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Africa Or America : Race, Culture, and Politics in Afrocentric Thought. Brett .V Gadsden University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Africa Or America : Race, Culture, and Politics in Afrocentric Thought. Brett .V Gadsden University of Massachusetts Amherst University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 1996 Africa or America : race, culture, and politics in Afrocentric thought. Brett .V Gadsden University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Gadsden, Brett .,V "Africa or America : race, culture, and politics in Afrocentric thought." (1996). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2472. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2472 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 312066 0309 3123 4 AFRICA OR AMERICA: RACE, CULTURE, AND POLITICS IN AFROCENTRIC THOUGHT A Thesis Presented by BRETT V. GADSDEN Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS September 1996 Department of Political Science © Copyright by Brett V. Gadsden 1996 All Rights Reserved AFRICA OR AMERICA: RACE, CULTURE, AND POLITICS IN AFROCENTRIC THOUGHT A Thesis Presented by BRETT V. GADSDEN Approved as to style and content by: Dean Robinson, Chair Carlene Edie, Member Eric Einhorn, Department Head Political Science Deparment ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It feels as if this thesis has been a long time coming. What began as jumbled thoughts of a very confused graduate student has become a work that I am very proud of. I have to thank my parents, Isaac and Carmen, and my brother Brian for their patience and support. I owe a real debt of gratitude to Dean Robinson, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. You are both a mentor and, most importantly, a trusted and dear friend. Without the support and advice of Carlene Edie, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, I am not sure I would have completed this project. Kelly Debnam deserves special mention. Her immeasurable and unquestioned support has been constant from the beginning to the end. Without my friends in Amherst, none of this would be possible. Natasha Trethewey, Audrey Petty, David Wright, Robert Venator, Carlton Hart and many others have all helped sustain and enrich me throughout the course of my program. My debt to you all can never be repaid. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS... Chapter INTRODUCTION 1. ASANTE'S AFROCENTRISM: THE NEXUS OF RACE AND CULTURE 2. AFROCENTRISM MEETS FEMINISM 3. AMERICANIZED AFRICAN OR AFRICANIZED AMERICAN: THE PITFALLS OF RACIAL REASONING 4. PUBLIC POLICY AND AFROCENTRICITY: THE POLITICS OF DISLOCATION CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY v INTRODUCTION The Afrocentric project stands for Molefi Asante as "a critical corrective to a displaced agency among Africans." 1 Asante considers it a project to imbue knowledge upon African Americans as the first step towards liberation. The freeing of the mind from the distorted view of Eurocentrism will make constructive political, economic, social, and cultural action possible. It essentially advocates an inner, individual transformation from one of cultural dislocation to cultural relocation. In the process, African Americans are re-connected with an African ethos which, according to Asante s rationale, has fomented and nurtured the evolution of African culture. Through this Afrocentric lens, a true understanding of the fundamental challenges to the realization of potential of the African American individual and, by extension, the community, can be realized free from the distortions of Eurocentrism that can be traced back to the Middle Passage, the defining and dislocating moment of African American history. I like would to study the degree to which Asante's Afrocentric project represents a framework compatible with a progressive political agenda. The question I seek to ask is: To what extent does it provide African Americans with a framework from which to understand and address the fundamental challenges to African American existence? More specifically, what are the essential elements of Asante's historical narrative and, in a context where theory and praxis can not be separated, what type of politics does his paradigm generate? My intention in this thesis is not to engage in dialogue with critics who concentrate on the supposed racial chauvinism or divisiveness of Molefi Asante's project. These discussions fail to take the lives of African Americans 'Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity, Race, and Reason." Race & Reason (Autumn 1994) vol. l.no. 1. p. 20. 1 seriously and as central to their analysis and truly fail to understand the complexities of this black nationalist paradigm or understand it in its historical context. At the most basic level these critics fail entirely to appreciate history and the effects of power. Manning Marable stated in lus critique of critics of multiculturalism and ethnic studies: "What is most revealing about the intellectual bankruptcy . of . conservative critics of Ethnic Studies is that their critique is silent on the actual power relationship between people of color and women and the dominant upper-class elites which control American higher education.''* This is the only way to justify the historically naive and racist approach of Arthur Schlesinger's attack on multiculturalism and Afrocentrism in lus monograph The Disuniting of America. These mischaracterizations inhibit our understandings of the dynamics of racism and strategies for overcoming its pervasive effects. This predicament does not only surround this case but also the appreciation of much of African American intellectual and activist production in which there is never a true examination of what each particular project entails. Indeed it surrounds most discussions of race relations in general. Such observations were made by W.E.B. DuBois some years earlier. It is difficult to let others see the full psychological meaning of caste segregation. It is as though one, looking out from a dark cave in a side of an impending mountain, sees the world passing and speaks to it; speaks courteously and persuasively, showing them how these entombed souls are hindered in their natural movement, expression, and development; and how their loosening from prison would be a matter not simply of courtesy, sympathy, and help to them, but aid to all the world. One talks on evenly and logically in this way, but notices that the passing throng does not even turn its head, or if it does, glances curiously and walks on. It gradually penetrates the minds of -Manning Mtirable, Beyond Black and White: Transforming African-American Politics, (London ;uul New York: Verso, 1995), p. 1 14. Italic added. 2 i prisoners that the people do not hear; that some thick sheet of b U‘ 10rnbly t 1 ' gible late lass is ‘l P S between them and the Zrld T| exclted ' the ta| b louder; Y they gesticulate. Some of the passtng„assine world stop m curiosity; these gesticulations seem they laugh so pointless- and pass on. They still either do not hear a, all or hear but dimly, and even what they hear, they do not understand.’ And what is truly ironic is that such ill-inspired criticism, understood historically in which all black resistance irrespective of its content has elicited a white backlash, serves as a basis for the increased popularity of many streams of African American discourse within the black community in some ways irrespective of its content. For example, after Mike Wallace's documentary "The Hate That Hate Produced" aired the popularity of the Black Muslims 4 skyrocketed . In a similar way, the backlash against multiculturalism has fueled the exploration of our Afrocentric roots. The logic goes. If white folks hate it there must be something to what they are saying.' I would like to consider this thesis, rather, as part of a larger discussion by those committed (both black and white) to addressing the fundamental challenges to the African American community and transcending both a nationalist and bourgeois politics. It is not intended as ammunition by those committed to the maintenance of America's apartheid system and racial caste system or a realpolitik washing of the hands of obligations to the promotion of racial justice. It is a discussion of what Afrocentricity means for Black people and the extent to which it addresses the fundamental challenges to Black existence. It is an effort to evaluate its possible strengths and consequent contributions to the struggle for the recognition of Black 'W.E.B. DuBois, Dusk Dawn: An of Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept , (New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions. 1992), pp. 131-32. 4 Wilson Jeremiah Moses. The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African American Life and Letter. (Ames. 10: Iowa State University. 1990), p 120 3 humanity and human equality. It is also an effort to understand the possible contradictions inherent in this ideological approach, with a particular emphasis on how it misunderstands the dynamics of race, racism, and culture in American society, and what type of politics this Afrocentric paradigm produces. To draw upon Baldwin, his consideration of Malcolm X reminds us of the complexities inherent in the appreciation of Afrocentrism and warns us of overly simplistic dismissals or acceptances. 1 an C e/ rtaml ?' y refuse t0 be ut in the u L f, f P position of denying the truth of Malcolm s statements simply because I disagree with his conclusions, or in order to pacify the liberal conscience. Things are as bad as the Muslims say they - are in fact, they are worse, and the Muslims do not help matters - but there is no reason that black men should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more farseeing than whites; indeed, quite 5 the contrary . This serves as the main motivation for my own exploration of Asante's Afrocentric project. On face value, the premise of Afrocentrism seems appealing.
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