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AFROCENTRISM LIBERATES THE OPPRESSED
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- LANGUAGE IS KEY TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIBERATION
- CURRENT LANGUAGE STRUCTURES OPPRESS AFRICAN AMERICANS
AFROCENTRISM LIBERATES THE OPPRESSED1. AFROCENTRICISM QUESTIONS ONE’S APPROACH TO ALL ACTIVITIES Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 45-6. Afrocentricity questions your approach to every conceivable human enterprise. It questions the approach you make to reading, writing, jogging, running, eating, keeping healthy, seeing, studying, loving, struggling, and working. If you do not come from an Afrocentric base, then you are in serious ethical and cultural trouble. No human being, who would be free, can be free by submitting when he does not have to submit A fool is the person who cannot see that there are no longer any chains around his ankles, yet he walks as if he has weights at the bottom of his legs. 2. AFROCENTRISM LEADS TO INTELLECTUAL WHOLENESS Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA, 1987, p. 164. More damaging still has been the inability of European thinkers, particularly of the new-positivist or empiricist traditions, to see that human actions cannot be understood apart from the emotions, attitudes, and cultural definitions of a given context The Afrocentric thinker understands that the interrelationship of knowledge with cosmology, society, religion, medicine, and traditions stands alongside the interactive metaphors of discourse as principal means of achieving a measure of knowledge about experience. The Afrocentrists insist on steering the minds of their readers and listeners in the direction of intellectual wholeness.
The aim of criticism is to pass judgment, and judgment is concerned with good and bad, right and wrong; criticism is, therefore, preeminently an ethical act One may appropriate other qualities to the critical act, but it is essentially a judgment. The Afrocentric critic is also concerned with ethical judgments but finds the aesthetic judgment equally valuable, particularly as the substantial ground upon which to make a decision about the restoration of harmony and balance. Indeed, Afrocentric criticism essentially combines ethics and aesthetics. 4. AFROCENTRIC SCIENCE IS BASED UPON HISTORY AND HERITAGE Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA, 1987, p. 80-81. The Afrocentric perspective upholds the significance of science; indeed in the sense that it is based upon history and heritage, Afrocentricity is itself a science. Western science, with its notions of knowledge of phenomena for the sake of knowledge and its emphasis on technique and efficiency is not deep enough for our humanistic and spiritual viewpoint. Therefore its limitations are clearly revealed in our history. 5. AFROCENTRIC VICTORY WILL PRESERVE AFRICAN CULTURE Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 55-6. But understand that the true Afrocentric love is found only in the context of the profound cause; otherwise it degenerates into a spectacle of buying and selling. What is one more diamond ring if there is no sense of identity, not togetherness in a victorious union as an expression of the relationship? The answer is clearly nothing more than the meaningless play on rituals established to support the cash, flesh, or dependent connection. To get beyond this, we must seriously rise up in victory for Afrocentricity. This will reconstruct our families, reorganize our values, and protect our culture.
1. LANGUAGE WILL LEAD TO LIBERATION FOR BLACKS Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 31-32. It becomes impossible for us to direct our future until we control our language. The sense of language is in precision of vocabulary and structure for a particular social context. If we allow others to box us into their concepts, then we will always talk and act like them. Language is the essential instrument of social cohesion. Social cohesion is the fundamental element of liberation. 2. CHANGING THE SLAVE NAME WILL LEAD TO GREATER UNITY AMONG BLACKS Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 28.
Changing of names will not in itself change economic and social oppression; but it will contribute to the creation of new economic, political, and social forces that anticipate substantive change. The name changing action is at once a rejection and an acceptance, a necessary condition of a new perspective on our place in the world. There is little question that how we perceive ourselves influences how others perceive us. This being so, and other things being equal, the acceptance of African names will establish a more distinct perception of our Afrocentricity. A Muslim takes an Arabic name; a Christian takes a Christian name; we take African names. 3. AFRICAN-AMERICANS HAVE GREAT POTENTIAL FOR CHANGING LANGUAGE Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 32. Africans have shown a remarkable ability to humanize any language we have spoken whether it was Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, or Russian. What Nicolas Guillen did to Spanish, what Alexander Pushkin did to Russian, what Langston Hughes did to English, and what Aime Cedaire, the greatest of all poets, did to French, suggest that it is in the soul of our people to seize and redirect language toward liberating ideas and thought. We have met the challenges of an alien culture, a racist mentality, and an exploitative enterprise with our African ability to transform reality with words and actions. CURRENT LANGUAGE STRUCTURES OPPRESS AFRICAN AMERICANS1. EXISTING LANGUAGE STRUCTURES EXCLUDE THE OPPRESSED Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA, p. 114-115. Always, the protester must use different symbols, myths, and sounds than the established order. Otherwise, to speak the same language means that you will always be at a disadvantage, because the oppressed can never use the language of the established order with as much skill as the establishment. The oppressed must gain attention and control by introducing another language, another sound. To speak the same language as the oppressor does not lead to a positive result.
Classification of peoples allowed Europeans to speak of “progressive cultures,” “backward cultures,” “inferior and superior cultures,” and “primitive” and “advanced cultures.” Europe was teacher and others were, by virtue of their lower places in this modern version of the Great Chain of Being, students. They were underdeveloped, culturally deprived, disadvantaged, and “culture-poor.” This conception of the world is demonstrably unsympathetic to alternative perspectives.
Molefi K. Asante, Professor of African American Studies, Temple University, AFROCENTRICITY, 1989, p. 27. To come to terms does not mean to acquiesce in what has been done historically, but to challenge and modify the mistakes of the past. We are victims of our names because we have previously refused to assert that we are African people. It used to be fashionable for blacks to say that they were only part African because of their Indian, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, or Gypsy blood. For some reason these blacks never admitted having English blood, the most likely foreign strain present in African-Americans.
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