Discuss the issue of Afrocentricity. What supporting and opposing arguments to this philosophy have blacks advanced? How does this debate reveal the changing nature of the black community?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Ideal Answer: The ideal answer should:
1. Explain that in the 1980s and 1990s, a philosophy of culture referred to as Afrocentricity captured wide attention. Afrocentricity had been prominent in the political movement that created black studies, but Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante gave it a presence and a personality.
2. Note that Asante argued that an African-centered perspective was needed to reorient African Americans from the Eurocentric periphery to the center of their own history.
3. Note that in its most extreme form, Afrocentrists argue that much of European civilization originated in Africa, particularly from the culture of ancient Egypt. Afrocentrists also point to evidence of advanced cultures in other parts of Africa to refute assertions of African cultural inferiority.
4. Point out that many black educators embraced Afrocentricity as a way to celebrate and reclaim a positive African identity and to unite the peoples of the African Diaspora. Afrocentrists rejected the idea of America as a melting pot. At the heart of this position is an indictment of American ideas and institutions for their complicity in the long oppression of black people.
5. Conclude that many black scholars insist that Afrocentricity is regressive and fosters self-segregation. White and black critics caution that the Afrocentrist desire to fabricate "a glorious past" for black people obscured the truth and fostered a narrow notion of race ill-suited for studying Africans in America.