THE ANTI-AFRICAN ARGUMENT

THE ANTI-AFRICAN ARGUMENT

BY RUNOKO RASHIDI

Family, it is my argument that Black people in general, both those at home and those abroad, are trained to be anti-African.  We are taught to be ashamed of Africa.  We are taught to deny Africa.  This is a concerted effort that many of us buy into seemingly without thinking or realizing the impact of what we do.  So some of us would say, “I am not an African and that Africa is named after a white man.”  This is about the silliest thing one can say.  Some of these very same people reject the name Africa but embrace the word Moor.  Now we absolutely know that Moor is a European term.  So how do you embrace one word that you argue is not indigenous to Africa while at the same time embracing a word that we are certain did not come from Africa.  Go figure.

An extension of the anti-African line of thought is the position that we are not African at all but, rather, we are “Native American.”  So everyday I wake up there is an image on my news feed of what purports to be “black” or dark-skinned “Native Americans.”  I got one the other day that was actually a photo of Zulus in Southern Africa.  But the person circulating this one had them labeled as “Native American.”  A part of their argument is their belief that the Trans-Atlantic Slave never happened and “we were always here.”  These people are apparently deniers and seem to be looking in their own way to separate themselves from the horrors and humiliation of enslavement.  And thus “I am not an African and we did not come here via enslavement.”

The third anti-African position is that we don’t come from Africa at all and that we are scattered across the world today because of Pangaea.  Pangaea refers to the super continent that once connected the world’s great land masses together.  These people say that we never migrated from Africa but we are where we are because the world separated and broke apart and thus the scattering of the people.  These people simply overlook the fact that this super continent broke apart tens of millions of years before the existence of modern humans.  So Pangaea has absolutely no relevance to us of any kind.  I repeat, no relevance of any kind.

And there are those that say that they are not African but they are the Asiatic Blackmen. I am not sure where this one comes from but science (you know, science), not Black science, not white science, but provable data, tells us that there is only one mother continent and that is the one now known as Africa. BTW, Africans were the first scientists and invented the concept of science.  So science is not a white thing.  Indeed, the African named Imhotep was the world’s first scientist.  In other words, the people on the land mass now known as Asia, came from somewhere before they got to Asia and that somewhere is the land now known as Africa.  So the Asiatic Blackman is actually a native of Africa.

So why do so many of us embrace these anti-African forms of identity?  It is because of decades of anti-African propaganda that Africans themselves are the victims of and which some of us begin to embrace.  And so instead of proud Africans many of us are prepared to enthusiastically embrace anything that is not African.  And if that proves untenable we shout, as a last resort, “Those Africans sold us and I ain’t got nothing to do with Africa!”  So we are happy to become Moors and Hebrew Israelites, Asiatic Blackmen, African-Americans, etc., etc., etc.  And if it were not so tragic it would laughable.

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6 Comments

  1. I agree it’s silliness Dr. Runoko. I think it’s a fair argument.

    Couple points to add to the dialogue if I may…

    I have a client whose name is Scipio. A 44 year old Black man from Oklahoma. He’d gone 43 years believing that he was named after Scipio Africanus, the man who allegedly “discovered” Africa, before I informed him that his namesake was far from the founder our conqueror of the continent. He was merely a Roman general who was able to defeat the Carthaginians and the legendary Hannibal in the 2nd Punic Wars of Carthage. Thus the last name Africanus was bestowed upon him in honor.

    In some ways I felt like I was raining on his parade to inform him that he’d been mis-informed, and that he was actually named after a White European man and not a Black African. At least it inspired him to open a book or google the information for himself, but he’ll still be stuck with that unfortunate name!

    Another point from the column that made me think was your statement about the great Imhotep. ‘Indeed, the African named Imhotep was the world’s first scientist.’

    We know that ancient Kushite and Nubian kingdoms pre-date Kmt. And perhaps African peoples were inhabiting lands and developing civilizations across the seas prior to Imhotep being born. So wouldn’t I be glamorizing Imhotep a bit if I consider him as the worlds first scientist? I felt like he was maybe the worlds first renowned scientist or even know multi-genius, but I assumed there had to be practitioners of science before him. Was he actually the pioneer?

    And in regards to your argument that we’re anti-African, you’re hitting it head on. I’m sure you coulda dropped a number of additional examples, but your point is well understood.

    I guess the question is whether it’s a pathology borne from our own insecurities and self-hate, or more of a bi-product of a psychology that’s been intentionally ingrained in us through public processes?

  2. Yes, I agree with Dr. Runoko and Dwaner. I am glad that Dr. Rubio addressed each argument and showed the error in thinking.

  3. It is a terrible thing this, the mento-historical gymnastics to gain entry into a civilization that is not yours and constitutes only a third of your own in time and content.is
    Such are the results of the cultural cleansing we have been subjected to in the past 500 years, which we sre now rolling back to reclaim our identity and place under the sun.
    And we are no longer judt talking but acting, changing things that were long taken as true, pushing aside whoever gets in the way

  4. Not long ago, my employer ran an informal survey of staff. They asked how people how they defined their ethnicity. For an extended period of my employ there, I had been the ONLY African-american man working there, out of a total of close to 70 people. serving a population of pre-dominantly African-american folks. I asked why they were asking this question and was given an extremely vague response that I have since chosen to forget. I decided to participate anyway defining my ethnic background as “African-american. There were two African-american women I worked with, both of whom were seemingly devout ‘Christians’, who defined their ethnicity as ‘just american, I’m not from Africa.’ Nice enough people but they’ve both moved on with one woman quite distraught over feeling her religious beliefs were being compromised. The other was more career focused.
    It’s clear to me that there has always been, over the course of my lifetime, a concerted effort to minimize and deny any productive, positive connections to Africa, while all along the concepts of self-hate have been a constant staple on all levels. and despite the fact that 90% of today’s wealth has its roots in Africa.
    I agree emphatically with your assertion Dr. Rashidi The evidence is all around.
    You might find it curious that in my post, I’ve utilized a lower case ‘a’ to spell america. The computer consistently would capitalize the ‘a’ and then underlined the word for a spell check after I had to make concerted efforts to more accurately reflect my feelings on this point. THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
    In the face of blatant and subtle efforts to ‘minimize Africa, I felt a need to return that effort.

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