A Quick
Reading of Rhetorical Jingoism: Anthony Appiah and his Fallacies
By Molefi Kete Asante
The critics of Afrocentricity,
running away from Africa-centeredness, tend to commit the most
serious flaws in scholarship. Indeed, they are so eager to support
the eurocentric foundation of their knowledge base that they disregard
facts and run quickly to empty flourishes. One of the latest attempts
to tackle the international Afrocentric movement is Kwame Anthony
Appiah, a half Ghanaian and half British commentator, a fact which
tends to be concealed because he has recently begun to use an
African first name more than Anthony which he used most of his
life and has adopted the telling habit of reminding the reader
that he is "black", something he needs to do because he often
writes and speaks like he is white. This is very much like Dinesh
D'Souza's tactic of insisting that he is colored, in order to
be able to more "objectively" bash blacks. Appiah teaches philosophy
at Harvard University and is a member of the Department of Afro-American
Studies headed by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
I believe that Marcus
Garvey and Chancellor Williams were correct in their analyses
of those Africans who harbored so much self hatred that they spoke
out violently against other Africans. Just as it is sometimes
important to point out if a writer is white or black, it is also
very important to know the psychological and cultural location
of a writer who is assumed to be black by the public but who sees
himself as neither black nor white, which means he has refused
to deal with his own identity in any definite terms. All humans
live in some culture, that of their fathers or that of their mothers,
or somebody else's mother or father.I am certainly not of the
opinion that one should deny someone place because he or she is
the child of an interracial or intercultural union. On the other
hand, a person who claims not to be black should be questioned
from the angle of his or her cultural location, not as a black
person. In the United States one is forced to choose because the
cultures are so vastly different in their projects and in their
histories, something Appiah may not be adequately aware of since
he seems such a poor student of African American history.
Appiah establishes himself
squarely in the anti-African camp while parading as an African
scholar. He uses the claim of being African in much the same way
as Clarence Thomas seemed to use the fact of his blackness as
a shield to attack Africans. Both must be viewed as white in their
orientations, selections, attitudes, purposes, and interests,
however you look at their orientations, because they are both
engaged in an attempt to destroy and cut the heart out of the
African liberation movement. This is not an attack on whites who
escape the burden of their brutal history vis-a-vis Africans but
on the African-descended individuals who take on the burden of
the whites who have victimized blacks.
In an obscure article
called "Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism"
in an obscure journal called Sapina Journal (January-June,
l993, Vol 5, No. 3) Appiah argues that the Afrocentric movement
is so established that it may now be called a paradigm. He is
correct in this observation insofar as a paradigm suggests that
an entirely new perspective on data is necessary. However, Appiah's
purpose is not to praise this new paradigm but to distort the
idea.
Appiah has a problem with
this Afrocentric "paradigm," indeed, he has a problem with any
Africa-centered approach to knowledge, preferring what he sees
as the "universal" approach to knowledge. One only has to read
"white" or hear "European" where he writes or claims "universal"
as an approach. By taking the position he takes he is only delaying
the moment of Afrocentric realization. Nevertheless, Appiah has
waded into the shallowest parts of the Afrocentric ocean which
is itself something of value. And even here he is out of his depths.
Appiah claims that Afrocentricity has two basic elements, one
critical (negative) and the other positive. The critical or negative
thesis, he says, argues that Western scholarship is hopelessly
Eurocentric. The positive thesis argues that African civilization
was at the beginning of human civilization.
From this construction,
an incorrect and limited construction to be sure, of the Afrocentric
orientation, Appiah goes on to discuss what he sees as problematic
in the construction. But he has started from a false point, an
inadequate understanding of what it is he is criticizing.
The "two" elements , critical
and negative, are not central components of Afrocentric theory.
Appiah's attempt to put words in the text that do not have any
basis in fact is cute but not the aim of my Afrocentric project
or that of others I know. Indeed, he appears to be the worst type
of anti-African, a black who hates the African part of himself
and who consequently underestimates the intellectual scholarship
of Africans. The only African scholar that Appiah seems to like
is the one who hired him, Henry Gates. In both of their locations,
as determined by language, attitude, and direction, they are often
off-center as far as the African and African American intellectual
project is concerned. My work probably represents the worst nightmare
of Anthony Appiah. I am centered, cultured, and a devotee of my
own traditions. Of course it is nonsense to imply, as Appiah seems
to want to imply, that this means that I am antagonistic toward
other cultures.
Appiah seeks to cast his
attacks on Afrocentricity in a philosophical vein, hiding behind
the respectability he believes he finds in his method. But the
truth will always out. He has a problem with African people viewing
themselves as agents. Consequently, he seeks to turn the rightside
wrong. There are several inaccuracies that he parades in Sapina
that are enough to make the journal and his attack on Afrocentricity
suspect. He is either ignorant of the movement he is criticizing
or a very devious writer. In either case what he has written bears
little resemblance to Afrocentric theory.
Here are just a few of
the inaccurate statements he makes in his article:
l. "These values are
often now taught in the version developed by Maulana Karenga
and associated with the invention of a feast called "Kwanzaa",
designed to provide an African celebration to go with Christmas
and Hanukkah."
This is a deliberate
trivialization of the Kwanzaa holiday as a feast and the elevation
of Christmas and Hanukkah as somehow of a different order. Is
it because he has a problem with the African creation of Kwanzaa,
after all both Christmas and Hanukkah represent human creations.
All celebrations are made by human beings. A derogatory reference
to the most important African American holiday as a "feast"
shows the disdain that Appiah holds for African people.
2. "There is something
of an irony in the use of Swahili as an Afrocentric language,
since hardly any of the slaves brought to the New World can
have known it."
Afrocentricity is not
a theory just for the African diaspora. In fact, Afrocentricity
is fundamentally rooted on the continent of Africa where it
has its largest following. Furthermore, Swahili was not been
proposed as a Diasporan African language but as a language to
unite Africans. It is a very logical choice and the l977 FESTAC
colloquium held in Lagos, Nigeria, concluded that it would make
an excellent choice for the international African world since
it was least attached to a large ethnic group such as Yoruba
or Hausa. At any rate, no African slaves were brought to the
Americas, only African people were brought here.
3. "Afrocentrists have
challenged the old priority of the white Greeks by replacing
them with black Egyptians."
It is not true that
Afrocentrists have replaced white Greeks with black Egyptians;
we do not mind everyone standing in his or her own ground. The
Greeks can remain firmly in control of whatever cultural legacy
they bring the world. We simply believe that it is important
to demonstrate that ancient Egyptians must be seen in the correct
light. Egypt is prior to Greece as Greece is prior to Rome.
We have not simply replaced the Greeks we have left them in
their place and unveiled the Egyptians in theirs.
4. "Martin Bernal is
a hero of the Afrocentrists"
Martin Bernal is a hero
of the Afrocentrists is inaccurate. This is not to say that
Bernal has not made a significant contribution to historical
knowledge. But the heroes of the Afrocentric movement are numerous:
Cheikh Anta Diop, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Chinweizu, Marimba Ani,
John Henrik Clarke, Kariamu Welsh-Asante, Theophile Obenga,
Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Maulana Karenga, Wade Nobles, Herbert Vilikazi,
Asa Hilliard, Na'im Akbar, and hundreds of others. And any one
of these scholars could stand their ground with anyone. Bernal's
work, fortunately, and without Bernal intending to, supports
the arguments that have been made by African scholars since
l916.
5. "Choosing to talk
about Egypt and to ignore the rest of Africa and African history,
Afrocentrism shares the European prejudice against cultures
without writing."
This is an inaccurate
conclusion and it misses the point of the discussion about Nile
Valley Civilizations. Egypt is to Africa, as Diop said, as Greece
is to Europe. This means that it is anterior in many concepts
and constructs. To concentrate on cultures that are derived
from Egypt without discussing Egypt would be like putting the
cart before the horse. If Appiah has a problem with the Afrocentric
concentration on cultures with writing then he should initiate
a discussion of cultures without writing, this is quite acceptable
to Afrocentrists. Of course it is not true that Afrocentrism
"shares the European prejudice" because Afrocentrism recognizes
language as starting on the continent of Africa. Writing is
not first European, it is African first. Why should not Africans
be engaged in examining all aspects of the African world.? And
in the end, Appiah's objections show that he is unfamiliar with
the work on African oral traditions and orature by the outstanding
Ghanaian Afrocentrist, Dr. Abu Abarry.
6. "Afrocentrism persists
in unanimism, the view that there is an African culture to which
to appeal."
It is true that the
Temple Circle of Afrocentricity accepts the idea that Africans
in Cuba, in Haiti, in Puerto Rico, in Guadaloupe, in South Africa,
in Ghana, and in Nigeria respond to the same fundamental stimuli.
But Appiah is wrong to speak of Afrocentrists persisting in
unanimism. Most of us believe that African cultures represent
different micro- responses to the environment but are similar
in their broad outlines. To use the bug-a-boo essentialism to
describe the process of self affirmation is to mislead the reader.
The term essentialism is often used as a term of opprobrium
by Appiah and others, and the adjective "mere" has often been
applied to essentialism when the critics fear any discussion
of ontological bases for culture. In some ways they believe
that this might endanger humanity. Essentialism should not be
confused with nativism however for essentailism refers to the
empirial fact that we are connected to our ancestors, have a
certain life story, and can be identified by the stories in
which we have participated. On the other hand, nativism believes
that biology is the basis of a special dispensation. Appiah,
being part white and part black, has found a nativistic analysis
of his own in which to attack what he sees as African essentialism.
What he really attacks is the right of Africans to speak as
Africans because he feels that if Africans choose that right,
fundamental to our existence, we then take something away from
others but that is not an African way of thinking, that is precisely
what we are criticizing. On the other hand, he does not attack
"British essentialism" or "European essentialism" in any form.
7. "Afrocentrism has
ignored the writing of African scholars other than Cheikh Anta
Diop."
What Appiah means is
that Afrocentrists have ignored other continental African writers,
but this, too, is wrong because most of our sources are African.
This conceptual slip shows that Appiah seeks, while sitting
in an African American Studies department, to demonstrate that
Africans or different from African Americans. He is trapped
by false logic. There are continental Africans and diasporan
Africans. Both are equally African as Jews are Jews and Chinese
are Chinese and Europeans are Europeans. Show us other Africans
writers who have written as Diop has written and they will become
a part of our school. It is a fact that we are a particular
school of scholarship and there are African writers that we
refer to other than Diop but they too are Afrocentric. If we
refer to Marxists like Claude Ake or Samir Amin, it is to critique
them in the light of their intellectual and cultural location.
If we refer to the works of Ogot, Houtoundji, and Appiah, it
is to critique them for being off-centered. V. Y. Mudimbe, whom
Appiah does not mention, is a significant scholar in his own
right and Afrocentrists do find much that is useful in Mudimbe
although, to be sure, Mudimbe has much to learn from the agency
of Africans demonstrated in the works of the Afrocentrists.
8. "Molefi Asante has
written whole books about Akan culture without referring to
the major works of such Akan philosophers as J.B. Danquah, Willie
Abraham, Kwasi Wiredu, and Kwame Gyekye."
I wish it were true
that I had written whole books on Akan culture. He got me confused
with some other Asante, an indication that he has not read my
works. Nevertheless, Willie Abraham is one of the sources I
use in my own works, particularly his book The Mind of Africa
and I count Kwame Gyekye as a personal friend and have benefitted
from his analysis. But Kwame Gyekye could have told him that
I have never written a book on Akan culture. As a member of
the same ethnic group as Kwame Gyekye and as the traditional
Kyidomhene of Tafo, Nana Okru Asante Peasah, I would never undertake
to write a book about Akan culture without the proper sources.
I find it unbelievable that Appiah would make a statement about
my research without examining my work or sources.
Appiah confuses Afrocentric
theory with Afrocentric practice and discusses Karenga and other
Afrocentric scholars in the same contexts as rap artists in an
attempt to dismiss the content of Karenga's ideas. Furthermore,
Appiah argues that Afrocentrists seek to give children "a diet
of celebratory African history" such as the blackness of ancient
Egyptians.
I am appalled at the level
of ignorance, particularly historical ignorance, that often sits
at the very door of the minds of critics like Appiah. The ancient
Egyptians were African and black-skinned people, full stop. The
evidence for this claim is overwhelming and one has to have accepted
the entire corpus of Eurocentric writing without question to dispute
it. But alas, to debate Appiah on this question is rather useless
since he is not interested in the area of scholarship that would
enlighten him on this subject. Let it be said simply, that the
evidence of the blackness of the ancient Egyptians has been proven
by science, linguistics, and literature.
The fact that Appiah likes
Clinton Jean's Behind the Eurocentric Veils: The Search for
African Realities, a book that I read and recommended for
publication because it was in the Afrocentric school is troubling
to me. It means that he clearly has no understanding of the Afrocentric
project because Jean, if anything, was squarely in the Afrocentric
project in the same way as other Afrocentrist theorists. Prior
to his death we talked and discussed the Afrocentric project and
if anything, he claimed Afrocentricity as his theoretical orientation.
I wrote in support of his work because I believed in his project,
which was the same project as mine.
Now that I have gone through
the short piece Appiah wrote for the Sapina, let me give
you my classification of critics of Afrocentricity.
There are three
distinct types of critics:
l. Capitulationists:
These critics must condemn Afrocentricity because they are uncomfortable
with themselves and do not believe that Africans should be considered
agents. They believe that to project their agency is to intrude
on European grounds. The operative element is self hatred, that
is, the belief that Africans are really nothing but whites in
black skin.
2. Europeanized Loyalists:
These critics are strictly into Europe; blacks can do no good.
Many Marxists and many integrationists might be seen as Europeanized
loyalists. For them, any theory has to be developed by Europeans
or else it does not have validity. They are strangers to the Afrocentric
idea because they have immersed themselves in alien philosophies
without knowing African philosophies. They follow their own system
of commandments.
Thou shalt not
accept an African origin
Thou shalt not mock the white man
Thou shalt not threaten the cultural imperialist
Thou shalt not identify with any Africans
Thou shalt not despise the legacy of the white slave owner
Thou shalt not speak evil of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington
Thou shalt not speak evil of Vladimir Lenin or Karl Marx
Thou shalt not praise other African men and women
Thou shalt not seek to create values for African survival
Thou shalt not work to develop and maintain African identity
Thou shalt not allow anyone to call you African
Thou shalt not quote any African theorists
3. Maskers: These
are the critics who are embarrassed by Afrocentrists because we
do not seem to honor whites the same way as they do and therefore
they do all they can to conceal their identities. Their tragedy
is that they seek to please the master, and ultmately they are
disappointed or isolated.So the maskers attack Afrocentrists to
prove to whites that they are like them. They may not harbor self-hatred
but they harbor fear. Frighten that they may lose their careers
they are used to attack Afrocentricity.
In the end the entire
cabal of attackers simply delays the moment of ultimate consciousness
that the Afrocentric orientation to data is not only normal but
essential to African sanity.
