Week8 midterm packet

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Chapter 4 Afrocentricity and Education

Carter G. Woodson wrote in the book, The Mis-education of the Negro, that Africans in the United States were being mis-educated by the promotion of Europe as if it were the only source of human knowledge.[1] Indeed, Woodson’s classic reveals the fundamental problems pertaining to the education of the African person in the Americas. As Woodson contends, African people have been educated away from their own culture and traditions and attached to the fringes of European culture; thus dislocated from themselves, Woodson asserts that African Americans often valorize European culture to the detriment of their own heritage.[2] Although Woodson does not advocate rejection of citizenship or nationality, he believed that assuming Africans hold the same position as European Americans vis-a-vis the realities of the United States, Brazil, or Colombia would lead to the psychological and cultural death of the African people. Furthermore, if education is ever to be substantive and meaningful within the context of society, it must first address the African’s historical experiences.

I will examine the nature and scope of this approach, establish its necessity, and suggest ways to develop and disseminate it throughout all levels of education. Two propositions stand in the background of the theoretical and philosophical issues I will present. These ideas represent the core presuppositions on which I have based most of my work in the field of education, and they suggest the direction of my own thinking about what education is capable of doing to and for an already politically and economically marginalized population: (1) Education is fundamentally a social phenomenon whose ultimate purpose is to socialize the learner; to send a child to school is to prepare that child to become part of a social group. (2) Schools are reflective of the societies that develop them (i.e., a white supremacist-dominated society will develop a white supremacist educational system, a communist society will develop a communist educational system, etc.).

One of the ways the Afrocentrists have designed for situating problems in education, with applications to other sectors of the society, is critical location. The definition of critical location is the site where the researcher locates a researchable problem within a matrix of political, social, and economic fields in order to determine the extent to which the problem is being affected by internal and external forces. For example, the problem of effectiveness of culture in schools can be adequately located, that is, situated for a critical location project.

In education, centricity refers to a perspective that involves locating students within the context of their own cultural references so that they can relate socially and psychologically to other cultural perspectives. Centricity is a concept that can be applied to any culture. The centrist paradigm is supported by research showing that the most productive method of teaching any student is to place his or her group within the center of the context of knowledge. For most white students in the Americas this is easy because almost all the experiences discussed in classrooms are approached from the standpoint of European perspectives and history. American and Brazilian

Asante, Molefi Kete. Facing South to Africa : Toward an Afrocentric Critical Orientation, Lexington Books, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/purdue/detail.action?docID=1776000. Created from purdue on 2020-01-21 15:29:57.

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education, however, is not centric; it is Eurocentric. Consequently, black students in both countries are also made to see themselves and their groups as the marginalized. Only rarely do black children read or hear of African people as active participants in history. This is as true for a discussion of the American Revolution as it is for a discussion of Dante’s Inferno; for instance, most classroom discussions of the European slave trade concentrate on the activities of Europeans rather than on the resistance efforts of Africans. A person educated in a truly centric fashion comes to view all groups’ contributions as significant and useful. Even a white person educated in such a system does not assume superiority based upon racist notions. Afrocentricity is a frame of reference where phenomena are viewed from the perspective of the African person as an agent in his or her own narrative. The Afrocentric approach seeks in every situation the appropriate centrality of the African person.[3] In education this means that teachers provide students the opportunity to study the world and its people, concepts, and history from an African worldview. In most classrooms, whatever the subject, Whites are located in the subject perspective position. How alien the African child must feel, how like an outsider! The little African child who sits in a classroom and is taught to accept as heroes and heroines individuals who defamed African people is being actively de-centered, dislocated, and made into a nonperson, one whose aim in life might be to one day shed the “badge of inferiority,” his or her blackness. In Afrocentric educational settings, however, teachers do not marginalize Africans by causing them to question their own self-worth because their people’s story is seldom told. By seeing themselves as the subjects rather than the objects of education—be the discipline biology, medicine, literature, or social studies—African students come to see themselves not merely as seekers of knowledge but as integral participants in it. Because all content areas are adaptable to an Afrocentric approach, African students can be made to see themselves as centered in the reality of any discipline. It must be emphasized that Afrocentricity is not a black version of Eurocentricity.[4] Eurocentricity is often based on white supremacist notions whose purposes are to protect white privilege and advantage in education, economics, politics, and so forth. Unlike Eurocentricity, Afrocentricity does not condone ethnocentric valorization at the expense of degrading other groups’ perspectives. Moreover, Eurocentricity presents the particular historical reality of Europeans as the sum total of the human experience. It imposes Eurocentric realities as universal; i.e., that which is white is presented as applying to the human condition in general, while that which is non-white is viewed as group-specific and therefore not human. This explains why some scholars and artists of African descent rush to deny their blackness; they believe that to exist as a black person is not to exist as a universal human being. They are the individuals Woodson identified as preferring European art, language, and culture over African art, language, and culture; they believe that anything of European origin is inherently better than anything produced by or issuing from their own people. Naturally, the person of African descent should be centered in his or her historical experiences as an African, but Eurocentric curricula produce such aberrations of perspective among persons of color.

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Multiculturalism in education must include a nonhierarchical approach that respects and celebrates a variety of cultural perspectives on world phenomena. The multicultural approach holds that although European cultures are dominant in Brazil and the United States, a dominant majority is not a sufficient reason for imposing it on a diverse student population as universal. Multiculturalists assert that education, to have integrity, must begin with the proposition that all humans have contributed to world development and the flow of knowledge and information, and that most human achievements are the result of mutually interactive, international efforts. Without a multicultural education, students remain essentially ignorant of the contributions of a major portion of the world’s people. A multicultural education is thus a fundamental necessity for anyone who wishes to achieve competency in almost any subject. The Afrocentric idea must be the stepping-stone from which the multicultural idea is launched. A truly authentic multicultural education, therefore, must be based upon the Afrocentric initiative. If this step is skipped, multicultural curricula, as they are increasingly being defined by white “resisters” will evolve without any substantive infusion of African American content, and the African American child will continue to be lost in the Eurocentric framework of education. In other words, the African child will neither be confirmed nor affirmed in his or her own cultural information. For the mutual benefit of all Americans, this tragedy, which leads to the psychological and cultural dislocation of African children, can and should be avoided.

The Afrocentric idea presents the most revolutionary challenge to the ideology of white supremacy in education because it centers African students inside history, culture, and science, rather than outside these subjects. No other theoretical position stated by Africans has ever captured the imagination of such a wide range of scholars and students of history, sociology, communications, anthropology, and psychology.

The Afrocentric challenge has been posed in three critical ways: (1) It questions the imposition of the white supremacist view as universal and/or classical. (2) It demonstrates the indefensibility of racist theories that assault multiculturalism and pluralism. (3) It projects a humanistic and pluralistic viewpoint by articulating Afro- centricity as a valid, non-hegemonic perspective.

The forces of resistance to the Afrocentric, multicultural transformation of the curriculum and teaching practices began to assemble their wagons almost as quickly as it was mentioned that society needed equality in education. Some people in the United States formed a group called the Committee for the Defense of History. This is a paradoxical development because only lies, untruths, and inaccurate information need defending. In their arguments against the Afrocentric perspective, these proponents of Eurocentrism created artificial arguments in false categories and fake terms (i.e., “pluralistic” and “particularistic” multiculturalism). As the late African scholar Cheikh Anta Diop maintained: “African history and Africa need no defense.”[5] Afrocentric education is not against history. It is for history that is correct, accurate history, and if it is against anything, it is against the marginalization of Africans, Asians, and Native Americans in North and South America. The Committee for the

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Defense of History is nothing more than a futile attempt to buttress the crumbling pillars of a white supremacist system that conceals its true motives behind the cloak of American liberalism.

Naturally, different adherents to a theory will have different views on its meaning. While two discourses presently are circulating about multiculturalism, only one is relevant to the liberation of the minds of African and white people in the Americas and that discourse is Afrocentricity: the acceptance of Africa as central to African people. Yet, rather than getting on board with Afrocentrists to fight against white hegemonic education, some whites (and some blacks as well) have opted to plead for a return to the educational dinosaur age. Unfortunately for them, however, those days are gone, and such misinformation can never be packaged as accurate, correct education again. The resisters speak of two kinds of multiculturalism: pluralist multiculturalism and particularist multiculturalism. They claim that Afrocentricity advances a particularist multiculturalism. These imaginary divisions in multicultural perspectives conceal the true identity of those who wish to advance white supremacy in education.

It was perhaps inevitable that the introduction of the Afrocentric idea would open up the discussion of the school curriculum in a profound way. Why has Afrocentricity created so much of a controversy in educational circles? The idea that an African child is placed in a stronger position to learn if he or she is centered, that is, if the child sees himself or herself within the content of the curriculum rather than at its margins, is not novel. What is revolutionary is the movement from the idea (conceptual stage) to its implementation in practice, when we begin to teach teachers how to put African youth at the center of instruction. In effect, students are shown how to see with new eyes and hear with new ears. African children learn to interpret and center phenomena in the context of African heritage, while white students are taught to see that their own centers are not threatened by the presence or contributions of African Americans and others.

The character of the nation in which they are developed shapes institutions. Just as crime and politics are different in different nations, so, too, is education. In the United States a “whites-only” orientation has predominated in education. This has had a profound impact on the quality of education for children of all races and ethnic groups. The African American child has suffered disproportionately, but white children are also the victims of mono-culturally diseased curricula. During the past five years, many white students and parents have approached me after presentations with tears in their eyes or expressing their anger about the absence of information about Africans in schools. Few teachers can discuss with their students the significance of the Middle Passage or describe what it meant or means to Africans. Little mention is made in American classrooms of either the brutality of slavery or the ex-slaves’ celebration of freedom. American and Brazilian children have little or no understanding of the nature of the capture, transport, and enslavement of Africans. Few have been taught the true horrors of being taken, shipped naked across twenty-five days of ocean, broken by abuse and indignities of all kinds, and dehumanized into a beast of burden, a thing without a name. If our students only knew the truth, if they were

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taught the Afrocentric perspective on the Great Enslavement, and if they knew the full story about the events since slavery that have served to constantly dislocate Africans, their behavior would perhaps be different.

Inequitable policies and practices veritably plagued the African people. No wonder many persons of African descent attempt to shed their race and become “raceless.” One’s basic identity is one’s self-identity, which is ultimately one’s cultural identity; without a strong cultural identity, one is lost. Black children do not know their people’s story and White children do not know the story, but remembrance is a vital requisite for understanding and humility. This is why the Jews have campaigned (and rightly so) to have the story of the European Holocaust taught in schools and colleges. Teaching about such a monstrous human brutality should forever remind the world of the women and children who were forced to pick cotton from “can’t see in the morning ‘til can’t see at night,” until the blood ran from the tips of their fingers where they were pricked by the hard boll; or if they were made to visualize their ancestors in the burning sun, bent double with ways in which humans have often violated each other. Teaching about the African Holocaust is just as important for many of the same reasons. Certainly, if African children were taught to be fully aware of the struggles of African ancestors they would find a renewed sense of purpose and vision in their own lives. They would cease acting as if they have no past and no future. For instance, if they were taught about the historical relationship of Africans to the cotton, sugar, rice, and mining industries in both continents they would know how men, constant stooping, and dragging rough, heavy sacks behind them-or picture them bringing those sacks trembling to the scale, fearful of a sure flogging if they did not pick enough cotton, perhaps our African youth would develop a stronger entrepreneurial spirit. If white children were taught the same information rather than that normally fed them about American slavery, they would probably view our society differently and work to transform it into a better place.

Hegemonic education can exist only so long as true and accurate information is withheld. Hegemonic Eurocentric education can exist only so long as whites maintain that Africans and other non-whites have never contributed to world civilization. It is largely upon such false ideas that invidious distinctions are made. The truth, however, gives one insight into the real reasons behind human actions, whether one chooses to follow the paths of others or not. For example, one cannot remain comfortable teaching that art and philosophy originated in Greece if one learns that the Greeks themselves taught that the study of these subjects originated in Africa, specifically ancient Kemet.[6] The first philosophers were the Egyptians Kagemni, Khun-anup, Ptahhotep, Kete, and Seti; but Eurocentric education is so disjointed that students have no way of discovering this and other knowledge of the organic relationship of Africa to the rest of human history. Not only did Africa contribute to human history, African civilizations predate all other civilizations.[7] Indeed, the human species originated on the continent of Africa, this is true whether one looks at either archaeological or biological evidence. Two other notions must be refuted. There are those who say that African American history should begin with the arrival of Africans

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as slaves, but it has been shown that Africans visited and inhabited North and South America long before European settlers “discovered” the “New World.” Secondly, although America became something of a home for those Africans who survived the horrors of the Middle Passage, their experiences on the slave ships and during slavery resulted in their having an entirely different perspective about the Americas from that of the Europeans who came, for the most part, of their own free will seeking opportunities not available to them in their native lands. Afrocentricity therefore seeks to recognize this divergence in perspective and create centeredness for African students.

The reigning initiative for total curricular change is the Afrocentric movement that has shaped discussions in education, art, fashion, and politics. Critics have claimed incorrectly that Afrocentricity is anti-white; yet, if Afrocentricity as a theory is against anything it is against racism, colorism, prejudice, ignorance, and mono-ethnic hegemony in the curriculum. Afrocentricity is pro-human. Further, the aim of the Afrocentric curriculum is not to divide Brazil or the United States, it is to make diverse societies flourish, as they ought to flourish. Both nations have long been divided with regard to the educational opportunities afforded to children. By virtue of the protection provided by society and reinforced by the Eurocentric curriculum, the white child is already ahead of the African child by first grade. Our efforts thus must concentrate on giving the African child greater opportunities for learning at the kindergarten level. However, the kind of assistance the African child needs is as much cultural as it is academic. If the proper cultural information is provided, the academic performance will surely follow suit. When it comes to educating African children, the Brazilian and United States educational systems do not need tune-ups; they need an overhaul of their educational engines. Educators must stop maligning Africans and Africa.

Afrocentricity may be the escape hatch Africans so desperately need to facilitate academic success and break away from the cycle of mis-education and dislocation that came with enslavement. By providing philosophical and theoretical guidelines and criteria that are centered in an African perception of reality and by placing the African child in his or her proper historical context and setting, the Afrocentric idea in education revitalizes the curricula of schools in Brazil and the United States.

NOTES

1. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro. Washington: Associated Publishers, l933. Hilliard would take up some of the issues later in his work, Asa G. Hilliard, The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1995. 2. Woodson, l933, p. 7 3. Asante, An Afrocentric Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity Books, 2007. 4. See Molefi Kete Asante and Abu Abarry, eds., The African Intellectual Heritage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996; also Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, eds., The Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage

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Publication. 5. In an interview with Molefi Kete Asante in December 20,1980, Diop told Asante that Africa needed no defense; it only had to be advanced. 6. See Asante, Herodotus on Egypt. Philadelphia: Ramses, 2013. 7. See Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1974.

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