race, culture, and politics in Afrocentric thought.

107 Pages·2017·6.58 MB·English

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 fromhttps://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 GADSDEN
V.
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 GADSDEN
V.
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
am
that I 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 would like 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, BeyondBlackand White: TransformingAfrican-American Politics, (London ;uul
New York: Verso, 1995), p. 1 14. Italic added.
2
Zi rlpdrbisonUer‘s 1t0hartnbtlhye tpe1'ogpilbeledPolantoetShleaasrs;isthbaettswoemeen tthhiecmk sahnedetthoef
d„ptihaaemssylssytil,nnageuaTgwn|hodralenvddesnptaowespxhscamltotnec‘.tdluh'reTityohhseehiYyteyat;rsat,|itblhltehleseoieuytdhgdeeerros;tdnitoochtuenlyouattngidehoesenrtsaisrctsualaena,edtma.el.’lsoSoropomhieenatlroefsbtsu-hte
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 skyrocketed.4 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 ofDawn: An Essay Towardan AutobiographyofaRace Concept (New
,
Brunswick, NJ: Transactions. 1992), pp. 131-32.
4Wilson Jeremiah Moses. The Wings ofEthiopia: Studies in African American Life andLetter. (Ames.
10: Iowa State University. 1990), p 120
3