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The Afrocentric Idea As A Tool For A Harmonious Development: A Reading Of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun

Manzama-Esso THON ACOHIN

Université de Kara, Togo [email protected]

Abstract: Communities of African descent either in Africa or the Diaspora often face the invasion and the great influence of other cultures, especially Western tradition and its values which have been standardized as a universal canon. Homosexuality, the overexploitation of nature, extreme individualism, cupidity and capitalism, to name a few, are current issues that jeopardize the harmonious living of the peoples in Africa and elsewhere in the world. How could the restoration of African cultural values contribute to a harmonious African development and that of the black people in the whole world? This paper explores the premises of the Afrocentric idea as a tool for a harmonious development in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Through a postcolonial approach, the paper suggests a returning back to African cultural values and a joint commitment of all the communities of the African descent for a harmonious development.

Keywords: Afrocentric idea, African cultural values, harmonious development, black culture, racial pride.

L’idée afrocentrique comme outil de développement harmonieux: une lecture de A Raisin In The Sun de Lorraine Hansberry

Résumé: Les communautés de descendance africaine aussi bien en Afrique que dans la diaspora font souvent face à l’invasion et à la grande influence d’autres cultures, surtout la tradition occidentale et ses valeurs qui ont été érigées en modèles universels. L’homosexualité, la surexploitation de la nature, l’individualisme extrême, la cupidité et le capitalisme, pour ne citer que ceux-là, sont des problèmes actuels qui mettent en danger la vie harmonieuse des peuples en Afrique et ailleurs dans le monde. Comment la restauration des valeurs culturelles africaines peut-elle contribuer au développement harmonieux de l’Afrique et du peuple noir dans le monde entier ? Cet article explore les prémisses de l’idée afrocentrique comme un outil de développement harmonieux dans A Raisin in the Sun de Lorraine Hansberry. À travers une approche postcoloniale, l’article propose le retour aux valeurs culturelles africaines et un engagement collectif de toutes les communautés de descendance africaine pour un développement harmonieux.

Mots-clés: idée afrocentrique, valeurs culturelles africaines, développement harmonieux, culture noire, fierté raciale.

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Introduction Communities of African descent either in Africa or in the Diaspora seem

to be highly receptive to external values and practices which can be traced back to centuries of domination of the Western world. The Western way of life such as homosexuality, the overexploitation of nature, extreme individualism, cupidity and capitalism have been subjected to an incredible tolerance amongst the Blacks much against the basics of African cultural values. This new turn has become an issue that imperils not only the black identity but also the harmonious life of people in Africa and around the world. Western values come to influence African social organization and cultural values. The loss of the sacredness of brotherhood and the high rate of ingratitude instead of the legendary expression of gratitude for even the least help is a bare illustration. Local languages come to be relegated to the position of simple dialects. Community loses its primary and primal importance as individualism is cherished through the models of education inherited from colonial period and the mass-media. In the American context, the mainstream white culture is sublimated while black culture is relegated to the second position. Even, with slavery and racism, black culture has been negated. Pointedly, Schomburg (1977: 237) observes that “The Negro has been a man without a history because he has been considered a man without a worthy culture.” This nullification and/or underestimation of black culture has impeded the full development of the black people. In the American context, the loss of identity due to slavery and racism has endangered African Americans’ life as they are distanced from their African roots. Similarly, some Africans tend to glorify whatever is alien and regard African languages, dresses, foods, manners, names and morals as less recommendable than the foreign ones. Visibly, this situation portends a crisis of identity.

Some African American writers such as Lorraine Hansberry deal with such crisis of identity in their literary works. Through her play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the playwright depicts the socio-political situation of the African Americans from the 1950s onward and promotes racial pride. The play was published in a period that experienced the debate upon American identity, namely the assimilation of some Blacks in the mainstream white culture or the fight for the recognition of African American identity based on the racial pride in their African roots and values. It evokes the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s in the United States of America, which strongly claimed for political, social and economic rights for all Americans. The characters in the play, just like African Americans in the 1950s onward had, either to assimilate with mainstream white culture, or advocate the “Afrocentric idea” (Asante, 1987) of keeping their African heritage.

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How could the restoration of African cultural values contribute to a harmonious African development and that of the black people in the world? From the study of Hansberry’s fictional work, this paper suggests to black people in Africa, in America and elsewhere in the world to draw from the Afrocentric idea of basing themselves on African cultural values in order to achieve a harmonious development. This study is undertaken using post (-) colonial theory. But what is post-colonial theory. Ashcroft et al. argue that:

Post-colonial theory involves discussion about experience of various kinds: migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial Europe such as history, philosophy and linguistics, and the fundamental experiences of speaking and writing by which all these come into being. None of these is ‘essentially’ post- colonial, but together they form the complex fabric of the field. (1995: 2).

Going further, Mishra and Hodge (1994: 276) recall that “post- colonial(ism) foregrounds a politics of opposition and struggle, and problematizes the key relationship between the centre and periphery.” Therefore, my use of postcolonial theory is inscribed in a discourse of representation and resistance against Western tendency to suppress peripheral cultures. It proposes an Afrocentric foundation in the analysis of African American literature. This paper does not suggest that the values referred to as African are unique to Africa. Nevertheless, for a good observer and researcher, it is possible, through the exploration of African morals, religion, and social organization, to encounter some values which are commonly and sufficiently characteristic of Africa. Accordingly, this paper aims at showing the importance of returning to African cultural values and committing all the peoples of the African descent for a harmonious development, that is a socio-political and economic advancement which makes room for a pleasant joining of ideas, feelings, or actions of people of African descent.

My work is structured in three parts. The first part provides a thumbnail sketch of some African cultural values as developed in A Raisin in the Sun. The second part depicts the crisis of identity, especially the double self of the African Americans. The third part deals with the Afrocentric idea as a tool for solving the crisis of identity and getting a harmonious development. 1. Depicting some African Cultural Values in A Raisin in the Sun

Many writers have dealt with the issue of African cultural values. Molefi Kete Asante, Kwame Gyekye, and Kwame N’krumah, to name a few, have discussed various issues related to African cultural values. In his The Afrocentric Idea (1987), Asante observes that any study of African American culture that is

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not based on Afrocentric premises is bound to lead to incorrect conclusions. Therefore, he suggests an Afrocentric approach while dealing with African American Studies. Asante’s proposal is an alternative perspective to the “Eurocentric ideology which has been standardized as a universal canon” (1987: 3). What are precisely these African cultural values and where could they be found? Answering this question, Kwame Gyekye (1996: xiii) proposes a “study of the cultural values of the African people that can be extracted from their beliefs, practices, institutions, myths, folktales, and proverbs.” In his African Cultural Values: An Introduction, the researcher digs into African traditional society and comes up with certain humanist1 principles that guide life in African societies. Similarly, Nkrumah (1970: 79) mentions that “The African personality is itself defined by the cluster of humanist principles which underlie the traditional African society.” African history, culture, religion, economics, institutions and languages conceal tremendous values that could inspire people elsewhere in the world. Actually, African societies live, survive and rest upon certain communal values linking people. Pointedly, Gyekye explains that:

Communal values are those values that express appreciation of the worth and importance of the community, those values that underpin and guide the type of social relations, attitudes, and behavior that ought to exist between individuals who live together in community, sharing a social life and having a sense of common good. Examples of such communal values are sharing, mutual aid, caring for others, interdependence, solidarity, reciprocal obligation, and human harmony. (1996: 35).

The above quotation shows that “community” takes a primary place in the black people, and especially in the African society. As Nubukpo (1987: 3) points out: “to a large extent, to survive as a black person does not mean anything unless it implies surviving as a member of the black community.” Community is the place in which the black person achieves his self. “The community,” Omolade (1994: 82) corroborates, “viewed itself as the shelter from a common storm.” The idea of community implies the concern for others, in such a way that, in the African traditional society, an individual exists because the community exists. The concern for others, and inductively the reciprocal obligation indicate that one should be responsible for the well-being of the others and avoid immoral acts that imperil others’ lives.

1 According to Jean Paul Sartre, “Humanism, roughly, is a system of belief according to which human beings are fully capable of behaving ethically and productively, independent of any command or influence of deities or other supernatural forces.” For further reading, see Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1946) “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Trans. P. Mairet. In W. Kaufman (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (World Publishing Company). Available on https://laurenralpert.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/sartre- existentialism-is-a-humanism.pdf.

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An illustration of a character who appears as attached to the concern for others in A Raisin in the Sun is Mama. Invariably, she is opposed to Walter Lee’s project of getting a liquor store to sell alcohol to the black community. While Ruth and Walter expect that “people going to always be drinking themselves some liquor,”2 Mama retorts strongly: “whether they drinks it or not ain’t none of my business. But whether I go into business selling it to ’em is, and I don’t want that on my ledger this late in life.” (ARITS: 42). Mama’s response is a proof of her respect of the other fellows or the community in general. In fact, Ruth and Walter, living in a capitalist society where extreme individualism prevails and where poverty haunts their household, think that searching for profit although this activity is very harmful to their community, is acceptable. Extreme capitalism prospers at the expense of the others. However, Gyekye (1996: 68) reports an Akan maxim which states that, “To own only a few things is better than to be a thief.” Moral virtue is thus an important element in the community. For Mama, community comes first and one should not be the source of the depredation of black fellows in the community. In the African context, the community is made up of family members, clan members, friends and allied tribes, and having an economic activity that destroys the community is not well-perceived. Drinks are preferably shared during rituals or great events such as festivals, ceremonies and marriages when the community gathers with the membership within the community strengthened. The will to sell alcohol to others and get rich out of others’ becoming drunkards is visibly the result of the capitalist ideology.

Walter explains that capitalism merged into racism while he mentions to Mama that “there ain’t nothing but taking in this world, and he who takes most is smartest—and it don’t make a damn bit of difference how.” (ARITS: 142). In a capitalist society, the strong tend to monopolize the means of production such as land and houses. Capitalism advocates the search for profit as the main basis of economy, and tends to overlook the necessity of humanizing trade. But Mama’s position is to keep the value of the community safe. Thus, Hansberry uses Mama to recall that community is a sacred value in the African traditional society, and extendedly within the black people. Along with the primary importance of the community is the value of humanity. Gyekye mentions the preeminent recognition of humanity in all African languages:

Humanity has no boundary in almost all African languages.

This is most likely the reason why in almost all African languages there is really no word for “race.” There are, instead, the words “person,” “human being,” and

2 Lorraine Hansberry. (1959/ 1987). A Raisin in the Sun. New York: New American Library, p. 42. First published in 1959. All subsequent quotes from this novel will be marked ARITS followed by the page number.

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“people.” So that, where others would say, “the black race” or “the white race,” Africans would say, “black people,” “white people,” and so on. (1996: 28).

Thus, the philosophical representation of humanity in the African psyche is that people are just people without any discrimination or categorization. We conclude with Gyekye (1996:28) that “European colonialism – the venture for economic exploitation of other peoples that started in the eighteen century – introduced racial categories or distinctions and racism into Africa.” This principle of humanity is nowadays proclaimed in constitutions and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the ideas of freedom and equality due to human essence. Again, Mama’s refusal to sell alcohol to the community is also a symbol of her humanity, for many persons in the community would become drunkard and irresponsible due to alcohol and drug abuse.

Another African cultural value which is worth outlining is religion. Religion or the belief in a Supreme Being is a chore value in African societies. Many observers and researchers in African studies would recognize that African people are fundamentally religious people. The idea of a Supreme God was certainly not imported in Africa since traditional African religion regulates life in Africa. As Gyekye (1996: 4) argues, “In all undertakings whether it be cultivating, sowing, harvesting, eating, travelling- religion is at work.” Thus, birth, marriage, burial, funerals and all daily activities in Africa are regulated by religious beliefs and the religious rituals of the community. Hansberry develops this theme of religion in her play by opposing Beneatha to the religious Mama. Beneatha says:

“Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t accept. It’s not important. I am not going out and be immoral or commit crimes because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no blasted God—there is only man and it is he who makes miracles!” (ARITS: 51).

Beneatha’s position is an existentialist one that claims with Jean Paul Sartre that God does not exist and a human being is the sole responsible for himself/ herself. According to Sartre (1946: 3), “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” In fact, some humans tend to accuse God of being the “decider” of what happens or not to them. Others tend to sustain that people abide by the moral prescription of goodness versus evil, because religion, and especially the “revealed” ones have established such a rule. However, it should be mentioned that prior to the introduction of the so called “imported” or “revealed” religions, traditional African religion rested upon humanist principles that organized and regulated life. In fact, the introduction of the Christian religion and the Islam in Africa has not revealed the existence of a

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Supreme God to Africans. It has just taught them new forms of worshipping God. Besides, the African traditional religion relies on certain values among which morals. In African traditional religion, the notions of goodness and evil exist. Therefore, the so called “imported” or “revealed” religions did not teach morals to Africans, since moral values already exist in traditional African religion. However, these religions have forlornly disrupted the initial trajectory of African development which would have probably evolved in different ways. Africans tend to seek for a harmonious relationship within Nature and with a transcending being known as God in all African languages. In Togo, for example, He is called “Esso” in Kabiyè language or “Mawu” in Ewe language.

Considering the situation nowadays, the fact is that the experienced flow of African History could not change, even though Africans need to advance for a harmonious development. Indeed, History could not be changed, but one could just inspire himself from the past to reorient the future in a smarter way. Accordingly, Nkrumah aptly suggests that,

With true independence regained, however, a new harmony needs to be forged, a harmony that will allow the combined presence of traditional Africa, Islamic Africa and Euro-Christian Africa, so that this presence is in tune with the original humanist principles underlying African society. (1970: 70).

This new ideology that Nkrumah proposes is what he calls consciencism or African socialism:

When socialism is true to its purpose, it seeks a connection with the egalitarian and humanist past of the people before their social evolution was ravaged by colonialism; it seeks from the results of colonialism those elements (like new methods of industrial production and economic organization) which can be adapted to serve the interest of the people; it seeks to contain and prevent the spread of those anomalies and domineering interests created by the capitalist habit of colonialism; it reclaims the psychology of the people, erasing the 'colonial mentality' from it; and it resolutely defends the independence and security of the people. (1970: 106).

Far from suggesting the abandonment of the imported religions, I rather advocate an effort for all religions in the world to be tolerant. In fact, all religions are based on the precept of loving the fellow. So, taking religion as a pretext to start a war is an insult to human capacity for a peaceful cohabitation. In A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry dramatizes this reality while Mama “rises slowly and crosses to BENEATHA and slaps her powerfully across the face” (ARITS: 51). Mama reaffirms her authority by asking Beneatha to declare: “you say after me, in my mother’s house there is still God.” (ARITS: 51). While the lady repeats it, the scene evokes a violation of religious freedom and the right for an atheism. It also corroborates Mama’s personality as a religious and authoritative woman at

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the center of the Youngers, a family which is visibly looking for its repositioning in their neighborhood and looking for the affirmation of their identity.

2. Crisis of identity: the Double Self of the African Americans

The crisis of identity could be defined as a loss of landmarks on one’s own culture or civilization. When this term is used, it often designates the search for a cultural place and its recognition in a white centered American culture. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois declares:

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, ─this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. (1903/1994: 2-3).

The strife Du Bois mentions has interested many American writers among whom Lorraine Hansberry. When this playwright published her play A Raisin in the Sun in 1959, the United States of America was undergoing an urgent call for a profound transformation. The Civil Rights Movements were in vogue in the country, starting strongly somewhere in 1954 till 1968. During this period, there was a socio-political upheaval to abolish legalized segregation, racial discrimination and disenfranchisement. Among the requests that catalyzed the whole society for that fight were the demands for equal rights such as job opportunities for all, fair salaries, the end of segregated rules in public schools and places, the right to vote for all, and the end of police brutality, to name a few. Some prominent figures of that period include Rosa Park and Martin Luther King. The former is best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-1956 and the latter’s historical speech “I have a Dream” on August 28, 1963 is still echoed today as having championed the fight for the end of racial, political and socio-economic differences in a modern America. One can also mention the Brown v. Board of Education of May 17, 1954 in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions. Thus, the socio-political context of Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun is the Civil Rights Movements which took place at the mid of the 1950s and in the 1960s in the United States of America. During this period, Africans

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Americans fought vehemently for the recognition of their rights as full citizens of the country.

To the aforementioned socio-political and economic claims are added the quest for the recognition of the minorities with their cultures. Actually, the period saw a debate on the place the African American culture deserves. Some African Americans acknowledged their American identity while they also advocated their racial and cultural pride in Africa. However, others thought that merging into the mainstream white American culture was the only thing to do. These African Americans defined themselves just as Americans, and assimilated into the dominant white culture. By doing so, they denied their African roots and contributed to erasing African culture. Levering (1981: 61) reports the example of Jean Toomer, a man who is said to have been “first affirming his African heritage and later denying it.” Jean Toomer, author of Cane (1923) - a novel which deals with the African American experience - is very evocative of the search for identity. Toomer was of European and African American ancestry, and this sometimes allowed him to pass in society as a white man. Through passing, Toomer, like many other African Americans who were fair enough, would deny their blackness, and merge into the mainstream white American culture. This attitude is symptomatic of the crisis of identity the people of African descent underwent in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world.

But could all African Americans dare to abandon totally their African culture in a society which is multiethnic, multiracial and multicultural? As Thiong’ o (1993: 77) recalls it, “Culture carries the values, ethical, moral and aesthetic by which people conceptualise or see themselves and their place in history and the universe.” Indeed, through the culture of a people, we know their representation of the world. Krasner (2002: 27) explains that “By definition, culture is not the individual but the collective values describing group attitudes that inform everyday life.” Thus, the experience of a culture contributes to strengthening the links between the members of the community. Daring to forget or hide one’s culture is deciding to stop existing. The crisis of identity on the part of the African Americans could be summarized in the following question: “How to be authentically black and American at the same time?”

This crisis of identity is observed through the assimilationist enterprise. Hansberry provides for a clear definition of the concept of assimilationism when Beneatha, in the play, defines to Ruth the expression “assimilationist Negro.” Beneatha explains: “It means someone who is willing to give up his own culture and submerge himself completely in the dominant, and in this case oppressive culture!” (ARITS: 81). Assimilation appears as a strategy to avoid exclusion from the dominant white America. As Goldberg (1994: 4-5) aptly puts it:

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The United States was taken in its dominant self-representation to have a core set of cultural and political values, and assimilation meant giving up all those “un- American” values to be able to assume those that would fashion one American subject to the warrant of monocultural interpretation.

Such monoculturalism with the development of assimilationism is characteristic of America after the end of slavery up to the Civil Rights movements of the mid-twentieth century. In A Raisin in the Sun, the character who best epitomizes this assimilationism is George Murchison, a young man who denies his African heritage and has an egregious “smarter than thou” attitude. George thinks and acts like an “évolué” while the others are supposed to be ignorant persons.

As a counterpart to the assimilationist character George Murchison, the playwright opposes Joseph Asagai, a young Nigerian student in London who teaches Beneatha about her African heritage, offers her useful gifts from Africa and links her to the African culture. Joseph Asagai epitomizes the racial pride in the black folk. He insidiously reproaches Beneatha of “mutilating” her hair every week while visibly, she was not “born with it like that.” (ARITS: 62). George Murchison contrasts with Joseph Asagai in many ways. The former is proud of his African heritage and the latter, rather epitomizes the “fully assimilated black man.” Besides, the former dresses and talks like Whites, but the latter does not forcibly. The crisis of identity does not apply solely to the theme of race. Gender is also discussed in terms of crisis in the play. What does it mean to be a man and what does it mean to be a woman? These issues are discussed in the play. Walter criticizes the educational system his sister and Murchison are part of. He says:

I see you all all the time—with the books tucked under your arms—going to your (British A—a mimic) “clahsses.” And for what! What the hell you learning over there? Filling up your heads—(Counting off on his fingers)—with the sociology and the psychology—but they teaching you how to be a man? How to take over and run the world? They teaching you how to run a rubber plantation or a steel mill? Naw— just to talk proper and read books and wear them faggoty-looking white shoes … (ARITS: 84-85).

Walter’s utterance is evocative of his vision of the world in which to be a man is to “take over and run” the world. Thus, he criticizes the educational system which, according to him, is dogmatic and does not show how to be a man. Beneatha does not also recognize her brother Walter as a man: “That is not a man. That is nothing but a toothless rat.” (ARITS: 144). This insult towards Walter shows the conflictive relationships that alter harmony in the Youngers’ household. On the one hand, Walter is perceived as an irresponsible man. On the other hand, he rather criticizes his wife, his sister and his mother for not supporting him in his projects to solve the financial problems of the family. To

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Beneatha, he asks: “Me and Ruth done made some sacrifices for you—why can’t you do something for the family?” (ARITS: 37). In fact, for Walter, manhood is to be able to satisfy the needs of the members of the family, especially the wife: “I tell you I am a man—and I think my wife should wear some pearls in this world!” (ARITS: 143). Not being able to satisfy the needs of his family is perceived as a humiliation and a loss of his manhood. As Omolade (1994: 80) claims it, “Manhood and womanhood for my parents’ generation rested on marriage, family, land, and religion, which all in turn defined and composed our Blackness.” The man who cannot honor marriage in terms of the needs of the bride would feel humiliated and humiliating his whole family.

However, at the end of the play, Walter’s manhood is restored as he refuses Karl Lindner’s offer to buy their house and keep them out of the white neighborhood: “What I am telling you is that we called you over here to tell you that we are very proud.” (ARITS: 148). This suggests that there is a racial awakening to face white domination on the part of this black family. “We don’t want your money,” Walter declares with energy. (ARITS: 148). Karl Lindner, the segregationist and racist white representative’s idea was to keep them in the tiny, badly equipped black neighborhood, and avoid any direct contact with them. But it does not work. Mama recognizes Walter Lee’s assumed responsibility: “He finally come into his manhood today, didn’t he?” (ARITS: 151). She reminds them that they also as a black family were qualified to aspire to and live like their white neighbors. Thus, the crisis of identity is solved with self-affirmation and pride at the end of the play, because African Americans have the same right to aspire to a fair housing just like their white counterparts. Besides, the people of African descent should have the Afrocentric idea to practice racial solidarity basing it “strictly on a shared experience of racial oppression and a joint commitment to resist it” as Shelby (2005: 11) also proposes it.

3. The Afrocentric Idea as a Tool for Solving the Crisis of Identity and Getting a Harmonious Development

To attain a harmonious development, people of the African descent have to definitely solve the problem of the crisis of identity. By harmonious development, I refer to a socio-political and economic advancement which makes room for a pleasant joining of ideas, feelings, or actions of people of African descent. Historically, no people in the world achieved their full potentials with the “egregore” of the others. The egregore (or eggregore) is a concept designating a group spirit constituted by the aggregation of the intentions, energies and desires of several individuals united for a well-defined goal. It refers to some shared energies, emotions and vision which link strongly people appertaining a

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given community. To achieve their full potentials, people of the African descent need to rely on and be attached to the African cultural values as premises of the Afrocentric idea. African history, customs, culture and philosophy conceal tremendous aspects of life experience that could inspire the development of the communities of the African descent. An insight in the African languages in reference to stories, proverbs, maxims and riddles, to name a few show that Africa has nothing to envy other cultures and languages. Thus, some post- colonial attitudes that demystify the myth of superiority of the white culture have to be promoted nowadays.

For a harmonious development, the Afrocentric idea to reestablish one’s identity basing on African heritage is very important. People of African descent should recall and keep the link with their African roots in such a way that they fetch force in them. In A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha understood this reality. The first time she met Asagai, she asked him to help her regain her link with Africa: “Mr. Asagai—I want very much to talk with you. About Africa. You see, Mr. Asagai, I am looking for my identity!” (ARITS: 62). Indeed, no man or woman of African descent should be ashamed of his link with Africa. Rather, only the reinforcement of racial pride could elevate the “souls of black folk” to use Du Bois’s words (1903).

To solve the crisis of identity, Asagai decides to help Beneatha. He teaches her African heritage, gives her thoughtfully useful gifts from Africa to embellish her pride in the African heritage. He offers her some African robes and wraps, and teaches her how to “drape it properly.” (ARITS: 61). Additionally, Asagai teaches Beneatha some Yoruba words. He calls her “Alaiyo”, to mean “One for Whom Bread—Food—Is Not Enough.” (ARITS: 65). By calling Beneatha “Alaiyo”, Asagai intends to reaffirm the identity of the lady through her link with an African language. This Afrocentric idea is salutary in the sense that it immerges the lady into her African heritage. Language is the fundamental element through which the science, the history, the culture, and the religion of a people are shared. Trying to learn an African language is therefore a good way to get knowledge from the people using such a language. Besides, Asagai proudly informs the Youngers’ family about his origin: “I am a Yoruba.” (ARITS: 65). To elaborate more on this origin, Asagai explains: “Nigeria is my country. Yoruba is my tribal origin—” (ARITS: 65). He definitely shows where he comes from as a source of a spiritual power. Eventually, Asagai falls in love with Beneatha. He asks her to marry him and go “home- to Africa.” (ARITS: 136). Actually, his demand is very poetic: “I will show you our mountains and our stars; and give you cool drinks from gourds and teach you the old songs and the ways of our people.” (ARITS: 137). Asagai shows her the benefit of going to Africa

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as a way to restore her lost identity. Beneatha informs Mama about the project: “Asagai asked me to marry him today and go to Africa—” (ARITS: 149). This request sounds great to the lady. Actually, it would be a way for her not only to regain her lost identity, but also practice her dream of becoming a medical doctor, which has always been her dream. It is a way for Beneatha to live that tremendous dream, despite her being a woman, which was initially unthinkable to Walter. As an African proverb says, “A tree feeds itself with its roots.” Thus, black people in the world should renew their spiritual energy through the link with their African roots. This Afrocentric idea to go back to Africa could take place in various forms such as journeys, conferences, festivals, and settlements, to name a few.

In A Raisin in the Sun, Mama epitomizes best racial pride, which is transmitted from one generation to the other. The narrator describes her in a striking way as “a woman in her early sixties, full-bodied and strong.” (ARITS: 39). In fact, the playwright has the Afrocentric idea of comparing Mama to the beautiful women of Africa: “Her bearing is perhaps most like the noble bearing of the women of the Hereros of Southwest Africa.” (ARITS: 39). The reader discovers “a woman who has adjusted to many things in life and overcome many more, her face is full of strength.” (ARITS: 39). Mama shines with the racial pride of being from African descent. Along with racial pride is integrity as an important value Mama wants her children to keep. In fact, Karl Lindner, the white representative (a segregationist) is sent to suggest to the Youngers to buy them out in order to avoid interracial conflicts in the neighborhood. But Mama reminds them that they also as a black family were qualified to aspire to and live like their white neighbors. While her son thinks first that taking the money is a great opportunity for them, Mama proudly recalls her children about the importance of keeping one’s integrity, even despite one’s poverty. She says:

“Son—I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers— but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay ’em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. (Raising her eyes and looking at him) We ain’t never been that—dead inside.” (ARITS: 143).

Mama’s position is a fundamental principle in many African tribes in which keeping one’s pride and integrity is as essential as life itself. To sell one’s integrity adumbrates a loss of one’s soul.

Fighting for the advancement of the black folk, room should still be made to black women who have traditionally been at the center of the black household and contribute a lot for the well-being of the whole family. Women have always had important roles in traditional African societies. They are responsible for the emotional well-being of the family. The moral welfare and the feeding of the

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members of the family constitute their primal role, and they proudly devote their whole life to it. In a traditional African society, there is a division of duties and roles for the benefit of each, male and female. While the father assures peace and security at home, the mother is responsible for the emotional and nurturing role. It is this attitude Walker calls Womanism, a feminist attitude that promotes both a man and a woman, and helps them to achieve self-realization. In her In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983: xii), her third definition of the term “womanist” refers to somebody who “Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.” Thus, mutual respect is strongly recommended for the advancement of the black folk.

The chance should be given to all regardless of the sex or gender. Hansberry sketches an account of gender issue by opposing Walter’s dream to own a liquor store and Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor. To Beneatha’s insistence to become a medical doctor, Walter accuses his sister of being selfish, because he thinks this is a “man’s job.” He says: “Who the hell told you you had to be a doctor? If you crazy ’bout messing ’round with sick people – then go be a nurse like other women – or just get married and be quiet.” (ARITS: 38). The quietness Walter wants her sister to keep is symptomatic of the silencing of women in some phallocentric societies that do not balance power. The division of roles does exist in African setting. However, the job of healing others is not reserved to men, and having a woman who excels in her domain to become a doctor, not just a nurse is to be praised. Visibly, Walter’s attitude portends a male selfishness, since he thinks to be the one to have to take care of the family. So, he takes it for granted that he should be privileged while his project is at the antipode of morals and efficiency. Once trained, Beneatha could be a doctor that would save her family and the whole community from diseases. Conclusion

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a play which is published in a period where a debate concerning the recognition of African American culture was at its peak. It highlights the search for identity and the fight for its recognition in a white-dominated America. The play also preceded the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s in the United States of America. Undoubtedly, Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a huge work on gender studies and Black studies in the United States of America. The issue of how to be authentically black and American at the same time has urged writers among whom Hansberry to publish fictional works which deal with racial pride in a powerful way. Studying African American literature and overlooking to hold such an analysis on African

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premises, that is, convene African history, culture, religion, economics, institutions and languages to highlight the research, is likely to lead to biased conclusions. In fact, as this paper showed it, there are tremendous aspects of African cultural values which are wittingly or unwittingly developed in African American literature, especially in Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Although these values may not be the monopoly of Africa, they are nonetheless values that should be revealed, preserved and transmitted to the whole humanity, since they help for the betterment of life. The task is important, because literature is about life and to understand literature helps to understand life.

This paper has proposed the Afrocentric idea as a method of analysis of African American literature, especially Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Through a postcolonial perspective, the study leads to three main conclusions. Firstly, for a harmonious development, the black folk all over the world should center the issue of development on African premises, that is, look for answers to the current challenges they face in African history, customs, culture and philosophy. The black folk whether in Africa, in America, or elsewhere in the world should rely on the Afrocentric idea to solve their problems. In A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha’s looking for her identity with the help of Joseph Asagai is illustratively evocative of this necessity. Thus, the people in Africa and the Diaspora should often renew their spiritual energy by a return to Africa during journeys for conferences, festivals, ceremonies, tourism or settlements. Secondly, the reinforcement of racial pride is a sine qua non condition for development. People of African descent in Africa and the Diaspora should be proud of their African roots with their physical and cultural characteristics. This attitude would elevate self-esteem and restore self-confidence. Walter Lee gains back such values when he decides to put forward racial pride rather than condoning in financial corruption. Thirdly, through the vulgarization of research works, the education of the younger generation and the sensitization of the whole community, African cultural values (among which sacredness, humanism, solidarity, community, gratitude, morals, to name a few) should be preserved and transferred from one generation to the other. The people of African descent should avoid the path of extreme individualism and rather practice racial solidarity. Ultimately, the Afrocentric idea of digging in African heritage should help to solve current challenges and achieve a harmonious development, which is respectful of a peaceful cohabitation. Bibliography Asante, M. K. (1987). The Afrocentric Idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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