong Un that North Korea is the cradle of human civilization, claims by Nikita Khrushchev that the Soviet Union invented every item and form of technology, and claims by Donald Trump that America is no longer a great nation.

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T minus 35 and counting.

I don't see why there should be any reaction besides the one they get now which is indifference and mocking.

In school you should be teaching about events that shaped the World, not insignificant things. The vast majority of the school would learn nothing of value from such studies.

Texas literally rewrote its history books... out of all efforts to do that surely that state takes the cake.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rewriting-h ... ook-debate ... it's all over the net.

It is a historical fact that Carthage was culturally a Canaanite civilization, Phoenician in particular, and there are plenty of archeological evidences that prove their Canaanite religion, and plus DNA evidences that they were Caucasians - the the first complete mitochondrial Phoenician genome was found to be related to a group of Europeans. http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago612764.html

Their tombs also show people with Caucasian features https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/56 ... 2ab1b8.jpg