We can't go home again : an argument about Afrocentrism / Clarence E. Walker.

By:

Walker, Clarence Earl

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.Description: 1 online resource (xxxv, 172 pages)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780195357301
0195357302
9786610527984
6610527989

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: We can't go home again.DDC classification:

305.896/073 21

LOC classification:

E185.625 .W35 2001eb

Other classification:

15.59

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

pt. 1. If Everybody Was a King, Who Built the Pyramids? Afrocentrism and Black American History -- pt. 2. "All God's Dangers Ain't a White Man," or "Not All Knowledge Is Power."

Action note:

digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve

Review: "As expounded by Molefi Kete Asante, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and others, Afrocentrism encourages black Americans to discard their recent history, with its inescapable white presence, and to embrace instead an empowering vision of their African (specifically Egyptian) ancestors as the source of western civilization. Walker marshals a phalanx of serious scholarship to rout these ideas. He shows, for instance, that ancient Egyptian society was not black but a melange of ethnic groups, and questions whether, in any case, the pharaonic regime offers a model for blacks today, asking, "if everybody was a King, who built the pyramids?" But for Walker, Afrocentrism is more than simply bad history - it substitutes a feel-good myth of the past for an attempt to grapple with the problems that still confront blacks in a racist society. The modern American black identity is the product of centuries of real history, as Africans and their descendents created new, hybrid cultures - mixing many African ethnic influences with native and European elements. Afrocentrism replaces this complex history with a dubious claim to distant glory." ""Afrocentrism offers not an empowering understanding of black Americans' past," Walker concludes, "but a pastiche of 'alien traditions' held together by simplistic fantasies." More to the point, this specious history denies to black Americans the dignity and power that springs from an honest understanding of their real history."--Jacket.

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Includes bibliographical references (pages 133-164) and index.

pt. 1. If Everybody Was a King, Who Built the Pyramids? Afrocentrism and Black American History -- pt. 2. "All God's Dangers Ain't a White Man," or "Not All Knowledge Is Power."

"As expounded by Molefi Kete Asante, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and others, Afrocentrism encourages black Americans to discard their recent history, with its inescapable white presence, and to embrace instead an empowering vision of their African (specifically Egyptian) ancestors as the source of western civilization. Walker marshals a phalanx of serious scholarship to rout these ideas. He shows, for instance, that ancient Egyptian society was not black but a melange of ethnic groups, and questions whether, in any case, the pharaonic regime offers a model for blacks today, asking, "if everybody was a King, who built the pyramids?" But for Walker, Afrocentrism is more than simply bad history - it substitutes a feel-good myth of the past for an attempt to grapple with the problems that still confront blacks in a racist society. The modern American black identity is the product of centuries of real history, as Africans and their descendents created new, hybrid cultures - mixing many African ethnic influences with native and European elements. Afrocentrism replaces this complex history with a dubious claim to distant glory." ""Afrocentrism offers not an empowering understanding of black Americans' past," Walker concludes, "but a pastiche of 'alien traditions' held together by simplistic fantasies." More to the point, this specious history denies to black Americans the dignity and power that springs from an honest understanding of their real history."--Jacket.

Print version record.

Use copy Restrictions unspecified star MiAaHDL

Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. MiAaHDL